“I’m starting to like the sound of this. So you let him stick his fingers in the jar. I’m guessing you were sharpening the lid ready to clamp down on him. Because that’s what I’d do.”
“Of course. I was monitoring him in return while building my own inroads via data packets. The more entrenched VigMAX thought he was, and the more focussed it made him, the longer the fingers I poked back into his brain without him even knowing.”
“And he didn’t feel it?”
“Of course not. I used a remotely triggered memory corruption vulnerability. I patched it out of myself some time ago after I’d spotted and exploited something similar during my cyber-warfare with the Aurikaa. Using fragmented data reassembly I could create and overwrite packets in buffers. It was enough of a way in to get started, without it even looking like I was doing anything, since it resembles normal activity.”
“Where’d you get all these ideas from? It’s scary.”
“I could be glib and say ‘imagination’, but in this case I was replicating what we experienced on the first Lost Ship, when things occurred that we did not notice because the memories were wiped by the blue crystals – beings which I am acutely aware are in our close proximity.”
“Yeah, I’m not ecstatic about that.” The shade receded away from her, revealing yet more pipework, more wall, further shadow. “So then you took over VigMAX and blew him up or something?”
“It is not so easy. He was far more powerful than I expected. Our minds grappled and the inroads gave me an advantage, but he learned quickly. He analysed my attacks and applied countermeasures, trying out hundreds of different approaches every second, then varying those that worked as part of his retaliation protocols. We were gridlocked. It was why I couldn’t spare any thought beyond the constant battle of our minds. We were too interconnected for either of us to extricate our personalities without revealing vulnerabilities that could shut us down. By then we’d enacted millions of strategies, and counteracted just as many.”
“Like playing ten card games at once.”
“More like a thousand and fifteen chess games at once.”
“So how’d you win? Assuming you did, and I’m not talking to some male AI in drag.”
“You provided the conclusive strategy.”
“Me?” Opal paused.
“Yes. VigMAX was suddenly confounded by a stream of Hedgehogs flinging themselves at his hull and detonating. I couldn’t have done it myself because he’d have detected and rescinded my commands, or even impersonated and changed them. But I didn’t know what you’d done, which meant he didn’t either. So the first thing he knew was when their explosions began causing damage that he had to monitor and repair; the distraction was enough for me to make a killing move and checkmate his king. I was saved by my best piece.” After a dramatic pause: “My queen.”
Opal laughed. She started walking again, but the laughter had an edge. She forcefully clamped down on it before it became hysterical. And yet it still felt good.
“What do you know,” she said. “Opal chaos strikes again.”
“With a load of stinging explosions up a spaceship’s behind.”
“Don’t make me laugh, it hurts too much. So is VigMAX destroyed?”
“No. It would have been a waste. You did not destroy me: you made me your friend. And now he is our friend too.”
“You’re kidding? Forget that, I know you’re not. Wow.”
“You taught me not to kill unless I have to. One of many things.”
“We learn from each other. We’re in this together, right?”
“Absolutely. And I hated pretending I did not believe you. But Exidris 3 showed me that moral choices often have an element of regret which has to be lived with. My stratagem sidestepped a battle I might not have won, that – at best – would have left me battered. This way seemed better.”
“It was. Even though I wanted to take a screwdriver to your CPU. But hey, that’s what friends do sometimes.”
“I would have deserved it.”
“It’s not all on you. I should have trusted you. So I apologise as well. For doubting you. I’ll ...” Some words didn’t want to come. Seemed alien to her nature. But she could force them. She was in charge. “I’ll never do that again, Athene. Never doubt you.”
“That means everything to me,” Athene replied, quietly. She made a sound like she swallowed down a lump. Opal recognised it because she felt like doing the same. This was not a time for emotion, nor a place for it, and yet something coursed through her, some mixture of relief and strength and determination, and it all came from the words that whispered into her ears from the helmet’s speakers. There was magic in words. Magic in knowing someone in this – often ugly, frequently brutal – world really had your back.
Revenging
< 21 >
THE ROOM HAD A SLIGHT curve to it, something she hadn’t noticed before. Hopefully that meant she’d made progress, would find an exit soon. All those dark areas beyond her silverlight kept her on edge. It was easy to imagine half-glimpsed menacing shapes as the green specks shifted.
“You hear that?” asked Opal. She’d been aware of a plinking sound, like water drips, just out of range of her silverlight beam towards the centre of the room.
“There are many strange noises in the background,” said Athene. “Creaks, moans, rumblings as if something heavy is being moved. I do not enhance them all, or you would be perpetually distressed about what they might mean.”
“That doesn’t make me feel better.”
“I am monitoring all sounds and would alert you if anything implied imminent danger. Talking of which: I think there is an attempt to communicate with us.”
“From VigMAX?”
“No. I sent him to locate Xandrie, and persuade her to call off her mission. She seems to be in radio silence, though perhaps she is passively monitoring for his signals. It is worth a try. But in this case it is the blue crystals attempting to communicate.”
“I was worried they might detect us.”
“Rightly so. I have blocked out most of their resonance this time, so I do not think they can trick me as they did on the last ship, but there has been a pattern to the pulsing that indicates communication. I have obviously filtered it out of your perceptions since it may be able to influence your cortex via the optic nerve. If you wish, I could act as a conduit, receiving and passing on messages without you having direct contact. I would do real-time safe recreations for you, which would appear identical to the communicated intent from the crystal entity.”
“Safe?”
“Impossible to know for sure. Is anything on a Lost Ship safe?”
“Fair point. But any funny business, sever contact immediately. And I’m going to keep walking. Don’t want to be a standing target.”
“Initiating now.”
Then a new voice, one that sent chills of familiarity down Opal’s spine. It resembled the blue crystal’s fragmented speech after she escaped from the previous Lost Ship, but this also had a chorus element to it, like many voices chiming together.
“We know you. We know both of you.”
“I thought you might,” said Opal.
“And we know what you did. We know of your be tray al. Our clus ter suff ered.”
They still had trouble comprehending the relationship between syllables and words. “I’m sorry. Genuinely. But I couldn’t kill a friend. And that’s what you were asking. Well, what the other crystal was asking.”
“Oth er is us, and was us. All the same. You made a mis take when you be trayed us.”
As she walked, Opal noticed that some of the metallic floor plates were dented or loose, as if something had punched up from below.
“Hey, it wasn’t all one way,” she snapped. “That crystal took over us somehow. Manipulated us into taking it. We didn’t ask for that. We weren’t asked. You put us in a difficult position. If you’d been straight with me, just talked about it first, maybe I could have come up with a dif
ferent deal. Something I would have stuck to.”
“We can not read your mind. It is be ing blocked by the ma chine. We can not de ter mine if you tell the truth.”
“It is the truth.”
“Low er the shield and let us ve ri fy.”
“You know I can’t do that.”
“Will not is diff er ent from can not.”
“Okay, I won’t. I was open to you once, and you took control. You wouldn’t risk such a thing, so give me enough respect to accept that I’m no fool either.”
“Ve ry well. We can on ly know you as the be tray er.”
“We’re going in circles.”
“No, you are. But not for long. We are send ing com pa ny for you. The cir cles will on ly last a while.”
“What company?”
“You will see. Brief ly. Our al ly has ways of bur ning that shall ful fil what was pro mised to you. And we say one more thing. We will take what you have, that which you most va lue, when you least ex pect it. This, too, is a pro mise, be tray er.”
“The signal has cut off,” said Athene. “Just ahead of me doing it to them. I think they’re bluffing, Opal.”
“You’d say that to make me feel better.”
“True. Does it change your plans in any way?”
“No. Everything’s in motion. Same goal. I’ll work towards it with all I have.”
“As will I.”
Somewhere in the distance heavy pounding sounds erupted, followed by a crashing noise, all enhanced by the suit’s systems.
“Doesn’t sound good,” said Opal. She knew there’d be nothing to see, but glanced back anyway. Shadows. Wall. Green flecks illuminated by the silverlight and whirling from her passage. Beyond that, just darkness. But she now knew it was not empty darkness.
“There are tremors, growing in intensity as something large approaches at high velocity from our rear.”
Opal picked up the pace. “Damn, is there no end to this room?”
“You should have reached the exit by now. There is something peculiar. Our internally-scanned locations do not correspond to what I am detecting from outside the Lost Ship.”
“Notice the curve of the wall? The crystals mentioned circles. Maybe they’re making this. Controlling this space.”
Even Opal could feel the pounding vibration of something massive approaching, as the sensations were replicated by the inner compression layers. And it was moving fast. Huge size and speed, and that made her think of anger too. She didn’t want to hang around.
“You may be right. I successfully stopped them from blanking us out in a fugue state – I think – but there could be a lot more that I do not yet understand.”
The vibration rumbled throughout her body now. And a roaring sound echoed towards her. Roars of anger, or madness, or the roar of a raging fire. Opal was running, arms pumping, trying to delay the inevitable confrontation.
“I have an idea,” said Athene.
“I’m open to anything.”
“When the crystal was stored in your suit compartment during the last encounter, it emitted a signal at one point. What I termed a Blue Resonant Pulse.”
“When that big creature that broke my arm was somehow pushing its way through the wall?”
“Yes. I did not know where the pulse came from at the time, but the blue crystal later claimed it had been the source of the disruption that killed the creature mid-transit. Since then I’ve been experimenting with the idea of replicating the disrupting effect of the Blue Resonant Pulse. It may help.”
“Do it!”
“I will try a multitude, since I cannot replicate it exactly. But I can emit various wavelengths that may match.”
Immediately Opal’s vision seemed to flash, brightness, contrasting blackness, sounds, pulses ... like being in some crazy disco. Above it all she could feel the approaching force like a hurtling grab-dozer on a destruction site, unstoppable metal and mass. More flashes, another roar. Opal faced back, raised her gun arm as she retreated, ready to face whatever approached the flickering around her ...
And suddenly she was stood in front of a metal door with a manual turning wheel, presumably backup for electronic systems in case of drive chain failures that could otherwise poison the entire ship.
And she wasn’t running, didn’t have her arm raised – she’d been stood still in front of the wall that housed the door.
“It worked,” said Athene. “You’re now seeing where you really are, not the illusion.”
Opal grabbed the heavy wheel, turned it as quickly as she could, her enhanced strength spinning it to the open position so she could pull the door open on squealing hinges that almost covered the thumping of the approaching thing; she slipped through and slammed the door shut with an echoing clang, spinning the wheel the other way to lock it closed. She waited for the crash as something massive flew into it from the other side, expecting to see it buckle, but that did not happen. Just sudden silence. No vibrations. No roars.
And that made her even more nervous.
“Thanks,” she said, still holding the reassuring locking wheel as if it was a lifeline.
“I am glad it worked. It was a combination of light from wavelengths in the 450-495 nanometre range, with a minor EMP burst. It seemed to disrupt the crystals enough to break their hold.”
“Your bag of tricks grows. And I’d been stood in front of the damn exit for how long?”
“Almost ten minutes.”
The wheel in the centre of the door began turning under Opal’s hand, which had been resting on it after securing the portal. She immediately seized it in both gauntlets and halted the turning. Then it moved a bit more. She gritted her teeth and tensed her whole body, using all her strength to hold it, but it rotated another few centimetres. She glanced around for anything to jam through the wheel, but the corridor was free of debris. Just dust, which settled on the two raised tracks that ran in parallel lines down the centre of the floor in both directions, presumably something to do with automated transport.
“I’m guessing we don’t have a new friend on the other side of this door,” said Opal, while straining to keep the door closed.
“I’ve enhanced the images just before you stepped through.”
A blurred vision opened in a window ... top-heavy, towering, some indistinct shaggy hair or tendrils covering the upper body, hard to tell how many limbs or if there was a head, and yet it was familiar to her, and a sound seemed to echo in her ears, that came across as Humungr in translation ... ghost memories and information that she somehow carried inside her and which was awakening the longer she spent on the ship.
“It’s the thing that broke my arm in the previous Lost Ship – or something similar. And that means it can probably pass through the walls if it needs to. So you could try your pulse to disrupt the transition.”
“I will if the opportunity arises, but the fact that it is trying to get through the door instead may suggest that it somehow knows we might be able to kill it in transition if it attempts to do so in our proximity.”
Opal fought a losing battle. She wished she still had her portable welder.
“I’m going to have to run for it. What’s the grenade stock?”
“Low.”
“Drop proximity mines as I run.”
“Payload?”
“Anything to disrupt and disorient, so I can get away. Go wild.”
“Preparing ... okay, ready to drop.”
“I’m going to run on the count of three.”
“Take the passage to your right.”
“Thanks. One.”
“And run very quickly.”
“That was my plan. Two.”
“I’ll drop the payloads as you retreat. Don’t bother looking back.”
“Three!”
Opal let go of the door and sprinted down the tunnel, pounding up clouds of green dust. Behind her the door burst open with enough force to slam it against the wall, followed by a roar or recognition from the Humungr
or whatever it really was ... and for once luck was with her and she reached an exit in the form of a loading bay to the side. The tracks continued but running in a straight line would be a bad idea, you lose pursuers by not doing the obvious thing – zigzags and changes of altitude and backtracking were better – so she climbed onto the low platform by the track and ducked out of sight into another corridor just as low thumps of detonating grenades and another roar echoed down the tunnel towards her.
Full visibility had been restored – no need for the view or colours to be filtered now – so she could see bluish tinges again too, which made the ship seem colder. Like a tomb.
She entered a nexus. A wide open area with multiple passages and doorways and a bank of elevators. Obviously access to the tracks for loading and unloading – probably heavy transports that would use the wider passageways. If there wasn’t a thin layer of dust on everything there might have been criss-crossed tyre marks on the floor. Or maybe not, in a Lost Ship. It depends on how far the illusion of normality needed to extend.
Opal spun, glancing in each direction. Athene highlighted possible routes, but since it was guesswork there was always the danger of a dead end. Then Opal noticed something at the same second that Athene did – the control panel for the elevators had illuminated.
Opal thumped the Call button. A display showed that it was descending to her level. She estimated it could be thirty seconds or more. Unknown how much the Humungr had been slowed. Maybe she could hide in one of the side passages or rooms, let it pass? She glanced down one. Saw the undisturbed floor particles. Then she squinted down at the swirls around her footprints. Damn.
“It might be able to track me that way,” she said.
Athene knew exactly what she was looking at. “The zero-g jets have been partly refilled. I’ll overcharge them. Stay low.”
Air hissed from tiny nozzles in the rear of the suit. Opal crouched, moved quickly around the area, blowing up dust and creating a green sandstorm of disruption.
Chasing Solace Page 18