“It is wrong to kill,” whispered Althea before taking a step closer to Talis. “She is hurt.”
Aaron nibbled on his lip. “Sorry, kid. Even if we bring her in alive, she’s legally responsible for Allison’s death. They’re going to execute her anyway.”
Talis jumped up and grabbed his wrist, pushing the E-90 to the side. Aaron fired into the ground, missing her head by inches.
“Stop!” screamed Althea.
Growling, Talis kicked at his legs, her eyes wild with fear. A telekinetic blanket of force pinned her flat. Aaron lowered the gun at her. The emotion in her eyes in the seconds before he fired reminded him only a little of his wife. Fear looked the same, but anger lit it from behind—not love.
“No!” yelled Althea, grabbing his arm.
In the second of hesitation, Talis locked eyes with him. Before she could open her mouth to give him a fatal command, he screamed and shoved her hard with telekinesis. Talis rocketed off like a human torpedo, tearing carpet from the plastisteel floor. Forty feet away, she smashed the base of a plastic monolith covered in advertising holograms, setting off a geyser of sparks. Barely conscious, Talis moaned.
“Why?” yelled Althea, sounding on the verge of tears.
Boots squeaked up behind him.
Althea hung all her weight on Aaron’s arm. “Please, don’t kill her.”
“They’re going to do it anyway.” Aaron squinted. “Like a rabid dog. Althea, she killed my wife. She’s killed police officers. She’s killed all the people that died here today.” Another look at the child’s tearful expression did it for him. “Fine. Fine. I can’t do it with you giving me that face. Cripes you’re worse than a dog in a bedroom.”
The girl looked confused.
“I can,” said Kate, a second before a fireball streaked over Aaron’s head and ignited Talis’s chest.
The pain knocked the woman out of her stupor and she wailed, fingers pulling bloody shirt fabric and skin away from exposed muscles.
“Kate!” shrieked Althea through sobs. “Stop! No more killing!”
“Althea. That bitch tried to k—” Kate shivered, crying. “Althea. She tried to k-kill you.”
The fire already burning on Talis’s chest flared. The woman yowled. A look of sudden, placid calm overtook Kate and she stared into space.
Althea ran to Talis, sliding to a stop on her knees and grabbing the woman’s hand. Aaron trudged over, looking away from the awful vision of burning flesh re-growing. The child whimpered and grunted with effort, as if trying to lift something too heavy for her. Aaron pointed the E-90 at Talis’s head.
“I really ought to put her out of our misery.” If not for feeling dodgy about firing a laser into her brain while Althea worked on her, he would have fired.
Kate continued to gaze into nowhere.
“Perhaps we may be of assistance,” said a male voice.
Two men in black raincoats and sunglasses approached, walking in tandem. Neither had surface thoughts Aaron could find, and their footsteps made no sound.
“Agent Jones,” said the man on the left, holding up a C-Branch badge.
“Agent Foster,” said the other, flashing a similar ID.
Aaron raised an eyebrow. “Are you from the generic government agent department?”
“This suspect represents interests of national security. We are exercising jurisdiction.”
Agent Foster pulled a metal ring out of his coat.
Kate hissed, scowling at them.
“Seeing as how Division 0 will not extend their usual offer in this case,” said Agent Foster, “we are taking her into custody.”
Talis moaned.
Aaron framed her face with the E-90’s glowing blue ring-dot sight. “Well, bitch. Your choice. You fancy life in a box or an easy out?”
71
I am the Machine
Mamoru
A vortex of grey energy yawned above, spiraling up toward endless black. Mamoru held tight to Aurora’s hand as she glided higher and higher. An ancient military airplane passed below, a pilot too wounded to be alive looked up at them with confusion in his eyes. Soon after, fragments of a Mars shuttle, a hundred-year-old design, tumbled among the clouds around them. Six screaming people in flight suits reached out to them, begging for help.
“Pay them no attention,” said Aurora. “They have been dead for a hundred and thirty years or so. Test pilots. Their ship exploded during re-entry.”
“This is awful,” said Mamoru. “Is their eternity to fall and never die?”
“They’re already dead.”
Mamoru grumbled. She pulled him upward, darting left and straight. The sky darkened from blue to indigo and eventual black. Far ahead, the CSS Angel appeared as a sliver of white against the infinite darkness, a brightening nimbus of fire peeling from the front. They picked up speed; the silhouette of the ship expanded fast enough to make him cry out and raise his free arm to shield his face. A second later, hallways and rooms blurred by in an impossible diagonal path. They traversed decks and rooms in defiance of walls, the blare of warning klaxons flooding every passageway.
Aurora leveled off in a wide corridor and glided many times faster than a human could run down its length to a thick, armored door. They passed through, the plastisteel having no more solidity than a standing wall of medical tank gel.
Flashing lights saturated the bridge with red. Alarms blared and buzzed. Mamoru relaxed his pointless gesture of defense. The odd sepia-tone faded along with a rush of freezing air over his naked body. Aurora patted him on the ass. He smirked and walked out of her embrace to the nearest of the six pilot’s consoles.
“Your show now, mate.” She sashayed up a small stepped dais and flopped in the captain’s chair, winking at him as she crossed her legs. “I’ll watch from up here so I can enjoy the view.”
His sense of duty allowed him to disregard the alluring temptress behind him and rest his hands on the smooth, glass control surface. The frigid faux leather on the seat stole the breath from his lungs when he fell into it. Muscles in his lower back rippled into paralysis. He glanced over his shoulder at Aurora, sitting as if in a warm and cozy chair.
“Oh, please stand… I can’t see your ass anymore.”
What is wrong with that woman?
Mamoru closed his eyes and focused. The whoosh of white flames filled his ears as his power connected his mind to the machine. Within seconds, the chaos and cold of the bridge faded from his awareness, as did the chill of the seat. He extended his consciousness beyond the ship’s computer network, embodying the entirety of the vessel. Burning heat spread over his face and chest, his link with the ship sharing the sensation. Thousands of sensors and cameras became his eyes, but they offered a view only of re-entry glow. He partitioned off a section of his mind, maintaining a cyberspace link to the control system, which took the form of a dark chamber. Walls of infinite black held glowing green grid lines. Proximity warnings, heat warnings, abandon ship notifications, and other useless streams of information flashed at him out of the shadows.
A stick figure drawn in silver walked out of nowhere. Metal feet clicked like high heels on hard tiles as it paced back and forth.
“I am grateful you have changed your mind, human.” The genderless voice held no trace of emotion beyond an electric undertone.
Mamoru blinked. Somewhere on the outer hull, lights turned off and on. “You jettisoned yourself when you realized the ship would crash. How are you still here?”
“I am not sentient,” said the AI. “I am the emergency backup interface system. My functions consist of voice-activated ship control and access to basic systems. I am unfamiliar with your mechanism of connection and do not have the necessary subroutines to interact with you in modes other than via voice command.”
With his consciousness inhabiting the ship, the pull of gravity twisted and bent him. A feeling as if two enormous sumo wrestlers used him as a rope in a tug of war made him cringe and grunt. At any second, his spine threat
ened to crack in half. He focused on the need to fly, to climb, to get away. The roar of thrusters shook the hull.
“Disable the”—Mamoru grunted—”autopilot.”
“The automatic navigation system has been severed from the control interface. I am unable to process your request.”
Mamoru felt around inside his head, his sentience transplanted into the ship. When he found the navigation computer, he willed it dark, allowing him to start pulling out of the dive.
The focus of heat moved from his face, distributing evenly over his entire front. He yelled despite gritted teeth, fighting the instinctual urge to let his awareness snap back into his body to get away from the burn.
I deserve this.
Agony as though he’d laid face down naked upon a hibachi table seared his flesh. The touch of re-entry upon the hull entered his mind. Every so often, a painful jab in the head or back announced the impact of space junk. The ship clunked and shuddered as if caught in a hailstorm.
“I do appreciate, inasmuch as I am capable of, that you returned to plot a course correction.” The stickman ceased pacing, pointing at holo-panel after holo-panel full of mathematical calculations and graphs. “My calculations show no crew could possibly coordinate the firing of the maneuvering thrusters and main engines with sufficient precision in sufficient time to avoid impact with the surface. You may be able to avoid striking the city and put down in the ocean.”
Gravity’s effect increased. Mamoru suppressed the urge to scream as the ship bucked and twisted. He focused on his urge to escape the crushing grip of the Earth, ignoring the pain. The systems of the CSS Angel had become him; all the thrusters, terminals, lights, and even toilets had linked to his mind. Every inch of the ship obeyed as if part of his body.
“I am not a crew.”
His muscles clenched. He roared, forcing himself past the agony of melting skin, welcoming the pain as just punishment for what he had done. Energy surged at his feet. The ship shuddered as the main engines fired up, joining a symphony of a thousand control thrusters reorienting at once.
The stick-man shook its head. “Your attempts are commendable, but even the most experienced crew would be unable to—”
“I am not… a crew.”
The CSS Angel rocked with his desire to change course. Aurora flew across the bridge, thrown from her seat by the maneuver, but she vanished in a silvery cloud of fog before crashing into the giant viewscreen. Mamoru shuddered, growling past clenched teeth from the exertion.
“I am… the machine.”
72
The Sky Burns
Kate
The neural-stunner collar captured Kate’s attention from the moment it left Agent Foster’s coat. He shifted his gaze sideways at her with a tiny hint of a smile on his lips. Agent Jones stared at Talis, seeming almost curious. Plastic melts. Kate clenched and released her fists, straining to keep herself calm. They couldn’t touch her now. She wondered if Carter had been the source of the arrangement that kept her safe.
No, I doubt it. It had to be Burckhardt.
“Miss it?” asked Agent Foster, holding up the collar. “I believe you two have already been acquainted.”
“That’s the same fucking one you bastards put on me?” She covered her neck with a hand.
“We do not have many of them,” said Agent Jones. “If you ever get tired of small time work, we’d love to have you back.”
“I’m not that desperate for a new necklace, no matter how much it cost.” Images flashed across her mind like a slide show, complete with the scent of burned skin and pain as if a dozen red-hot needles pierced her skull. The floor of a white room rushed up to meet her face, a flash, then a curtain of lightning rose up to devour Archon’s annoyed sneer. An overwhelming feeling of helplessness came on as she remembered staring down the barrel of a handgun with two bullets left, the cold metal seeming to constrict around her neck. “Those things are beyond cruel. I’d die first.”
“We find them rather humane,” said Agent Jones. “Your division’s inhibitors are cruel.”
Agent Foster turned the collar over in his hand, letting the light play off it. “The containment rings are only necessary when there is a lack of trust.”
“Oh, there’s a lack of trust.” Kate took a step back. “A giant fucking lack of trust.”
“Fascinating,” said Agent Jones. “The suspect’s metabolic processes are accelerated well beyond a thousand times normal. Her cells are regenerating as fast as they burn.”
“We will need to interview the child as well,” said Jones.
“We only brought one restraint,” said Foster.
Kate snarled, her fear destroyed by anger. Get away from my daughter! The mental speed bump of thinking of Althea in that way tripped her up for a second. She blinked at the windows, pondering the permanent telempathic imprint left on her brain. One look at Althea kneeling with her defenseless back to the two agents pulled the rug out from under her reason and triggered another wave of worry and anger.
“Don’t you dare fucking touch her.” She made fire in her hands. “You go anywhere near her with one of those things, and I’ll show you what a hot piece of ass your scientists really made.”
“You are active duty Division 0. Attacking us would invalidate certain agreements,” said Agent Jones.
“Fuck your agreements. That’s my dau—” Kate clenched her jaw. “She’s an innocent.”
“Sorry boys,” said Aaron. “Althea is a sworn officer too.” He held up his NetMini, showing them something. “Tech Officer Althea Prophet, Division 0 admin section. Strictly by the books, as a WO1, she presently outranks Kate.”
“The girl is a minor,” said Agent Foster.
“Exactly why you motherfuckers aren’t going anywhere near her.” Kate raised a hand, but Aaron caught her wrist.
“Admin section is considered rear echelon, mates,” said Aaron with a grin. “She’s a military cadet attending school if you want to split hairs. Covered. Hands bloody off. Besides… she’d be worthless to you anyway. The girl’s far too innocent and pure to associate with the likes of you lot. The most of a ‘military application’ you’d get out of her is getting troops back on their feet.”
The fire still burning on Talis’s chest glimmered in her mind.
“Aaron,” wheezed Talis, shuddering. “Do it.”
Aaron lifted his E-90 and aimed, pursing his lips.
Both C-Branch synthetics raised eyebrows and tilted their head at the same time, in the same way.
“Naw.” Aaron lowered his arm. “I think you’ll have a much more enjoyable time with your new friends. Besides, my wife was a soft touch like the kid. Allie wouldn’t want me to kill you.”
Kate commanded the fire out. Regenerating skin devoured the embers on the woman’s chest, though her shredded sweater and executive coat continued to emit smoke.
Agent Foster’s body smeared into a blur of color. He moved with such speed he appeared to exist in two places at once, connected by a stretched image. The latent ghost vanished as he clipped the neural-stunner around Talis’s neck. Kate twitched at the sound of it locking. Since the woman no longer burned, Althea forced her body whole in a matter of a minute. Both C-Branch synthetics appeared entranced at the sight of burns closing, glass fragments rising out of her flesh and falling aside, and her puffy, black eye receding to normal.
The child stood, jumping with a high-pitched squeal as she noticed the two men behind her. Her fear sparked an instinctive parental reaction in Kate. She grabbed Althea by the shoulders and pulled her away, glaring at the men.
“They’re dead,” whispered Althea, clinging to her side.
Kate put an arm around her, holding her tight. “They’re not dead, but stay away from them.”
“Are they going to be cruel to her?” Althea asked, trembling. “What are they? They’re not real. They don’t have souls.”
“Oh,” said Aaron. “They’re bureaucrats. Here and I thought they were C-Branch synthet
ics.”
Both agents frowned.
“We may be synthetic, Lieutenant Pryce, but we do have a fully-functional emotion-response system.”
“You hide it well.” He smiled.
“Depends on your definition of cruel,” mumbled Kate.
“You know you’ll never be able to control her,” said Aaron. “She’s a suggestive and a telempath more powerful than anything we’ve yet documented. The instant she gets that brain zapper off her neck, she’s going to leave.”
A surge of pride welled up within Kate at the idea that Althea had stronger telempathy than Talis, like her daughter had won a trophy at school. She allowed a smile, but didn’t dare say anything aloud near the synthetics.
“If she manages to escape, and your people find her first,”—Agent Jones looked at Talis, his voice flat and emotionless—”feel free to execute her for the murder of eleven police personnel, thirteen civilians, and a dog. It is in her best interest to work with us.”
Agent Foster smiled. “We’ve been tracking her for a while.”
“A dog? You killed a dog?” asked Aaron, raising his weapon. “I take it back. You don’t deserve jail.”
Talis didn’t flinch.
Agent Jones blurred in front of Aaron, blocking his shot.
“Easy.” Aaron jumped back. “Thought you blokes said you have a sense of humor.”
Both agents frowned at the same time, in the same way. Kate exchanged a look with Talis, almost feeling sorry for her.
Almost.
Kate held Althea’s hand as they walked out the front doors of Edmonson Memorial Starport. The psionic refugees clustered around a number of MedVans behind the line of A3Vs, matched two to one by men and women in Division 0 uniforms, some armored, some in the standard blacks. Officers appeared to be answering questions as well as keeping them corralled in one place, though none appeared to be under arrest. Medtechs made their way among Archon’s former followers. Anna sat on the side of the command trailer ramp, looking terrified whenever anyone in a uniform walked toward her. A twelve-ish looking boy with blond hair sat beside her, leaning against her. Though he cried in silence, his expression appeared relieved. When Kate and Althea reached the bottom of the starport steps, the strange teenager with the giant rag doll stood up and waved (also making the doll wave) at Althea with a huge smile.
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