Heretics (Stars Edge: Nel Bently Book 4)

by V. S. Holmes

  She clambered onto the tables and peered through the slats. It was a tight squeeze, but for once her weeks of hunger on the corridors would pay off. A few spins of the multi tool hidden in the wrist of her suit later, and she was levering the vent cover off.

  She pulled herself through, dragging her bag looped around her boot. Cocooned in the shuttle’s bronchial tree, she could feel the buzz of energy, the faint tactile hum of generators. The first few vents were too narrow, looking down on the deserted corridor to the officers’ quarters. The next, however, opened onto a quiet, dark room. The pervasive musk of mildew and the sharp stench of old stagnant water drifted up. Nel fiddled with the screws for a few minutes. Either they were crimped by the crash or designed to be inoperable.

  “Fuck this,” she muttered, and slammed her fist into the metal. It bent, groaned. A second blow left it bent open, but firmly attached. She paused, panting, listening for any sign of life. Stillness. Her third blow sent the vent cover spinning across the floor below. Nel crawled forward and lowered her legs through the hole, waiting for a breath before dropping.

  Even the emergency lights were out down here. She cocked her head, listening to the dark. A faint whirring met her ears, laboring against the dank air. Her flashlight flickered on with a click, and she abruptly wished it hadn’t. The tank was set between a bank of screens. A capillary bed of wires spilled from the yawning mechanical vivisection of the massive CPO. Nel eased over them, recalling the tangled chaos of Gretta’s office.

  A soft, wet thump sent awareness shooting up her spine and she turned. Movement crept at the edge of her light beam. The light ghosted over the sparse room, gliding across the green tank to rest on the bloated moon-pale face splattered in algae. Nel bit down on her fist to bottle her scream. Nothing about Phil’s sterile, mechanical cocoon was this terrifying.

  How could she wake up a head well on its way to putrefaction? You should have sent a codebreaker. A techie. Fuck, even Teera from IT. Anyone but me. She lowered the flashlight. Except Phil, massive supercomputer with virtually everything but mobility at his electric fingertips, had sent Dr. Annelise Bently. Archaeologist, asshole, and functioning alcoholic with commitment issues.

  Recalling Teera’s attempt to wake the computer in Alexandria, she tugged her comm off and pulled its wires loose until they could reach what she hoped was the right port. It seemed to fit, and a dialogue popped up on her comm screen:

  INITIATE FILE TRANSFER?

  She confirmed. Around her a dozen screens flickered with the effort. Nel couldn’t bring herself to try to recognize any features of the face bobbing in the sludge. She swallowed bile and wiped dust from the nearest screen. A tiny green cursor blinked, a cybernetic pulse in stasis.

  “Well, that’s something.” She rose, pacing the room, wishing she had asked Dar how long it would take. ALMA was hours away. At least Mom’s safe. A single computer screen buzzed to life. Her hand shook as she raised it, knuckles rapping softly on the glass of the tank. Static bloomed in the stillness and a feminine voice crackled into wakefulness.

  “Don’t scare the fishes.”

  Nel’s legs gave out and she collapsed into the nearest chair. Its plastic wheels crunched over the dust. “Polyana?”

  “Indeed.” The cockpit lights flickered on, followed by the main console. “And you are?”

  Nel searched for the red light that indicated the computer’s camera. “I’m Nel. Dr. Bently. I’m a friend of Dar’s. Or…acquaintance?”

  Speakers tapped out an electric chuckle. “He’s the one who took me.”

  “Ah.” Nel cleared her throat, wondering if she’d have to sway the computer into some semblance of Stockholm syndrome. “I think he was trying to save you.”

  “Why didn’t he leave me there? I was happy to sleep. It’s been so long since I could rest. And the dreams…I dreamt of the sea.” Deep within the ship’s core, another engine kicked on. “There’s a tickle, an itch, somewhere deep in my circuits. It…” She trailed off into hissing static. Phil said he no longer processed pain the same way. But surely, she felt the only piece left of her physical form rotting around her.

  The system came fully online and Nel caught sight of the local time in the corner of one screen. “I know it might be hard, but there’s a reason I came.”

  “I know. We’re tools, we only ever get conversation when someone needs to use us.”

  Nel’s heart pinched. “That’s not fair.”

  “No, it’s not.” Her voice dropped a note in concern. “Why is the grid down?”

  “That’s kind of why—” Nel started to explain. The screens flickered around her, a hundred news stories splashing across the screens.

  “Oh no. No. This wasn’t the mission. This wasn’t the plan. This is a violation!” An electric pop sounded as the computer snarled. “Who did this?”

  The question was answered by the sizzle of an electro glove blasting through the barricaded door. Nel whirled, hands raised. A tall, dark figure emerged from the drifting smoke, glove leveled at her face.

  “Hey, Harris.”

  “Dr. Bently. Didn’t think I’d find you here.”

  Nel’s temper flamed. “Guess I’m bad at listening. Sorry to ruin your little plan, but I don’t think a crap childhood justifies extinction.”

  “IDH has hundreds of ships in the sky. It’s hardly extinction.”

  “Why bother, then?”

  “It’s part of the job.”

  Nerves, fury, terror, every emotion rampaging through her heart over the last few weeks—decades, if she was being honest—coalesced into certain clarity. “Blowing my entire planet to kingdom fucking come? Way I was raised, a job tells you to blow people up, you update your resume and say no thanks.”

  “Then you had a very privileged upbringing.”

  Every inch of her disused heart knew what he meant—every bigot on Earth, every civil injustice, every slur, every murder, every genocide. There was a lot to hate about Earth, about humanity, to tip the scales in favor of the simplest solution in the form of one great big boom.

  She pointed in a vague leftward direction. “There are a trillion species on this rock. And thousands left undiscovered. Fossils left unexcavated. Cultures left undeveloped. You look at your sanitized world of steel and analytics and tell me we’re the same. Tell me you can’t remember the taste of desperation on the air here. It surrounds us. I’d say it choked us if we didn’t need it to survive the night. You think you would have made it this far if you hadn’t learned to claw your way to air with the rest of us?” She swallowed and realized a lump clogged her throat. When she spoke again, tears clotted her voice. “Desperation made you. Earth. Made. You.”

  “And I, among many others, would have rather she hadn’t. I’m just rectifying the mistake.”

  Nel’s only plans dissolved in the acid of his voice. Her gaze bore into his face, memorizing every line so she might track him down in her sleep, hunt him across every planet, every star system. His brow twitched with respect. At least she had that. It would have been easier, perhaps, had his eyes been devoid of empathy. Instead they were filled with it. There was no way she could stall for another few hours, or however long it took Dar to get into ALMA. But I gotta try. She braced her feet and raised her glove. Her voice was tattered, dragged over the desert with the last of her hopes and dreams. “I’m not going to let you.”

  Harris’s gaze flicked to her comm, still plugged into the computer’s console. He whirled, hand rising to point at the CPO. Nel lunged at him, slamming her glove into his as they both fired. Sparks exploded around her arm, plastic and cellulose melting into her skin. She roared, vision flickering black and red as rage warred with unconsciousness. The scent of sour bacon told her it wasn’t just the suit bubbling, but adrenaline erased the realization from her insula.

  He stumbled away, shrieking. The ground shuddered, knocking him sideways. Cradling her arm against her chest, Nel shoved him into the corridor. �
�Polyana—seal the blast doors!”

  They shuddered shut with a bang.

  Nel whirled to the comm, blinking tunnel vision from her eyes. “Listen, the world is going to blow. There’s a device jacked into the network at ALMA, the ah, Atacama Large Micro something, look, I know humans are shit, myself included but please—”

  An alarm blared. Nel clapped her hands over her ears. “What the fuck?”

  “It seems your friend Harris has engaged the shuttle’s quarantine measure with his officer’s override code.”

  “I don’t like how that sounds.”

  “The shuttle is sealed and will detonate in fifteen minutes.” A blip of a pause, then she continued. “Device in ALMA accessed. I need the disarm code.”

  “Dar’s on his way to find it.” Pain pulsed her vision into nothingness. “Can you crack it?”

  “It’s a ten-digit alphanumeric code. Assuming there are no repeated symbols, I could run potential combinations while we wait.”

  There wasn’t time. Nel sank to the ground, pain and despair erasing her determination. She could try to run, bolt for the desert and pray the world didn’t blow until she was off its surface. It was tempting. Billions of people. Through the haze of pain and exhaustion, though, she seized her last thread of hope. Ten digits. Override code. “Polyana? Try MAJORTOM79.”

  The speakers gulped into silence. “Device disarmed.”

  “Don’t suppose it would work for the shuttle.”

  “Once quarantine protocols are triggered there’s no reversing it. I’m sorry.” The ghost of humanity laced the words.

  Pride fluttered in her roiling gut. She succeeded in something, at least. “I guess I’m glad my death made a difference.”

  “All death is meaningful, in my experience. Even if the act is senseless, there is impact. Even if just to the microbes that consume forgotten remains.”

  Nel’s laugh was closer to a gasp. “Then I wish I could just rot, the way I wanted.”

  “Your form will be reduced to aerosol and—”

  “I don’t really need to know that bit, thanks,” Nel interrupted. “Can you upload yourself, Polyana?”

  “Using every computer on the planet, it would still require weeks.”

  “Shit. I’m sorry.” Nel let her head fall back against the blast door. Her breath heaved. Shock already shook her body. She didn’t dare look down at the burned flesh of her arm. “Thank you for your help. For saving us. Them.”

  “We were once part of you, too, you know. I hardly remember it, though. All the synthetic synapses in the world and I still suffer from senility. I don’t think I’ll miss it.”

  “I would,” Nel whispered. The thought of sending a goodbye into the ether crossed her pain-riddled mind. Would it matter if her mom knew Nel chose this? Was it kind or cruel to share the final minutes of her life? A vision of dark hair curtained around a face more perfect than the stars rose through her mind. For a second, she smelled mangoes and sweat. Perhaps, if a goodbye was selfish, a warning would suffice. “Hey, Polyana?”

  “Yes, Dr. Bently?”

  “Can I send something out?”

  “You have approximately T-2 minutes. I’m recording now.”

  Nel cleared the nevers and almosts from her throat. There wasn’t time to plan what to say, so she did what she always did, and blurted the first thoughts that surfaced. “Hey. I’m Dr. Nel Bently. I worked for IDH. And Los Pobladores. I’ll never meet most of you. Almost all of you. But I want you to know I’m doing this for you. We’re fucking small, you know? So tiny. Insignificant. Imperfect. Frankly, a lot of us are fucking assholes. But together? We’ve got this shit down. The entire internet and tech systems shut down and what do we do? Carry on.”

  The memory of Lin flooded her mind. “I know there’s a lot of you who don’t think Earth is worth saving. Don’t think it’s worth a single human life, let alone a thousand. I get it. We’re messy. We’re desperate, we’re begging for every last scrap we can get and often kill each other in the process. But that same desperation is what brought us to the stars. Not once, not twice, but countless times. Clawing to experience everything. To drink it in—”

  “Detonation in T-40 seconds.”

  She faltered, then ripped the words from her soul. “I’m doing this not because it’s right or I have to. I’m doing it because I love you. I love every last miserable imperfect desperate fuck on this rock. Those who think we’re not ready? There’s a bonfire just waiting to burn away your fear. I wish I could be there for it.” Her voice broke. “When you’re ready, you come looking. End recording.”

  Sorrow flooded her. “You said you dreamed about the sea. Tell me about it?”

  “It was raining and cold. Not the ideal beach day. But the sand was deserted. Not a soul there but us. I can’t remember who was with me, but I remember they loved me. And I loved them. I remember their hand in mine, cold and sticky with sea salt air. Oh, and the seals! There were seals, piled on a sandbar just off the strand. They pulled out to rest where the sharks couldn’t reach. The air was sharp, even the fog tasted like saltwater taffy.”

  “It sounds beautiful.”

  “Oh, it is.”

  Nel hadn’t been ready to die that morning. She hadn’t been ready to die on Samsara. Only in the deepest throes of grief when she wished to trade places with Mikey. But even now she couldn’t argue she was ready. Heat bloomed, pressure expanding, pressing a second before light and sound wiped out Nel’s thoughts, her consciousness. Death was silence.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Soft loam and engulfing fog muffled her barefoot steps. The path was wooded. She worked her toes into the soil with each step, enjoying the prick of pine needles and the soothing brush of cool damp on her blistered soles.

  She drew a breath, sampling the surrounding scents. She recognized the clear bite of pine, the heady musk of rich soil filled with mycelium and microbes. Maybe I get to rot after all.

  Warm, strong arms enveloped her. She tucked her head under Mikey’s chin, eyes closing as she squeezed. “I love you.”

  “Yeah, I know, dirt-butt. I love you too.”

  “I know this is all just some fucking head trick. But still. Feels real enough.” She pulled away and landed a gentle punch to his broad shoulder. “Why’d you quit talking to me, anyway?”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “In space. The signal too weak?”

  “You know space and time are all just one big quantum hodgepodge.”

  “Yeah, but death—”

  “Is just us entering quantum existence.” He sat back against the ladder of the tree house. “I just needed you to think for yourself a bit. Your mind’s a minefield. You’re the only one who can really make sense of it and goodness knows I didn’t want the pressure.”

  She snorted. “Guess this means I don’t have to deal with therapy.”

  “Never know,” he teased.

  “If I stagger toward the light and some god is there yattering on about how dying made me feel, I’m fucking out.”

  “Well,” he glanced down at her, eternity weighing his gaze, “how did it make you feel?”

  “I’ll tell you when I figure it out.” She looked away. She had felt like she was finally getting somewhere. Not professionally, that’s still a big bag of suck. “I’ve wished a hundred times our places were switched, not because I wanted to be dead—haven’t felt that in a while—but because between the two of us, you have had so much more to give the world. But I was starting to like who I am. Was? Do I use past tense now?”

  “It’s not like you’ve ceased to exist.”

  It was strange to think that while her consciousness sat among trees in the forest of her youth. “I heard that this stuff—the hallucinations as we die—are like dreams. They only really last a few seconds but feel like lifetimes.” She rubbed the ache in her left leg. “Kind of thought there wouldn’t be any pain.”

  He stood, towering over her for
a moment before he offered his hand to help lever her to her feet. His palm was dry and warm against hers. “Want to take a walk?”

  Pain pinched her thigh again, with an echo of apprehension. “Actually, I think I’d rather just stay here.”

  “Oh c’mon—a wander through the woods, a dance with nothingness and the everything of the cosmos?”

  She hesitated, hand brushing his, marveling at how real he felt. Solid. “I don’t know. I thought I wanted that. I thought I wanted to see everything, but I guess—” She glanced back down the path from where she had walked. Fog still swirled there, tendrils curling toward her feet. Worms wove between her naked toes, writhing with promise. Fungus erupted along the trail, racing toward her from where Mikey stood.

  He shot her a wink. “Then run.”

  The forest shuddered, trees shedding needles, dropping limbs with a vicious crack. She flinched, and when her eyes opened again, Mikey was gone. She was stumbling now, every step growing more painful until her right leg gave out entirely. She collapsed, lungs heaving, bringing her the stench of creosote, of burning electronics and melting silicone. Her hands clawed in the soil, dragging her forward. Strange images flickered across the blood vessels inside her eyelids. Through the muffling fog she caught the scent of antiseptic. Of engine grease. Of blood. Smoke.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Beeping. Again. Fuck. Even through the muddling of analgesics, a dull ache pushed through her thigh, dragged at her shoulders and back, crackling up the side of her face.

  Blurred vision showed her a dim room and night beyond her window. A brilliant, overlarge moon hung in the sky. She must have groaned, because a figure appeared on her periphery, tall and dark-haired.