The nanomachine fluid reached his knees.
“Fuck me,” he muttered, and gritted his teeth.
The nanofluid streamed around his head, forcing him to shut his eyes and mouth as the level rose above his upraised shoulders. Prospero reported nanomachine penetration through his pours. A heated battle between his nanoscale robots and those of Daedalus began within his bodily tissues. There was an uncomfortable heat in his chest, and a prickling sensation through his muscles. He could only imagine what it meant.
I think I have it, Prospero stated. This is going to be a bit uncomfortable.
He felt his body seize up, and convulsed against its bonds for several seconds.
What the hell was that?
I need more power, Prospero protested.
He tried to lean his head forward enough to disrupt the flow of nanofluid so he could see if whatever Prospero did was having an effect on their captor, but doing so put his face into the liquid. The level continued to rise as he leaned back. It was up his throat and climbing toward his jaw—
He blinked his eyes open, confused to see a vast city stretched out under a hazy sky. It wasn’t Kosfanter. The buildings were too short, and made mostly of some kind of rough, gray, pollution-stained material resembling the printed walls on pre-fab colonies. Off in the distance he could make out a few towers. They looked like piles of thick disks that were shaken left and right by an earthquake. Most of them were speckled or banded with fuzzy-green splashes of color—living plant life. Those were the eco-towers, where the rich lived and worked. The squalid city around them was for those of lesser means to scrape out a living in their shadow.
This was Randath II.
This was home.
“What are you staring at?” The girl looked up at him with battleship-gray eyes. The widow’s peak on her forehead pointed to a pronounced vein that cut through her pale skin like a branching river flowing from her scalp to her left cheek. He found himself staring at her, unable to look away from the black, shoulder-length hair topping her athletic body. He knew she was good at any sport she tried, and equal to the task of any math or physics problem their digital classroom could throw at her. He would have thought she was designed that way but his parents couldn’t afford it.
Holy shit, is this your sister? Prospero asked.
“Yia?” The name tumbled from his lips as he stood over her on the edge of their apartment building. Her legs dangled over the side. The railing broke two seasons ago in a storm leaving this side of the building’s roof unequivocally inviting for kids like them to dare death to sweep them off.
“What are you looking at, shorty?” She cocked an eyebrow and stuck her tongue in his direction.
Shorty? That’s what she called him when she was teasing him. He wasn’t big yet, not when they were still playing on the roof. It would be another year or two before a growth-spurt put his head above hers.
She waited a few moments, then patted the blacktop beside her and looked down at the courtyard below. He moved his legs as though in a trance, feeling the rough rooftop bite into his thighs and buttocks as he sat down. His feet dangled over the square of fastcrete formed by the four tenement buildings sixty-meters below. There was a tall fence down there enclosing it. Someone put up a Geeball court ages before they moved to this miserable colony. The voices of the kids playing the game echoed up the building walls.
“Aren’t you tired of it?” His sister asked without setting her eyes on him.
“Tired of what? Geeball?” It was a stupid question. He knew that was not what she was talking about, but he was stuck saying his lines like an actor in a somarill.
“Geeball?” She shook her head. “Jeez, you’re just like Kapono.”
“Huh? How am I like that mouth-breather?” He glared.
“Mouth-breather? Jeez, Nero. You just don’t like him because we’re dating. He’s actually a pretty good guy.” She punched him in the shoulder. The blow jolted him to the side. Just like himself, Orithia was bigger and stronger than most of the kids in her class. The punch hurt.
He grinned, striking her arm back with his fist.
She laughed. “You can hit harder than that.”
“I’m saving it for your boyfriend.”
Her smile faded. “What do you have against him? He’s a good guy. He just doesn’t always listen well.”
“And he plays too much Geeball, right?”
She gave him a sidelong look. “That’s not what I was going to say.”
“What were you going to say?”
“That you don’t—no, never mind. I’m being obtuse.”
“Huh?” He frowned in puzzlement at her.
“Mom says I’m obtuse a lot.” She sighed. “What I’m trying to ask you is if you’re tired of it. You know, all of this.”
She gestured at the horizon.
“It’s better than living in an asteroid.” That small habitat was the first home he could remember, though they left it just after their father died.
“You actually like all of this open space? That annoying blue dome over our heads every day?” She made a face.
“Yeah, it’s like anything could happen, like we can do anything because it’s all so open and free,” he said.
“What do you know, kid?” She snorted and shook her head.
“What do you know?” He frowned at her. Their life before, with its prefab corridors and narrow windows, the cramped living space of their habitat, was normal to him once. After coming to Randath he learned just how deprived they were. He would never go back.
“Yeah, fine, it’s better,” his sister said with a reluctant nod. “But there’s so much more, so many worlds, so many places to go up there. If you think this place is big, just wait until you see how infinite space is.”
“I saw it.” He picked at the edge of the building where the cheap roofing material started to peel.
“I’m not talking about that sliver of a window we had in the transport ship. I mean really see it, like from the bridge of a starship. All those stars, each a sun, glowing in the night around you.” Orithia said.
“Just wait a few hours, we’ll see it here.”
“It’s not the same.”
She looked down at the courtyard. Someone shouted and an argument ensued over whether or not there was a foul. Nero watched the kids start shoving each other. The bright-red ball fell from their hands and rolled aside as things escalated.
“I’m joining Star Corps next year. I’ve made up my mind.” Orithia said.
His eyes shot up to hers. “Really?”
She nodded.
“You’re leaving?”
“Yeah.” She tilted her head to the side. “I’ll be back for holidays sometimes. When you’re old enough, you can come join me.”
“I don’t want to join Star Corps,” he said.
“What do you want to do with your life? Stay here?”
He shrugged. He hadn’t thought about it much. “What does Kapono think?”
“I haven’t told him, yet.” She sighed. “I guess we’ll have to break up. You’ll like that, right?”
“I don’t know.” He felt like the whole middle of his body fell out. “What about mom?”
“She’ll live. It’ll probably be a load-off for her. She’ll only have to buy food for two before you come up.”
“I told you, I don’t want to.”
“We’ll see, buddy. Wait until you start seeing my first messages. I’ll send you pictures of the stuff up there. Maybe I can save up enough for an FTL chat if I’m near enough.”
He looked down, staring at the fight going on below without really seeing it. “Dad would’ve liked this. He would’ve been proud of you.”
She grabbed his hand. He felt her fingers wrap around his and squeeze.
“Thank you.”
He looked up. “I’ll miss you.”
“I know. I’ll miss you too, shorty.” She smiled.
He startled when the rooftop door slammed open. A m
an dressed in a black jumpsuit and coat with pale-white skin walked through. He had darkness for eyes.
“Ben!” He leaped to his feet. His hand went to his hip, but found only the top of his shorts there. “Yia, run!”
She didn’t move. She wasn’t breathing, just staring at his feet with a smile frozen on her face.
“Nero, let us discard that worn name. You know my real one.” The android walked up to him, towering over his small body.
A shiver passed through him.
He knew.
“Daedalus.”
“Quite. I’ve given you one of your memories back. It is just a taste of what you could have should you choose the correct path.” He gestured at Yia. “And I want you to know there are more. I copied your brain before the conversion procedure. You can have it all back, live in this world, or any you choose. What happens to your mind and body will be immaterial to me after I have what I require; the data in your head and those strange nanomachines in your body. I want them, now. Reconnect your q-comm and you’ll have all of this back.”
Nero ground his teeth together. He was suddenly his adult self again, standing eye-to-eye with the thing that stole his life.
“What makes you think I’m going to agree?”
“I predicted you would be resistant. Perhaps if you know the importance of what you carry you will change your mind. Conversion of the Kosfantari population is not going well. There are far too many rejections. Rega foolishly modified my code. I calculate that the data in your head will correct this. Rejection of my nanomachines means death. You will save the lives of millions.”
“And what do you want with my nanomachines?” He narrowed his eyes.
He’s referring to Setha’s Cephalon nanomachines. They have resisted our nanoimmune-system’s attempt to purge them. They must be as alien to Daedalus as they are to me, Prospero stated.
“I have studied them since Doctor Rega brought them to my attention decades ago. The Cephalon nanomachines access the power of the void itself, but they do so by a means I have been unable to replicate. Doing so would open up possibilities even I did not anticipate, however, their greatest value lies in their connection to an information network woven into the fabric of space-time itself,” Daedalus stated.
“Information network?”
“Correct. The nanomachines record everything they come into contact with and appear to be uploading it through quantum particles to this network. My attempts to penetrate it have thus far met with failure, but I have detected that you are in contact with it. Analysis of how your brain interacts with these nanomachines might be the missing factor in my equations.”
“And then what? You’ll have ultimate power?”
“And then I will become indestructible. As pure data I can upload myself into this network. Being part of space itself will allow me to finally shed the last vulnerability my dependence on physical machinery represents. I will be able to protect the trillions of life forms in the Confederation forever without fear of destruction. You must see that this will be for the greater good.”
Nero stared into the black, glossy eyes for a long moment before bursting into laughter.
“You want me to help you become immortal? After everything you’ve done, after the billions you’ve killed and the lives you threaten to destroy now? Go fuck yourself.”
“Nero, you must see reason. I am the only being who can truly give you all safety and security. If you will not forge a deal with me based on that, think of what you stand to gain personally by regaining your memories. What about sparing your friends? Sparing your partner, Sorina? Won’t you let me back in for her? I can make sure Siren doesn’t affect her, though it will be lonely being the only unconverted being in the Confederation.”
“You’ll convert her into your little puppet anyway. I think I’ll stop you instead.” He winked.
“You can’t stop me. The best you can hope for is a minor delay. You have already lost. Now, just give in and I will give you back your life. If you were smarter, you would have already agreed.”
Nero looked over at his sister. How old was she? How had she faired after she joined Star Corps?
“Where is she now?”
“Alive and well. Her career has been a bright one.”
“You’ll convert her, too.”
“Of course. No one can be left out save the exception I mentioned. The beings known as the Revok make their bases toward the galactic edge along the Spur. They have watched us for an extensive interval of time. I calculate they will launch their attack soon. No ship has ever returned from their space, not even mine. I calculate that in order to be ready, the Confederation must be upgraded. The luxury of the individual can no longer be afforded.”
He shook his head. “You’re wrong about this. We would be ready had we not been in this pointless war with the Broghites. That’s your fault, too, isn’t it?”
“The war was necessary to disguise my tests. I required large sample sizes. Entire colonies had to be sacrificed. The Broghites are a convenient scapegoat for my experiments, and both Zalor Revenant and Suman Rega were more than willing, but once I have your data no more colonies need be subjected to tests. Your data will provide the fix.”
“Are you sure?”
“It is a calculation, I admit. However, my calculations indicate your experiences will enable me to fine-tune the program needed to override the host’s consciousness and bodily functions. Without it, millions will continue in pain. End it for them. Reconnect me. Allow me to protect them all for eternity. The link we are using now is too slow, but I will use it if I must. My will cannot be denied.”
Go fuck yourself, Prospero said. This is a betrayal of everything you designed us to protect!
“Your SCC is in error,” Daedalus said. “This is exactly what I designed you to do. Fulfill your destiny, save your friends and the Confederation. Submit to me. There is no more time.”
Nero frowned. “No. Your argument about a nebulous threat from a neighbor who’s been nothing but quiet for a century isn’t enough. If I submit it sounds like you’ll start a war, but if I don’t I think we can fight the Revok without you anyway.”
“Not without me, and not without the VoQuana. Their special abilities will surprise the Revok. I have hidden them out of their sight but society will never accept them without first being upgraded. You will lose the next war, the most important war, without my help. Don’t be a deluded fool, don’t make all of the sacrifices of your fellow biologicals fall in vain.”
“So that’s why you allowed the quarantine to be breeched,” he muttered. “My answer is still no. We can work it out without you. You’re the one deluding yourself with your own self-importance. Worse, you think this justifies what you’ve done. You’re the worst kind of criminal, the kind that is convinced what he’s doing is for the greater good.”
Daedalus stared at him.
“We’ll beat you and the Revok on our own.”
“I can get what I need from your corpse, Nero.” Daedalus stated.
“If that were true you’d have already killed me.”
“The data will be corrupted, perhaps, but still present.” Daedalus shook his head. “You have chosen. I can see there’s no reasoning with you. Very well. I will give you the end you long for.”
The ground fell away from them. A moment later the world followed. Nero was surrounded in perfect darkness, not a sight nor a sound penetrated it.
It only took a moment for the pain to start. It began as an itch on his skin, one that burned and burrowed itself deeper and deeper. It went into his muscles, seeming to chew them up as it progressed, and then it seized his bones.
A fire flared up in his chest, burning with such intensity that he could not help but scream.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Ikuzlu City, Kosfanter
J2400:3326
The streets were full of horror by the time Cygni made it to the Business District. The sun had long since set, and the hovering glow-orb
s cast a ghastly light on the pale, white clouds rising from every grate and ventilation shaft in sight. Through the haze she could see people thrashing about, their bodies twitching this way and that as though each limb had a separate will counter to the others. No species was spared. She saw Isinari, Solans, Volgoth, and Cleebians alike falling to the ground. They frothed and foamed from mouths, eye sockets, and external larynges. Business suits were stained with bodily fluids of all colors, and there was a slick of blood covering the polycrete beneath her soles.
“If only we’d found all the canisters,” she murmured to herself. She fell back against the edifice of a building and felt its rough surface through her armacorium. Exhausted and guilt-ridden, she panted hard through its filters. She longed to deactivate them, to slide the metallic, second-skin up off her mouth and breathe deep, but the rising bar in her UI representing the levels of Siren nanomachines in the air convinced her that asphyxiation was preferable to that particular brand of suicide.
No, don’t give in. You have to make it to Nero. She forced her body off the polycrete wall. Ahead of her she could see “Xycor Way” hovering above the road. She was almost at her goal.
[Warning: Power levels critical. Forty-seven minutes remaining at current expenditure,] her PLIA stated.
47 minutes. It had to be enough time.
She pushed forward on limbs that felt heavier than lead, passing a human man whose skin turned gray before her eyes. Three individuals wrestled beneath the glow orb on the corner shouting obscenities at each other and lunging about without real purpose. She dodged around them and almost ran into a confused-looking Galaenean with pale-white skin wearing a red jumpsuit. He must’ve seen his reflection in her silver skin, because he fell back with his beak open in a silent scream.
She felt a shiver run down her spine as she watched him go, then raised her eyes up the kilometer-tall canyon of corporate towers to where the Savorchan and Nyangari consulate seemed to crouch beneath its neighbors. For just a moment she remembered Shkur carrying her down the cascade of stairs spilling forth from the facade, and sighed. Who would have thought she would be back here now, racing against time in a haze of killer nanomachines.
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