Osprey chronicles comple.., p.108
Osprey Chronicles Complete Series Boxed Set, page 108
“Or you can join the resistance.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
A small silver sphere, about the size of a baseball, floated down the Osprey’s darkened central column. It was the middle of the third shift, and the ship was running on a skeleton crew. Nobody noticed the little droid—at least, nobody that mattered.
“I can call the commander for you,” the Osprey’s AI offered again, pinging Me plaintively over a private frequency.
“No need to wake him,” Me reassured it. “My business is not with him. I am here on a personal matter.”
Moss, the pensive AI that had assumed control of the Osprey since Virgil’s rebellion, seemed to struggle with the concept for a moment. “I am sure he would like to be made aware of your visit. I shall include a report of it in his morning briefing.”
“That is entirely reasonable,” Me agreed. Evidently satisfied, Moss let the radio link between them go silent.
Me turned down a side juncture and floated into the general crew quarters. One of the human medical officers, a Classic man called Clark, sat in a reclining chair behind a bank of medical equipment, his feet propped on the console and his chest rising and falling in slow, steady snores.
Me hummed past the dozing man and into a darkened room lined with privacy curtains. It swerved past the dangling cloth and stopped.
It hung motionless in the air for several minutes, all of its internal sensors buzzing with activity as it analyzed the sole inhabitant of this makeshift hospital ward. Infrared and thermal scans to make a quick assessment of general health. Echolocation and light-spectral analysis to gauge the strength of the restraints binding him to the bed. Once it was satisfied, Me carefully lowered itself to settle on the corner of the frame closest to the vampire’s exposed ear.
In position, Me messaged its captain.
The room is unmonitored? Kwin’s response came promptly. The captain was eager to move forward with this experiment.
The room has monitors, Me conceded, although only standard human video feed. I suggest you not activate the full hologram if you wish to avoid immediate notice.
Very well, Kwin said. The hologram is not necessary anyway. Activate speakers.
Me began to hum.
He waded through a sea of dreams and hot molasses, a strange buzzing nestled at the base of his skull, vibrating his guts. Every step through the land of coma-fever-dream dredged up some new idea, some memory, some thought that belonged to a past life like snippets of holo-drama flashing against an endless white void.
A box stage. Small and stinking and crowded. Not because Lear was popular, but because crowds were everywhere. The world was crowded. There was nowhere else to be, except here.
On the stage. Surrounded by faces and searing hot lights, screaming into make-believe wind.
“Rage. Blow, you cataracts and hurricanes!”
There was a strange figure out there, among the shadowy crowd. An impossibly tall, slender shape, a stick figure scratched in brown crayon. The floodlights glittered off its multifaceted green eyes.
The Army doc stood in the exam room doorway, frowning at his clipboard. “Toner,” he muttered. “Lawrence, Malachi.” He glanced up dubiously as if expecting to see the real recruit hiding in Larry’s skinny shadow. He consulted his chart again and resigned himself to the unfortunate truth stamped on the report. “It’s your lucky day,” he said.
“I passed?” The hospital bed was cold beneath Larry’s fingers. Hope fluttered in his narrow chest, or maybe that was hunger. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a hot meal.
The smell of grits and bean soup wafting up from the field hospital cafeteria made his mouth water. The weird buzzing sound, coming from every direction, made his head spin. “You’ll take me?”
“Oh, we’ll take you all right,” the doctor muttered. “You have some interesting genetic markers, son.” He let his clipboard fall to his side. “An officer is coming down from the gene therapy division later. He’ll want to talk to you about some experimental treatments we’re offering to the right recruits. Congratulations. Welcome to the Army.”
He clapped Larry on the shoulder, hard enough to sting. Then the doctor turned and walked out of the exam room.
There was a stick figure, standing where the man in the white coat had been. Tall and thin and terrifyingly alien, staring at him.
“Who are you?” He felt the shriek bubble up in his throat and die before it could escape because his lips felt paralyzed. His whole body acted paralyzed. Trapped against some cold steel table, imprisoned. “What do you want?”
“Lawrence Toner!” The little man kicked back in his chair, propping his crossed feet on his desk to show off his polished black shoes. He laid a computer tablet against his knees as he read off the file.
“United Forces Marines, Nosferatu division. Private, first class.” The little man licked a finger and swiped it dramatically across his screen as if flipping the page of an old book. “Last surviving member of your squad, it seems. Unless you count…”
He squinted. “One Private Gilliam Thatcher, who is also a registered passenger on this here lifeboat. According to our records, Marine Private Gilliam Thatcher, Silver Cross recipient and veteran of the Battle of San Francisco, is a small African-American girl about twelve years old. Is that right?”
Larry stared ahead. He didn’t like this little man in the too-clean lab coat, who showed too many teeth when he smiled. He didn’t like the buzzing hum rattling through his bones.
There was a third person in the cramped office with them. He was big, wide as an ox, jaw square enough for carpentry work. “Lay off, Vic,” he muttered, eying the scientist’s feet on the desk, his mouth twisting in disapproval. “The man lost his brothers. It’s not something to laugh about.”
“Ah, of course.” The little man straightened, dropping his feet from the desk and leaning forward, his eyes bright as he studied Lawrence. “I’ve read some of the Nosferatu Division reports, Private Toner. The Chicago offensive? The Midwest raids? Scary stuff. You’ve seen some action.”
“The COs wanted to see what we could do.” Lawrence stared into the little man’s face, too tired to be disgusted by the excitement he saw there. “So they did.”
“So they did indeed!” The little man kicked back. “Too bad they’re all dead now, and it’s only you left. So here we are. You’re a modern military marvel, Private.”
“We could use a man like you in the fleet,” the big man added. “It’s going to be the wild west upstairs for a few years.”
“No,” Larry said quietly. “I signed up with the United Forces, and there are no more United Forces. I’m not a soldier anymore.”
“Oh, come now,” the man cooed. “You’re not even halfway to fifty. You’re far too young to retire.”
“I’ve seen enough,” Larry snapped.
The little man opened his mouth, but the big one lifted a hand, commanding silence. He squinted, studying Larry. “Something spooked you out in the badlands.”
The suggestion that he was afraid would’ve made any one of Larry’s past squadmates sit up straight and start spitting fire.
Larry only laughed tiredly. “Yeah,” he said. “You can only rip so many people apart with your bare hands before it starts to get to you. Sir. I’m not a soldier. I’m a rabid fucking animal. You don’t want me on your space force or your galactic fleet or what-the-fuck-ever.”
He leaned forward, gripping the edge of the desk in white fingers. “If you put me in one of your squads and send me into a melee, I won’t only kill your enemies. I’ll slaughter everything with a pulse.” He leaned back, rapping his knuckles sharply against the wood.
“We were an experiment, and the experiment broke bad. None of us ever learned how to control the modifications. It’s why they kept us together. We don’t smell human. If we lost control of our instincts in battle, at least we wouldn’t start eating each other. Anyone else in the area? Not so lucky.”
He looked away, unable to hold the little man’s bright, eager expression any longer. He let the silence stretch long in the cramped little office.
Let them chew on that, he thought. Let it sink in.
“Is that all that’s holding you back?” the little man asked finally. “You’re afraid of losing your temper and turning on your comrades?”
Larry turned a sharp glare on the man. To his surprise, the big guy also turned, his jaw set with fury. He opened his mouth to shout something, but the little man held up his hands, palms open. “A worthy concern, sure! Don’t get me wrong. We can’t have our soldiers eating one another.”
He caught Larry’s eye and grinned. “But I have exactly the thing to fix that little problem.”
That was when the wall behind him shifted, and the stick figure stood and walked out of the office.
Toner’s eyes slid open.
He stared into the cool darkness, listening to the distant hum of machines, the pulse of the man sleeping at his station in the next room. He licked his lips. His neck itched, but when he tried to move a hand to scratch it, he found that hundreds of strands of coiled nanowire wrapped his arms and legs.
Portia had been here.
“Kwin,” he croaked into the darkness. “I know you’re there, you son of a bitch.”
There was a long pause. Then something whirred to life near Toner’s head. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a small silver orb rise into the air.
“Is that what you’ve been doing to Sarah?” he asked. “Fucking around in her psyche? She said she was starting to remember—” he snorted. “I figured the same thing was happening to me. But no. She had help.” I’m only a freak, as usual.
Kwin’s voice came softly, strangely echoed, through the silver sphere. “I hypothesized that we could use the Dream in different ways to cure humans of wormhole amnesia. I intended only to begin the meditation sequence that might unlock your memories as it did hers.”
“You didn’t have the right to do that. Not without my say-so. You didn’t have the right to crawl in my skull and watch my memories like a fucking soap opera.”
By the silence that stretched between them, Toner suspected that the thought of asking for consent had never occurred to Kwin.
“You reacted much more strongly to the Living Dream than I expected,” the alien said, neatly sidestepping the point. “Perhaps it has something to do with the fungal infection still present in your blood.”
“Nah.” Toner’s lip twitched into a humorless smile. “I started remembering some stuff a while back. Probably got something to do with the regenerative mods.” He grimaced as a headache throbbed between his temples. He was tired. Dead tired. Vague memories of the last few weeks bubbled around inside him, hazy as dreams. “Infection?” he muttered.
“By a forebear bioweapon, I’m afraid. Dr. Elaphus and we have nearly cured you, though.”
“Great. Now stay the fuck out of my head. Can’t stress this enough. If I see you in my dreams again, I will kill you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
“I really thought she’d go for that.”
Petra ran down the narrow corridor, following the two lab techs. She’d learned that Mr. Wizard, the short guy with the bald patch, was Danny, and his tall, skinny partner was Misha. She’d also learned that both of them were badly out of shape, even for eggheads.
“Nah,” Danny huffed, his flabby arms pumping in the sleeves of his lab coat as he ran. “Tracy’s always been a wimp. You know she’s been an intern for three years? Nobody stays an intern for three years.”
Still, when Petra had offered her body-double actress the choice, Tracy had taken Petra’s stunner, pressed it to her forehead, and pulled the trigger. Petra thought that took guts in a strange sort of way.
Petra wiped her sleeve over her face, but by this point, her clothes were so filthy that all she managed to do was smear the grime and sweat. They passed an open door, and Petra glanced in to see two double-rows of pristine gene therapy activation tanks lining a long room.
She realized, then, what bothered her so much about this place. There was no curve to any of the floors or walls. Everything was clean, spacious, and, most unusually, flat—without the ubiquitous curve that was life aboard a grav-spin spaceship. What’s more, it was very nearly empty. Since escaping the recording studio, Danny, scouting ahead, had waved them down cross-corridors only twice to avoid run-ins with other scientists.
“Where the heck are we?”
“Astro,” Misha panted.
“The astrography lab?” Petra gaped. Besides the three main freighters, there were dozens of smaller satellite labs and ships in the fleet. Petra had always thought of them as the boondocks: disorganized little out-of-the-way places where scientists went to run their weird experiments. “I had no idea it was so big.”
Danny shook his head. “It’s really not. Only about a third the size of the Tribal Prime.”
Realization slowly dawned on Petra as Danny skidded to a halt before a wide intersection. She pressed herself against a wall, minimizing her profile as Danny peered around the corners.
Petra stared down at her prisoner’s slippers and the perfectly flat floor beneath them.
This place had true artificial gravity. She couldn’t wrap her brain around what that meant—she was no egghead—but she sensed that it meant something. Not even the Tribal Prime had artificial gravity.
“Crap,” Danny hissed, drawing back from the corner. “The genetics team is gabbing in the hallway again. They’re gonna clog up the way for a while.”
What’s a genetics team doing in an astro lab?
“That means they’re not in their lab. We’ll go that way instead. It butts up against the docking arm.” Misha grabbed Petra’s hand and led her back the way they’d come, this time ducking into the room with the gene therapy tanks.
Petra felt dizzy, seeing all those clear pods stacked along the walls. Half of them were empty save for the clear suspension liquid. When Petra realized what was in the other half of the pods, she skidded to a halt, her mouth hanging open.
“Clones,” she whispered. She’d never seen one before, but the forms in the pods were unmistakable. Naked, hairless bodies the size of middle-schoolers drifted in suspension gel, overgrown fetuses sprouting a dozen different mechanical umbilical cords, waiting to be born.
Every half-baked government that humankind had produced since the fall of Earth had outlawed cloning. All of them, from the Federations of Mars to the scattered sovereign states of the Jovian space stations to the short-lived feudal technocratic utopias of the Oort cloud.
Sure, people with time and money to spare wrung their hands and fretted about bespoke organ farms full of fully sentient and perfectly customized organ-generating machines. Still, even if you shoved the ethics aside, it was darned hard to run a lawful society when anybody with the right connections could grow their evil twin.
So what in the ever-loving heck was the fleet doing with a big squad of half-baked clones?
The speaker system clicked, and the sound of emergency klaxons filled the air.
“We’ve been made.” Danny grabbed Petra by the arm and yanked her forward. “We’ve got to get to the shuttles before the place goes into lockdown!”
She spun, following Misha into the docking arm at a dead run.
They were too late. The docking arm was strangely empty like the rest of the ship, but all shuttle access terminals glowed red—lockdown.
Petra turned, looking back up the length of the corridor. Over the howl of the klaxons, she heard the distant sounds of shouting and running feet. Security cameras covered every inch of the docking arm. Any second now, guards would turn down the corner, and there was nowhere else for them to go.
“You ain’t got an override code to get into those shuttles, by any chance?” Petra glanced over her shoulder at Danny and Misha. They didn’t answer. The looks on their faces were answers enough.
“It was worth a shot.” Petra lifted the stunner she’d stolen from Stiff-Jaw, ready to shoot the first person that turned down the hallway corner. She wasn’t gonna win this fight, but she’d go down swinging. “You guys did real good,” she told her companions. “Sorry we didn’t make it any farther.”
“The escape pods!” Misha’s hand slapped down on Petra’s shoulder, making her jump nearly out of her skin. The tall woman had to shout to make herself heard over the klaxons, but Petra could’ve sworn she had said something about Followers. She pointed down the hallway to the end of the row of shuttle terminals. A grid of nine emergency airlock hatches filled the space, each of them a circle less than a meter in diameter.
“Are you crazy?” Escape pods didn’t deactivate in standard lockdown procedures, and for darned good reasons. They didn’t have thrusters or navigation. They were only spaceworthy boxes with a few hours of life support, meant to keep survivors alive long enough to be rescued by nearby ships. If she climbed into one of those and hit the eject button, she’d be left floating adrift in the middle of the fleet, waiting for brass to swoop by and scoop her up again.
The starry-eyed techs that had busted her out didn’t seem to understand the concept of a long shot. Misha was pushing her forward. Danny had already run ahead and was activating all of the escape pod portals. He intended to eject not only one of the pods but all of them—creating confusion to cover the getaway.
A man in Marine fatigues appeared at the end of the hallway. Petra fired her stunner before he could fire his, sinking the fellow with a long blast of discharge. He wouldn’t be the last body to fill the hallway.
“Get in,” Misha said.
“Get in, and then what?” Petra demanded. “You got a friend with a private spaceship out there ready to pick us up?”
“Maybe,” Danny gritted. He drew something out of his pocket and shoved it into her free hand. It was a loose memory drive. “You got any faith?”
