Rubicon, page 17
Compromised? She stared back at the distrustful glean in his eye before realizing … he meant hybridized.
She stifled a laugh. It wasn’t particularly funny, but the buzz from whatever she kept drinking had started to sink in, loosening her nerves.
It made sense, she supposed. An average-at-best soldier is separated from her squad, her suit cam cuts off, and four scrapper contacts conveniently disappear. It made far more sense than what’d really happened.
More sweat trickled down her temples, and she wiped it away; it was hot as hell in here too. Did they keep the heat cranked on every deck of the ship?
“That’s idiotic,” Brigham huffed. “Besides, she was cleared by Medical.”
“And if I was hybridized,” Adriene said, taking a little too much pleasure in their obvious discomfort at her use of the actual word, “you’d all be dead already.”
The Stormwalkers’ expressions darkened.
Coleson crossed his arms. “Maybe you’re waiting for the ideal time to strike.”
“Or,” Wyatt offered, her eyes narrowing to slits, “you’re a sleeper agent.”
Adriene scoffed, but a bitter humor pressed on her chest as she realized: These people really had no idea. They thought they’d need data and analysis to tell if she’d been compromised, that she’d blend in. They didn’t realize how grotesquely obvious it was when a robot hive mind had the reins of a human body.
“So tell us,” Ivon prompted. “How’d you really get rid of those four bots?”
She stared back, unblinking, letting the silence weigh heavy around them. Then, as steadily and straight-faced as she could manage, she said, “My protocols forbid me from answering.”
Brigham snorted a hearty laugh, but the Stormwalkers didn’t look nearly as amused. Wyatt actually took a half step back, her face paling to a rather unhealthy shade. Ivon and Coleson seemed even more pissed off.
“You think this is funny?” Ivon snapped.
“Kinda, yeah,” Adriene returned. “You idiots really don’t know how obvious it’d be if I had a scrapper in my head?”
What she didn’t say, was that if Mechan ever did manage to perfect controlling a human body, they’d be done for. It was the kind of thing she didn’t bother worrying about. When that day came, it’d all be over. Honestly—at times like this especially, with three drunk thugs illustrating mankind’s capacity for idiocy—that’d be just fine.
“For the ‘foremost elite squad’ of Flintlock,” she said, surprised by her own choice to continue prodding them, “that’s pretty sad.”
Coleson’s face grew a deep shade of purple, and at that moment, she knew she’d crossed some invisible line and, with it, forfeited any chance of resolving this in a civil manner.
But she was having a hard time giving a shit. They could accuse her of being a fucking Mechan undercover operative, and she was supposed to stand by and take it, but she couldn’t point out how ignorant they were?
Ivon bared his teeth and, oddly, squared up to Brigham. Ivon had almost fifteen centimeters on him, though Brigham was easily twice as stocky.
Her lieutenant’s jaw set, and Adriene eyed him as the muscles in his arms flexed and a thick vein appeared in his forehead. She’d been so distracted by these idiots’ reactions, she hadn’t even noticed Brigham’s mounting anger. She took one last drink, then slowly set the bottle down.
“I’ve told you this before, Miles,” Ivon said slowly. “And I’m getting sick of repeating myself. You and your recon scum need to learn some manners.”
Brigham shook his head slowly, then with surprising swiftness, drew back his fist and hit Ivon square in the side of the face. Ivon fell back into his friends, then tumbled to the ground.
Brigham shook out his hand and glared down at him. “How’s that for manners?”
“Mira’s ashes,” Adriene cursed as the other two lunged for Brigham. She wasn’t nearly drunk enough for this.
Before she knew it, Coleson broke from Brigham and rushed her. His fist met the bone of her cheek, triggering a sharp burst of pain.
She stumbled back, vision dancing, then reached toward the bar and caught the neck of a metal bottle. Warm liquor spilled down her arm as she flipped the bottle over and cracked it across the side of his face. He collapsed, clutching his head.
Wyatt and Brigham wrestled on the ground a couple of meters away, crashing into a table and spilling leftover drinks all across the floor in a symphony of shattering glass.
Adriene knelt beside Coleson to get him in a headlock, but Ivon came out of nowhere and grabbed her by the scruff of her shirt.
He threw her against the wall and pinned his forearm to her neck. She clawed at his arm as she fought for breath, her vision wavering as he crushed down on her windpipe.
With a burst of white, a twinge of static pain fired behind her eyes. The wash cleared away a second later, revealing the sharp, clean lines of her HUD.
// Welcome to Rubicon. //
Along with the steady voice came a wave of calm clarity.
Welcome, yourself. Just in time for the fun.
She bared her teeth and, with renewed fervor, thrust both palms hard into Ivon’s chest. He stumbled back far enough for her to jack her knee into his groin.
He cried out and crumpled to the ground. She slid halfway down the wall before catching herself, gasping for breath.
She leaned over and spit out a mouthful of blood.
// Error. Suit offline. //
Her vision cleared, and her breath steadied. The buzz she’d been working so hard to acquire seemed to have disappeared entirely, replaced with sharp clarity and quick reactions. Which both impressed and annoyed her.
Most of the features of her HUD remained offline, presumably due to the lack of a suit, but the threat assessment interface remained, flashing and lighting up as it gauged the angry soldiers around her.
Coleson rushed her, but she could sense him coming, feel the air move and smell the gin on his breath before he arrived.
She ducked his sloppy right hook. As if in slow motion, she watched the realization dawn on his face as his swing missed.
She delivered a solid blow to his gut. He fell, clutching his stomach, gasping for air.
Wyatt’s stocky frame limned in a deep orange in Adriene’s HUD, the corresponding pip climbing the threat assessment ranks as the woman swept an empty glass off the bar nearby. She dashed forward, smashing it down on Adriene, who brought up her forearm to deflect, but couldn’t block it completely. The glass shattered against the side of Adriene’s face, the shards tearing gashes down her cheek.
// Error. Suit offline. Aid cannot be rendered. //
Brigham’s bloodied face appeared over Wyatt’s shoulder. He yanked Wyatt away from Adriene, and Wyatt’s threat assessment dropped.
Adriene leaned against the bar, grimacing as her cheek blazed with sharp, stinging pain. Warm blood trickled out, and she wiped at it with the back of her hand.
Coleson’s threat climbed as he finally picked himself back up, gritting his teeth. But instead of going for Adriene again, he grabbed a metal alcohol bottle by the neck, then turned to help Wyatt gang up on Brigham.
Oh, hell no. She let out a low growl and pushed away from the bar, sidestepping the still-breathless Ivon, curled in the fetal position. She lowered her shoulder and tackled Coleson to the ground before he reached Brigham.
She fell harder than she’d expected, and the side of her head cracked against the metal floor along with Coleson.
They landed on their sides, and Coleson shoved her away with one hand while lashing out with the other, still gripping the bottle.
Adriene recoiled, barely able to meet the strike with crossed forearms. The curved neck and brightly colored label of the bottle flashed close, briefly contorting into the red-orange glow of an active crucible. A spike of adrenaline stole the breath from her lungs.
// Vitals elevated. Aid cannot be rendered. //
More threat pips appeared in her HUD.
// Four additional contacts. //
Black boots rushed in. Adriene caught her breath, glancing up to meet the annoyed look of a blond woman clad in the prim, buttoned-up dark navy suit of the military police.
// Hostility unclear. //
It’s okay. Adriene turned over onto her stomach, entwining her hands behind her neck. It’s over.
The MPs’ boots squeaked against the metal as they moved to subdue the others, barking orders to stand down.
Adriene rested her unbloodied cheek on the cool metal floor. She had to wonder if maybe this was not what the commodore had meant by “get some rest.”
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
Adriene slouched on a bench beside the door inside the white-walled medical office, pressing a wad of blood-soaked gauze to her cheek.
The bleeding had slowed, and most of the pain had seeped into the back of her skull, morphing into a dull, persistent headache. Her swollen knuckles ached as she picked at the spray of crusted blood on her shirt.
A weight grew in her chest, equal parts amusement and nostalgia as she thought about the last time she’d been in this position: freshly reprimanded by MPs after Booker had thrown an obnoxious private across a table and started a full-scale mess brawl.
Booker wouldn’t have tolerated even a second of that bullshit the Stormwalkers had dished out. He’d have started throwing punches at the first indication of even so much as a disparaging thought. In comparison, her new lieutenant had at least attempted to hold his temper, if briefly.
She glanced across the room, where Daroga stood patching up Brigham, who’d endured Wyatt’s same glass-smashing tactic, but to the neck instead of the face. The two men were far enough away, Adriene shouldn’t have been able to see the cracks in Daroga’s dry lips or hear his knuckle popping as he adjusted the tool, or Brigham holding his breath under the soft, static crackling of newly grafted skin. But with her Rubicon still active, she continued to experience the same sense of slow-motion clarity she’d had in combat. The gashes in her cheek stung, her pounding head hurt like hell, and she continued to pour sweat, but at least the void in the back of her brain had gone, leaving a heady buzz of reassurance in its place.
Any solace her VI gave was matched by an equal degree of anxiety. Because … why did she feel that way?
The first three times it’d turned on—when Daroga installed it, during the training sims, and when Brigham activated it on the dropship—she’d experienced none of the same tranquil clarity. Something had changed on that planet, in that facility. When her suit cam had cut off and her HUD had gone haywire and she’d seen every piece of technology from the wiring of her own suit all the way back to the Aurora.
She had to figure out what had caused it. Luckily, she had a captive audience—quite literally.
Rubicon?
// Present. //
Adriene scoffed under her breath. Thanks for helping me out back there.
// It is my primary directive to ensure your safety. //
Another wave of calm washed over her along with the steady voice.
What happened on the planet earlier? When you glitched out?
// Syntax error. Please rephrase. //
She gritted her teeth. The thing did a pretty damn good job of reading her mind most of the time, but now it couldn’t understand basic slang?
When you … malfunctioned. When my HUD shorted out, but I could still see everything on overwatch?
// Ancillary overwatch is a standard function of all hardware loadouts, regardless of which team member administers the primary module. //
She sighed.
No, as in, visualize it … Like in my mind. Along with scrapper positions, their models, loadouts. Where my squad was, and shit happening on the Aurora, and … everything in between. That’s not standard overwatch. Something happened, I could feel the change.
// That information is not available. //
She leaned back on the bench, slouching further.
You can’t say that. I saw it with my own eyes. What was it?
// That information is not available. //
You’re lying.
// That is not possible. //
You expect me to believe that?
// Lying is wielded as a means of self-preservation or deception. I have no sense of self, and thus no reason to lie. //
That’s bullshit. And when the hell did you start saying “I”?
A metallic creak pulled her focus back to reality, and she looked up. Brigham and Daroga stood at a supply cabinet nearby. Daroga unlocked a drawer and pulled out a small, flat prescription case. “One every twelve hours,” he instructed in his rich, steady timbre, passing the pills to Brigham.
“Yes, sir,” Brigham said, pocketing the case. “Thanks, Doc.”
Daroga paced back to the gurney and began cleaning up.
Adriene stood as Brigham approached. Though still raw and pink, the newly grafted skin on his neck was a massive improvement over the nightmare of torn flesh and pouring blood it had been.
He wrung his hands, glancing down as he stopped in front of her. “Hey, uh … sorry about that, Valero. I let things get kinda outta hand back there.”
“I didn’t help matters any,” she admitted. “Though it seems like that may not have been your first run-in with them?”
His jaw flexed. “Yeah. They just really know how to piss me off, ya know?”
“Yeah, I get that.”
He eyed her cheek. “Sorry I got you all cut up…”
// Doubtless makes your face more interesting. //
Adriene barely suppressed a laugh.
No need for commentary, thank you.
As she contemplated a response to Brigham’s obvious remorse, she scrunched her lips, a little incensed. Because the stupid VI was probably right.
She shrugged. “It’ll make for a badass scar, right?”
Brigham chuckled.
// Still not interested in my commentary? //
She cast a hard, spiteful thought inward.
// That does not have the effect on me you think it does. //
She sighed.
“No scars on my watch,” Daroga said from across the room. He patted the gurney. “You’re up, Sergeant.”
Adriene nodded goodbye to Brigham and crossed the room. She sat on the gurney near Daroga while he replaced his tools with a fresh set. Though he put on a convincing front of good spirits, he seemed exhausted, with dark bags ringing his eyes, a dusting of stubble along his jawline, black hair tied back.
“A little localized painkiller up first.” Needle raised, he stepped closer, carrying in a waft of evergreen and clover. “This’ll sting. Sorry.”
She winced as he delivered the anesthetic, but the pain in her cheek washed away quickly, fading into numbness. “Thanks.”
“Shit,” he hissed, half under his breath. “They got you good too.” His gaze raked over her briefly. “Picking a fight with the Stormwalkers … That’s pretty ballsy for day three.”
// I concur. //
“They started it,” she replied.
// Your lieutenant started it. //
Maybe technically, she groused, though really, they were asking for it.
Daroga discarded the needle. “I guess that’s why they’re spending the night in the brig, and you’re not?”
She frowned. Great. No chance of burying this hatchet, then. Rivalry confirmed.
Daroga pulled a disposable wipe from a mostly empty package. He’d had to use a lot on Brigham. “I suppose it was coming sooner or later, after that near miss in the training suites.” He started cleaning the dried blood from her face with the wipe, which radiated the stale, sharp scent of rubbing alcohol.
She wiped a trickle of sweat from her temple with a knuckle. “Yeah. Kato always so willing to throw down for you like that?”
Daroga smirked. “He’s a good guy. But you know what they say about the line between bravery and stupidity.”
“Yeah,” she said with an acquiescent sigh. “You two act like brothers.”
His head wavered back and forth. “Almost are, in a way. I lived with him for a while growing up.”
“On Prova?”
“Yeah, after…” Daroga drifted off, a furrow pinching between his brows, not meeting her eye as he kept cleaning.
“Kato told me,” she said, voice low. “About the Brownout, I mean.”
His head lowered in a sharp nod, dark lashes fluttering with a few quick blinks. “Ah.”
“Hope that’s okay.”
“Yeah,” he said quickly, tone hesitant but genuine. “Totally fine. Most people on board know.” He picked up the empty wipe package and waved it at her. “One sec.”
He stepped away to discard the package and bloodied wipe in the biohazard chute, then disappeared into a supply room.
Adriene awaited his return, rolling her bottom lip between her teeth, unsaid words on the tip of her tongue.
She could relate. And she could tell him that. He already knew about her hybridization; it’d be easy to point out the parallels. They could commiserate. Forge a connection.
But it all just felt like bullshit.
Sure, there was a tenuous thread there. The Mechan had taken both of their free wills.
But he’d been twelve. Hauled off his homeworld in the middle of the night by frantic adults desperate to find safety, only to be delivered directly into the arms of the enemy, then held captive for weeks while being used as collateral to secure the compliant subjugation of his entire species.
Whereas she’d been held hostage inside her own body, used as a weapon to kill her comrades until she starved to death.
They were both profoundly awful experiences, yes. But not comparable.
// One individual’s trauma cannot be weighed against another’s. Both bear equal validity. //
She wiped sweat from her forehead. I know.
Though the VI’s words rang true, she couldn’t bring herself to take it to heart. Some nebulous mental blockade prevented her; she couldn’t even really verbalize why.
// One of the benefits of this coexistence is that you need not verbalize to communicate. Only internalize. //
