Rubicon, page 33
West’s workstation upstairs could hardly be considered tidy, but this place was a disaster.
A workbench sat covered in wire clippings and discarded tools. The half-moon console was strewn with dozens of data cores, modules, and hard drives. What must have been every piece of intelligence they’d gathered over the last two months—all connected with tendrils of jury-rigged wiring, creating a massive web of humming electronics, flashing an asynchronous rainbow of colors. Every one of the two dozen screens showed a different spreadsheet, graph, or flow of data.
“Mira’s ashes…” She stared in awe. “What are you … doing?”
West motioned for her to come closer as he marched up to the half-moon console. She tore her gaze away from the chaos and stepped up beside him.
A pile of metal glinted on the counter as she approached, sending slow-motion images of flying shrapnel and Kato’s bloody coughing death throes into the back of her mind. It was a small collection of the metal that’d killed them all. West must’ve been testing it, examining its properties to figure out how it’d pierced their alanthum armor and shield constructs.
West flicked a new holographic interface into the air above the console. It took Adriene a second to orient and realize what she saw.
The Mechan’s holding cell.
The scrapper lay faceup in the middle of an empty, yellow-tinged room inside a secondary cage comprised of thick, clear plastic walls. Its limbs, neck, and torso were secured to the floor with massive metal cuffs. A single bundling of cables ran from under its chassis to somewhere off the edge of the frame. The bot remained perfectly still, unmoving.
Adriene swallowed, unable to tear her eyes from the screen. “I’m surprised we have the means to contain it.”
West tilted his head. “All vessels built in the last few years come equipped with such holding cells. It became standard after we gained the ability to plan offensives.”
“Because of rezone tech?” she asked absentmindedly, though it wasn’t really a question. It was the only reason anything had changed.
When he didn’t respond, she looked up to find him staring down at her with a hesitant, wary glint in his eye. He almost looked ashamed.
Awareness of his proximity crept in; she could feel the unnatural warmth his cybernetics radiated, hear the light, constant buzz the internal electronics gave off. He licked his dry lips and looked as if he might say something, but only shook his head and diverted his gaze, gesturing to the Mechan’s feed.
“Your teammate’s hack was thorough,” he said. “He added failsafes to ensure the code could not be restored or rewritten easily. Like a dynamic virus. It was … creative. I’m impressed he was able to code something like that in the field.”
She bit the inside of her cheek. Though Kato had facilitated, that’d actually been her Rubicon’s doing. But West had, at times, seemed paranoid about her AI and the extent of its capabilities. There was no reason he needed to know that detail.
“The Mechan appears to be working on repairing the damage,” West continued, “but I doubt it will be successful any time soon. It will only be able to move again when—or if—I allow it. That room features a conductive shield, a graviton wave dampener, and is completely air-gapped, so there’s no risk of it hacking the ship or mainframe.”
A hot trickle pricked at Adriene’s nape, and she looked up at him. “Why are you trying to convince me it’s not dangerous?”
His chin lifted from the screen, and he locked his gaze onto her. “Because I’d like you to question it.”
She barked a laugh. His expression didn’t change, and her smile faded. He was fucking serious.
“I, uh…” She let out another nervous, raw-edged chuckle. “You’re not kidding, are you?”
He shook his head.
She sighed. “I doubt it speaks our language.”
West’s chin lifted. “I have installed a translator VI. Once you’re able to get it speaking, it will not take more than a minute to begin translating properly.”
She heaved a grating sigh. “Why me? Wouldn’t you rather talk to it yourself?”
“Granted, I’ve only had a handful of hours,” West said with a resounding sigh, “but I’ve had no luck. I’ve restored its power, and it can fully function, but it has put up a mental blockade and refuses to say anything.”
Scratching the back of her neck, she gave a drifting headshake. “At the black site, that thing tried to hack my Rubicon. What if it tries again?”
“That is exactly what I’m hoping it will do.”
She scoffed. “What?”
“I have written an executable,” he said, as if that explained something.
“Which does…?” she prompted.
“If, or hopefully when, the Mechan attempts to connect, your Rubicon will automatically force a two-way connection, simultaneously delivering a payload of code that will allow me complete control over the bot’s data storage and other functions. Within microseconds, I should be able to sever its connection to you.”
She quirked a brow. “Should?”
His mouth pinched in a slight frown. “It is not a guarantee, but I strongly believe it will work. I will be standing by to physically remove you if for any reason it does not.”
She chewed her bottom lip, recalling what he’d mentioned about the security features of the cell. If that was true and something went wrong, it’d only be a matter of walking out the door to sever the connection. Her Rubicon had held out for much longer than that during the fight.
She heaved out a strained breath, her wounded arms smarting as she leaned on the counter, rolling her neck. Her palms were tacky with sweat, and she again missed the conveniences of her hardsuit.
“Is this it?” she asked, voice toneless.
“Is this what?”
“Your ‘final and resounding defeat of the Mechan’? This campaign … is this the end? Does this scrapper have whatever it is you’re after?”
“I cannot say for sure,” he said, regret lacing his tone. “But considering your team’s sacrifice to win this intel for us, I certainly hope so.”
An uncomfortable tightness grew in her chest, and she pressed her knuckles harder into the counter.
He was right. Seven people had died to secure this scrap heap alive and in working order. If she could do something to give the trauma they’d endured and would continue to endure even a shred of meaning … she had to try.
She stood up and faced West squarely, folding her arms in front of her. “I think the bot will be suspicious if I walk in there and demand it try to hack me. What am I supposed to do?”
West shook his head, looking back to swipe across a tablet on the console. “Simply talk. Your Rubicon should be able to force a connection eventually, regardless. But, if the Mechan initiates a connection, it will be that much faster and easier.”
And dangerous.
“Otherwise, all you need to do is speak with it. Distract it. Just try to get it talking about something. Anything.”
“So, politics? The weather? What it had for breakfast?”
West closed his eye and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“All right, I get it,” she sighed, “breakfast isn’t funny. Lead the way, boss.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE
Adriene stood a step inside the sealed cell for a long while, staring down at the scrapper secured to the floor beyond the secondary, clear plastic walls within the main chamber.
Her eyes scrutinized the prone bot. Its chassis looked ill-fitting in a way, the mismatched pieces scored and scuffed—not scratch-resistant and polished like modern alanthum but weathered and beat-up like the hull of an old groundside tank transport. The textured plating contained thin, almost imperceptible striations of navy blues and grays, creating the appearance of dark, tempered steel. Its ocular sensors were alight with a hazy yellow glow, unwavering. She had no idea if it even knew she’d walked in.
She fumbled the thin headset over her ears, the means with which she’d interface with the air-gapped translation VI.
Pulse speeding, she told her feet to move closer, but she hesitated. She’d never been this close to a functioning Mechan that wasn’t trying to kill her or hybridize her. Not that it probably didn’t want to, it just couldn’t. She’d certainly never seen one locked up and complacent before. At any moment it could bust free from its restraints and rip her head off.
In her HUD, a diagram expanded: the specifications of the containment cell’s features, their safety ratings, and tensile strengths.
Yeah, I get it. What’s our plan of attack here?
// Don’t look at me. You’re driving this ship. //
Freeloader.
She rubbed the cold metal of the translator headset. Though she was certain CNEF must have captured at least a couple of Mechan in the last two decades, she didn’t know of anyone who had successfully conversed with one before. Dissected, hacked, downloaded, analyzed—sure. But sat down and had a chat with?
Was West crazy? She had no idea what she was doing.
// But really, when do you ever? //
She rolled her eyes.
// Just kidding. //
I know.
// That said, it might be as good an approach as any. //
Stupidity?
// I meant madness, but sure, that too. //
She took a few cautious steps forward, heart pounding, and made her way to stand near the Mechan’s head. Waves of dread rolled through her, ears and neck heating with panic. She swallowed down her danger instincts, assuring herself she was safe by running her eyes over the bot’s restraints again and again.
Letting out a slow breath, she moved closer. She crossed her legs under her as she sat on the floor, folding her hands in her lap. Its head lay only a meter away beyond the glass enclosure.
“Yeah, I don’t want to be here either,” she mumbled. For the briefest microsecond, she swore the bot’s yellow eyes brightened.
Anything?
// Nothing. //
She lowered her voice. “The boss just wants me to talk to you. About anything, I guess. Got any topics you’d like to cover?”
The hunk of metal lay perfectly still and silent.
“Didn’t think so. What do Mechan do, anyway?”
She froze as its yellow eyes flickered a few times in rapid succession. She definitely hadn’t imagined it this time.
“Yeah? You wanna talk about hobbies?” She waited a few seconds, but there was no visible response. She released a heavy breath. “I suppose the calculated genocide of my people keeps you pretty busy.”
Its ocular sensors faded out slowly before returning to full brightness.
A strange, bitter heat began to build deep in her chest. “You killed my squad, you know,” she said, cognizant of the sharp edge her tone had taken.
It gave no response, and Adriene resigned to push the anger back down. She had no way to truly threaten it. Playing bad cop would be a pointless waste of energy.
“All right, then, I guess I’m just going to have to ramble. I’ll start by listing every perennial I can remember off the top of my head—stop me if I miss one.”
Before she could launch into it, a resonating sonic blast of feedback pealed through the headset. She grimaced and ripped it free.
“Mira’s fiery…” She glanced up at the corner of the room that held the security camera housing before focusing back on the bot’s static form. She slid the silent earpiece back on and repositioned herself.
“I apologize.”
Adriene flinched as the Mechan’s words rang into her ears—at once hollow and sharp, deafening and quiet. Its voice was a hoarse, layered symphony of screaming machines, like dozens of sharp nails screeching across a sheet of metal.
Is that normal?
// No idea. I’ve got no baselines for any of this. //
“Uh…” Her heart slammed mercilessly against her rib cage. “You apologize? For what?”
“My silence,” it grated, and Adriene couldn’t mask a pained scowl as its shrill words screeched into her ear. “I made needed repairs to communications operation.”
The more it spoke, the more the horrific rasp faded in favor of a tolerable, yet equally disturbing tone as the VI software slowly modulated it to a more human timbre.
Adriene squeezed the burgeoning headache from her temple. “You mean you hacked the translator VI? Why?”
“It was flawed. Now it is not.”
She swallowed, considering how to respond, but she had no idea what to do other than gape in awe at this Mechan she was somehow talking to.
“Um, thank you,” she said, then immediately winced. Fucking thank you?
// Why are you thanking it? //
I don’t know! Quiet—I’m driving the ship, remember?
// Right into the sun … //
She blew out a hard sigh, shook her uncertainty away, and just rolled with it. “I’m surprised your programming accommodates interspecies communication. Is that a normal Mechan function?”
“‘Mechan’ does not translate.”
“Mechan,” she said pointedly, as if annunciating it would somehow make the definition clearer. “You know…” She swept her hand out to indicate the bot’s chassis.
Its yellow eyes brightened, then faded down into a flicker before it evened back out. “Comprehended.”
“What do you call yourselves?”
“Our word of your word of ‘Mechan’ is ‘Deliverer,’ if that is your signification.”
She threw a pointed look over her shoulder at the camera. Was West hearing this shit? Deliverer?
She turned back to the bot. “I, uh, haven’t seen one like you before. You seem old—no offense. Are you an early model?”
“Early term requires context of time scale…” It paused, and she wasn’t sure if it was done or if it was working with the VI software to find an accurate translation. “Closer analogy of prototype,” it finally finished.
“Can I ask…” she began carefully. “What were you doing all the way out there?”
“Context?”
“At that black site, on that planet where we found you? How’d you end up out there?”
“I enact destiny, given by mercy incorporeal.”
Adriene’s mouth opened, eyes widening. A flicker of recognition came with the words, fragments of the historical data briefly stored in her mind, but she couldn’t grasp it. “Mercy incorporeal? I don’t think that’s translating.”
“Your cursory yet ruthlessly complex language has no acceptable equivalent.”
“Fair … How’d you end up alone?”
The bot didn’t respond, its ocular sensors steady.
“I’ve never seen a Mechan by itself … ever.”
“Unrelated.”
“What?”
“Deliverers.”
She blinked slowly. “What?”
“I was beached.”
She snorted. “Beached?”
“You have far too many words meaning the same thing in varying contexts.”
“Uh…” She breathed a nervous laugh but swallowed down her growing amusement.
The yellow glow of its eyes flickered for a moment, then after a time it said, “Marooned.”
“Ah,” she said with a nod. “I see. You were stranded.”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Utmost long. Castor cycle? Longer?”
Scratching the back of her neck, she shook her head. She had no idea what that meant. She’d never learned anything about how Mechan kept time—or if they even did.
“So,” she said, “that busted ship in the hangar was yours, then?”
“Syntax … Hanger—one who hangs?”
“What? No—”
“Bust—anatomy. Bosomed?”
She breathed a sigh. “Mira—sorry, um … Was that your broken spacecraft in the … spacecraft landing area?”
“Yes. I attempted to unbust, but repair resources were limited.”
“I see. Why did you hide out in the server room? Wouldn’t you want your kind to be able to find you easier if they came to rescue you?”
“No.”
“No?”
“Suggestion irrelevant. No kind exists.”
Adriene tilted her head.
“Area select was safety due to hibernation state—enacted after acceptance I would not be found.”
She flashed a weak grin and danced her fingers in the air. “Surprise…”
Her tone fell away slowly, as she could just about imagine West’s exasperated sigh.
“You know, I’m curious,” she said, then took a moment to clear her mind of colloquialisms and homonyms and anything else that might confuse the bot. “The alarm that was installed at the facility. My squadmate—uh, my friend told me they were, what we call, retrofitted. Installed after the station was built. Did you set those up to protect you after you realized you were marooned?”
“Yes.”
She nodded slowly, jaw skimming back and forth a few times before she made the decision. “I was the one who triggered that alarm.”
“No. Not for human.”
“No, but it detected the AI in my brain. An artificial intelligence implant.”
It gave no response.
“Does that surprise you?”
“Somewhat.”
“We’re more alike than you thought, huh?”
“Outward view not adequate gauge.”
She sat back at that, tilting her head as she watched the unblinking ocular sensors. “But what I can’t figure out is why a Mechan would have defenses against itself. Why set an alarm that’ll go off for an AI? For your own kind?”
It didn’t respond at first, then its yellow eyes flickered lightly as it said, “Blind human … you still think I am one of these ‘Mechan’?”
Adriene stared at it for a few silent moments, letting the meaning of its words slowly sink in. “What?” she managed, voice taut.
// Deployed. //
Her ears erupted with a blaring screech of agony.
She ripped the headset off with a roar of pain, flinging it away. She gaped at the bot, its yellow eyes a chaotic flickering mess, oscillating between yellow and red and blue and white.
