Марта Уэллс - Network Effect

Eden. Eden was the name I used on RaviHyral, when ART had helped me. This had to be a trick, except that targetControlSystem was drowning in the code bundles I’d sent; it shouldn’t have the ability to send me a packet now.

But something on board ART had sent it. I started an analysis of the transmission.

I kept hold of the targetDrone and used my feet to shove off the wall, swung my body around on the deck and hit Target Five’s legs with my legs. He fell sideways into the bulkhead, then down to the deck. I couldn’t get up yet but at least we were both down here now.

On the channel where I’d been following Amena’s progress, I saw she had passed through the foyer and on into the corridor beyond, and found the airlock. She was breathing hard and sweating as she tapped the cycle command on the pad. “I hope this is right,” she muttered to my drones hovering around her. Then the warning lights flashed, a sign that the outer lock had received the command and was preparing to open. “Yes!” Amena waved her arms and did a little dance.

My analysis of the packet finished and I checked the results: no killware or malware detected and the file type indicated it was a video clip. It also indicated that it was a delayed message, sent sometime earlier but trapped when ART’s feed and comm had gone down. The fact that a message stuck in the comm’s store and forward buffer had finally been delivered meant that as targetControlSystem failed, some of ART’s more complex systems were beginning to restart.

It could still be a trick. It was exactly the kind of tricky shit SecUnits could do. And I knew so many ways someone could use an intense visual stimulus to temporarily trash my scan, visual sensors, neural tissue, etc., but. I had to play it. Maybe I was desperate for some sign ART was still here somewhere, but the fact that it was a video clip felt like a communication method only someone who knew me would choose. I played it.

Target Six ran up and aimed his energy weapon at me, but I let go of the targetDrone and pulled Target Five on top of me. With all the flailing and screaming going on (Target Five, not me) Target Six couldn’t get a clear shot. I was firing both the energy weapons in my arms but the Targets’ protective suits seemed to be deflecting the bolts, at least to some extent. (With all the screaming, it was hard to tell.) Another targetDrone swung in but my surviving drones slammed it sideways and it hit Target Six’s helmet. There was a lot going on, but I really needed to get off the floor.

Amena and her drones scrambled back as the airlock cycled open and Arada, Overse, Ratthi, and Thiago stumbled out. Ratthi went down in a heap of singed EVAC suit; I couldn’t tell if he’d been hurt or had just tripped on the lock’s raised seal. Then Thiago staggered sideways and Overse caught his arm, and I knew my first theory had been correct and that the safepod had taken extensive damage.

The compressed video clip in the packet was from the serial World Hoppers, from a story arc climax episode, when a secondary main character’s mind had been taken over by a sentient brain-virus (I know) and the story was really much better than it sounds but it was the moment when the character said, I am trapped in my own body .

I really needed to get up to ART’s bridge.

I really needed to keep Targets Five and Six and their drones away from my humans who were unhelpfully still wandering around in the airlock foyer exclaiming at each other.

And I had to do both at once.

I got my knees up, lifted, and threw Target Five at Target Six. They both fell backward and I rolled to my feet. A damaged targetDrone slammed through what was left of my drone cloud. It clipped my shoulder as I threw myself back toward the quarters module hatch. I needed to make sure both Targets followed me, so I yelled, “I’m going to blow up the transport and kill all of you, you pieces of shit!”

It was lame, but I was in a hurry.

As I ran, the Targets yelled in response, high-pitched, furious, and incomprehensible. A damaged drone managed a last set of images, verifying that both Targets charged after me. I headed up the corridor toward the control area.

That was the point where I realized I hadn’t discontinued the channel I was using to send my visual input to Amena. She probably hadn’t been able to pay attention to it since she had left Medical (humans, even augmented humans, can’t process multiple inputs like I can) but it was still playing in her feed. Her drone escort showed her standing in the airlock foyer (still? what the hell?) with Arada while Overse and Thiago dragged Ratthi out of his damaged EVAC suit. Arada had her suit half off and looked frazzled and to put it mildly, concerned. On my feed, Amena shouted repeatedly, Where are you going? What is happening?

Under the circumstances, they were reasonable questions. Get to Medical, I told her. I didn’t want to answer any reasonable questions. If I was wrong, I’d probably be dead, and that was bad enough. Being stupid and dead would just be that much worse.

But what— Amena began, and I backburnered the channel.

Running through ART’s corridors, I didn’t have a lot of time to plan. The way the MedSystem’s platform had activated in response to Eletra’s medical emergency told me the ship’s operational code, or at least large fragments of it, was still intact. And targetControlSystem was going down under my barrage of contacts, allowing more of ART’s systems to come back online. This was technically a good time to try to breach the control area, but I’d be doing it even if I had to fight through an entire task group of Targets and their stupid semi-invisible drones.

I took the corridor up through the central module and passed a targetDrone bobbing in midair and one bumping along the lower bulkhead. As targetControlSystem went down, it was flooding them with garbage code.

Back in the quarters module, Amena and the others were finally clumping down the corridor toward Medical. They encountered the targetDrone that Amena had disabled with fire suppressant, still floating aimlessly, and Overse bashed it with a cutting tool brought from the safepod.

Scout Two showed me the control area foyer, barely three meters ahead, was empty which meant I’d lost track of Target Four. I just had time to run back its video to see Target Four leave through the forward doorway. Then an energy/heat blast hit me from behind. It struck me in the lower back and I lost traction and fell forward and slid halfway across the deck toward the control area hatch.

My performance reliability dropped to 80 percent.

In the corridor outside Medical, Amena jerked to a halt and yelled, “No, no!”

“What?” Arada demanded.

“They got—They shot—” Amena waved wildly at the Medical hatch. “Stay here with them!” and bolted away. Her drone squad careened after her.

I’ve been hit by projectile and energy weapons a lot more times than I can remember (literally, because of the memory wipes) and it’s not that it doesn’t hurt. But I had tuned down my pain sensors earlier, so it was a surprise when I rolled over and saw the big smear of blood and fluid on the deck.

I could only last so long like this. I needed to move faster.

But at least this solved the problem of how I was going to get the hatch open. Target Four ran toward me because assholes love to see your face when they kill you. He stopped what he thought was far enough away and fired, but I rolled onto my side so the blast hit the deck next to me. I shoved with my feet, used my hip as a pivot, and spun myself around so I could grab his ankle. He shrieked and fell backward, and I climbed up him and snapped his neck.