The Forgotten

awesome job Chris...

 

its building up nicely

 

Chapter Thirty-Two<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

“I feel like an idiot,” Virgil moaned.

“And you look like one too,” Melody said, briskly. “And so do I.”

Virgil muttered under his breath as he checked his appearance in one of the mirrors. The apartment was right on the lowest level of the megacity, bare meters above where the undercity officially began. The System’s Peacekeepers had sealed off all access points between the upper and lower city, but engineers from the deeps had managed to reopen a couple of links, perfectly placed to avoid the omnipresent surveillance monitors. Only a handful of workers lived so far down and most of them had ties to the undercity.

He’d worn disguises before, but the grey featureless uniform of a computer operative wasn't anything like as flamboyant as the uniform he’d worn at Blindside Base. It was dull and shapeless, as if it had been designed for someone who’d been bigger and fatter than Virgil himself. On the other hand, it would definitely pass unnoticed; the System rarely encouraged its workers to take an interest in the doings of the other castes, or even different sub-castes. The Peacekeepers wouldn't look past the grey uniform to see the man they’d sentenced to certain death on Rupert’s World. Or so he hoped. One touch of a DNA scanner and their identities would be blown open.

Melody tied up her blonde hair – she’d cut it short ever since they had entered the undercity through the portal – and placed a grey cap firmly on her head. Her uniform was no better than Virgil’s and hid her curves quite nicely. Computer operatives lived in a world of their own, even if they shared the same facilities as the remainder of the workers. No one would think twice if they showed any weird behaviour, or so he hoped. If they were caught, there would be nowhere to run.

“You look better than me,” he groused, and she flashed him a quick smile. “Are you ready to go?”

“I think so,” Melody said. As soon as they had reached the apartment, they’d showered heavily, just to get rid of the stink from the undercity. Even computer operatives were supposed to have better personal hygiene than that. Everything that could trace them back to Jennifer’s crew had been removed, apart from their DNA. Ghost had proposed an extensive program of DNA resequencing, but it would have taken several weeks, even with nanotech to do the heavy lifting. The rebels just didn’t have that much time. “Have you got your bag of goodies?”

Virgil hefted it, impatiently. Computer operatives got personal tools, something rare in the worker caste, where they were normally handed out for the job and then collected again at the end of the shift. The bag also concealed a handful of devices that would alarm the Peacekeepers, if they ever searched the bag, but if they were stopped the game would be up anyway. Peacekeepers always checked their implanted ID chips and DNA, just in case. It was one of the many ways they enforced the impression of being caught up in a giant machine, beating down any will to resist. Workers had no rights under the System and what little protection they had depended upon their willingness to do as they were told.

“Excellent,” Melody said. She gave him another smile, just to reassure him. “Let’s go, shall we?”

Virgil opened the doorway and stepped out, fighting down the urge to start rubbing at his shoulder. The implanted ID chip had been carefully inserted, after having been captured by one of the TechRats and reprogrammed by Ghost. The System tracked everyone within the megacities, using their implants to locate them at all times, and someone who tripped a surveillance network without an implanted ID would be sure to set off alarms. The devices failed, from time to time, but they were always replaced. Virgil hated the chips, even though he’d mastered the art of spoofing them a long time before he’d ever heard of the rebels.

The bustle of the megacity at shift change washed over him and he shivered. After spending time on Ashfall, or <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comffice:smarttags" /><st1:City w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Mentor</st1lace></st1:City>, he hadn’t prepared himself for walking back into the System’s hive. Countless workers, wearing the different uniforms of their occupations, were thronging to and from their workplaces, their expressions almost identical. They were little more than sheep, with cold dead eyes and a complete willingness to follow orders. He could see nothing of the fire he saw in Melody’s eyes, or the cold determination of Captain Vaster; the crowds just thronged from place to place, unmoved by anything other than a desire to serve the System and to rebel against it in a hundred tiny ways. Even the Entertainers, showing themselves to attract customers, looked pallid and worn compared to Melody or Ali – or even Jennifer. They had the same cold dead eyes as the remainder of the workers.

He saw a Peacekeeper wearing his uniform and almost flinched, before he remembered how he’d escaped their attention before. Their grey uniforms blended in neatly with the herd; he kept his eyes lowered as they passed the Peacekeeper, hoping that the man wouldn't see any reason to be suspicious. The moving walkways swept them away from him and Virgil allowed himself a sigh of relief. It wasn't noticed by any of the other worker sheep. He recalled, just for a moment, the contempt that had led him into crime in the first place. An enterprising thief could steal anything from a worker, secure in the knowledge that the worker wouldn't complain.

They joined the flock heading upwards, towards the highest levels of the megacity. It was still a long walk, even with antigravity shafts and moving walkways. The uppermost levels were dominated by the bureaucratic infrastructure for controlling the megacity and part of the System itself – and, above the offices, the homes of the citizens who served the System well. An apartment at the top of the megacity, where one could look down upon the masses, was the dream of every worker. The System, to give it its due, was generally good at rewarding exceptionally good performance. If the performance wasn't exceptional, on the other hand, the System would be quite happy to allow a worker to remain caught in obscurity. It provided little incentive for someone with an active mind, like Virgil, to work his way up the ladder.

Melody caught his arm as they reached the lower levels of the bureaucratic infrastructure. The solid metal doors ahead were sealed by security systems, intent on keeping the rabble out of the offices. Virgil had long suspected that the masses, even worker sheep, would be angry if they discovered how the handful of people in high places actually lived. They had access to far more luxuries than anyone else, apart from the System’s masters. And no one knew where those masters lived, or how they lived. To anyone in the lower levels, the System was a vast entity, a impersonal soulless creation that sucked them in and spat them out. The thought of the System having actual masters was more than they could bear, if only because it would give them a focus for discontent.

Ghost had programmed their implants with an ID code that should let them into the bureaucratic infrastructure. Virgil held his breath as they walked up to the metal doors, only to see them slide open and welcome them into the compartment. A single worker sitting in front of a desk gave them a bored look and returned to her datapad, clearly studying one of the semi-illegal pornographic files that were passed from person to person. The System officially banned pornography, but no one was ever punished for looking at it. Virgil had long since deduced that it allowed the masses to vent themselves in harmless rebellion.

He’d expected that they would have to account for their presence and had prepared a story, but the worker just waved them through. Of course; their implants had been cleared to enter the section, so they could enter at will. No one would dream of questioning their presence, if the implants were permitted within the sector. Their dependence upon the computer network was remarkably trusting, although Virgil knew that they weren't too far wrong to depend upon it. The AIs that scrutinised the network would eventually notice any scams and deal with them.

“Come on,” he muttered. He felt a tickling sensation behind his shoulder blades as they walked into a long set of corridors, knowing that surveillance monitors would be following their progress. A single mistake would set off alarms and the Peacekeepers would come after them, intent on arresting and interrogating the intruders before they did any permanent damage. It was easy to pretend to be just another one of the sheep as a small party of senior bureaucrats passed them, heading in the other direction. He felt a hot flash of anger that he quickly buried. The seniors held power and authority within the System, even though they followed its commands slavishly. They were known for abusing that power, if in small and unpleasant ways. The System rarely held them to account.

There were no markings within the corridors, even at intersections. They exchanged glances as they started making their way down towards the computer access point. Ghost had given them updated floor plans as part of their preparation, yet it was hard to be sure of their location in the featureless corridors. It was probably another security measure, one designed to make it impossible for an intruder to find and destroy anywhere significant before he was caught and taken away – and probably exiled to another world. The System wouldn't want someone with a proven skill at breaking and entering loose on Centre.

“Here,” Melody said, pointing at an unmarked door. Virgil shrugged and walked forward, trusting in Ghost’s implants. The door hissed open and a gust of cool air struck them in the face. The interior was darkened, but the lights slowly came up, revealing one of the System’s mainframes. Virgil allowed himself a quick smile as he checked the room, just to be sure that there was no one else in the compartment. A distributed computer network would have been far more secure, but the System had chosen to centralise everything. It was a mistake they would soon come to regret. “Help me find an access point.”

It took nearly ten minutes to locate a small neural jack, for making a secure connection to the computer network. The System always included a neural link, although as the System was the only one with access to advanced neural implants, it wasn't a security flaw. Melody tapped the input switch, turning the neural jack on, and then accessed her own implants. The system should have rejected her at once, as an unauthorised user, but she had codes provided by the Rogue AIs. A moment later, she was inside the system, with limited access and alteration rights.

“Odd,” she said, as her eyes took on the glazed look of someone interacting with a computer network. “The system feels alive…”

Virgil felt a flicker of alarm. The computer network had been built up over thousands of years. Parts of it, he suspected, predated the System itself. It shouldn’t have been too difficult to hack with the proper codes, even though many sections would be impossible to alter without physically destroying the nodes. The System wouldn't have trusted a computer network completely when their enemies included Webheads and Rogue AIs. And yet…the computer network shouldn’t be that advanced, not if the System had used it for generations…

“It doesn’t seem to be aware of me,” she added, after a moment. “I am accessing the central security database…damn it!”

“What’s happened?” Virgil demanded. He’d never been on anything as nerve-racking as this, even when they’d cracked the relay station or walked onto Blindside Base. “What is it doing?”

“That part of the system is secure – and read-only,” Melody said, darkly. “I think they have AIs to watch over the observation and surveillance routines. I tamper with that – the alarms go off and they start looking for us.”

Virgil swore. Few of the undercity’s denzins could pass for workers long enough to get up to the upper levels without being detected and exterminated by the Peacekeepers. Jennifer and Jan had hoped that Melody could disrupt the security system long enough to allow them to get an attack force into the city, but it seemed impossible. And there was no way they could get a link with Ghost. A fold-space communication in the heart of the megacity would set off alarms all over the planet.

“I’m going to bugger the system,” Melody said. “We won’t have much time before the AIs notice that there’s been a glitch, but if I do it properly we won’t set off alarms if we don’t have implants. I don’t know how long we’ll have…”

Her voice trailed off as she started to work on the computer, her eyes closing tightly as she directed commands into the mainframe. Virgil paced around, feeling his stomach clenching hard. The longer they were in the access room, the greater the chance of discovery by someone who knew that they shouldn’t be there. The System might have thousands of computer operatives, but Virgil had little faith in how long their cover would hold. An AI – even a RI – could strip them down to the bare essentials, and then the Peacekeepers would haul them in for interrogation. They wouldn't survive the experience.

“Got it,” she said, finally. Virgil let out a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding. “We’ll have a window of opportunity to strike before they know…ah.”

Virgil looked up, sharply. “Ah?”

“Nothing bad,” Melody hastened to assure him. “Just a routine update, copied to every Peacekeeper and Enforcer; I guess they thought that everyone had to know. Enforcer Wild has been returned to this system and placed in command of Centre’s security forces.”

“Make a note of it,” Virgil said, hurriedly. They could pull vast quantities of useful intelligence out of the mainframe, more than they could possibly sort and analyse, but the longer they remained tapped into the machine, the greater the chance of detection. And now that the fix was in, the System couldn’t be allowed to check the computer or they’d find out the truth. “Disconnect and come on!”

Melody nodded slowly as she disconnected. “It’s done,” she said. “Let’s go.”

Virgil fought to control his breathing as he checked the room, making sure that they hadn’t left anything that could point the System in the right direction. The Peacekeepers had access to sensors that would pick up even a minute amount of DNA, but they wouldn't bother to use it unless they thought they had a good reason to look. The vast array of surveillance tools they had at their disposal normally saved them from having to play detective. They’d left nothing behind, as far as he could see. He just hoped that he was right.

There were far fewer people around as they passed the bored guard and walked back into the megacity. Shift change was now over, leaving them dangerously exposed. The city’s children wouldn't be out of education centres for another four hours and only a handful of people would be leaving their work early. Virgil would have preferred to hole up somewhere and wait until the next shift change, but Jan had insisted that they return as quickly as possible. The deserted corridors and antigravity elevators gave the megacity an eerie, almost haunted look. He saw a handful of workers with strange, almost crafty expressions, and wondered if they too were petty criminals. He’d been like them once.

They were nearly at the bottom level when disaster struck. Virgil barely sensed the Peacekeeper before he started shouting at them to stop. Any normal worker would have opened instantly, whatever the Peacekeeper demanded; it wasn't unknown for some of them to take advantage of the sheep. Their superiors generally turned a blind eye to it, provided that it didn’t get out of hand. Virgil froze as the Peacekeeper ambled up behind him, cold eyes seeming to bore into his skull.

“You’re out of work,” the Peacekeeper snapped. He sounded more bored than angry, his eyes undressing Melody openly. “Why are you not at work?”

“We finished early,” Virgil stammered. It wouldn't have passed muster for one of the more focused Peacekeepers, but this one didn’t seem to be interested in anything more than an excuse to bust their chops. “We…”

“Speak when you’re spoken to,” the Peacekeeper ordered. He was still eying Melody, his eyes crawling over her body. Even the shapeless uniform didn’t hide anything from him. He complexly dismissed Virgil, pushing Melody against the wall. Very few workers would offer any resistance to a Peacekeeper, even if threatened with rape. Virgil wanted to run, but he knew that would be fatal. Instead, he reached his hand into the bag and produced a tiny shock-rod. “Now, why don’t you…?”

Summoning all his nerve, Virgil plunged the shock-rod into the Peacekeeper’s back. The Peacekeeper’s entire body jerked violently as he gasped in pain, just before he fell to the ground, twitching. Virgil kicked him hard, unsure of what had come over him, before Melody grabbed him.

“Come on,” she snapped. Virgil wanted to protest that he’d saved her from rape, before remembering that she’d been on Rupert’s World. She’d have gone through worse. The stunned Peacekeeper was still twitching. He’d be back on his feet soon enough. Virgil bent down and pushed the shock-rod against his forehead, watching him jerk again. A shock-rod induced short-term memory loss if applied to the head. It might provide them with a little security. “We have to get out of here!”

Virgil nodded and followed her back down to the undercity.

“We may have to move now,” Melody snapped, as they entered the darkened tunnel. “That bastard might make a report…”

“But I saved you,” Virgil protested. It was so unfair! “You could have been…”

“It wouldn't have mattered as much as defeating the System,” Melody said, angrily. “Whatever he did to me would have been over quickly, but if they discover why we’re here…we’re ****ed. Protecting the secret comes before everything.”

 

Hey Chris, great work and I am playing catch up again...BTW in the beginning of chapter 28 you referred to Ghost as a "he" a couple of times.

 

Chapter Thirty-Three<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

From the air, Megacity One looked like a poisoned cancer cell spreading across the land. Huge city blocks rose into the air, each one tainted by the pollution spreading across the land. At one point, Centre had been a world of great beauty and joy, but the legacy of the Genetic Wars was impossible to eradicate. Centre would never support life again and most of the inhabitants either lived in the megacities or had adapted to the conditions below the ground. There were strange rumours of new life flourishing out in the wilderness, but most people dismissed them as nonsense. Nothing known to the System could live in such conditions, let alone thrive.

Wild allowed no hint of his inner thoughts to cross his face as the shuttle floated down towards the landing zone. Centre was the only world in the System where teleportation was permanently banned, except in cases of emergency. As a young enforcer, he’d wondered at the prohibition; as an older and more experienced officer, he’d discovered that it was little more than a bureaucratic legacy from an earlier age. The System had never bothered to change the ruling, which struck Wild as odd. Teleportation was one of its few advantages over the undercity dwellers – but then, teleport systems rarely worked under so many layers of metal and concrete.

The shuttle touched down on the landing pad and a long silver tube extended out towards the hatch. Even for an augmented human, breathing in the air of Centre could be dangerously poisonous and Wild wasn't included to tempt fate. He wouldn't have wanted to go out in the ruins without a full set of combat armour, complete with a private oxygen supply. The shuttle rocked slightly as the tube made contact, followed by a brief hiss as air was pumped into the tube. There were corrosive elements present in the air, he’d been warned, along with several different genetically-engineered microbes. And Centre, for all of its poisoned nature, had been one of the luckier worlds to have been targeted. There was a world, only fifty light years from Centre, infested by a biological nanotech weapon that attacked plastics and related compounds, effectively throwing an entire civilisation back into the Dark Ages. The System had never found a counter, even thousands of years later.

He stood up as the hatch opened, placed his cap firmly on his head, and then walked out of the shuttle and through the tube. Rain was splashing against the exterior, sending rusty-brown smears running down the side of the tube. Wild knew that the rain was as poisonous as anything else on the planet, leaving him wondering why the System didn't start moving operations to another world. It wasn't as if there was a shortage of possible homeworlds – but then, with the System’s true masters using Centre as a decoy, they probably felt that the prestige was worth the misery. Or perhaps they just felt like being sadistic. Centre hadn’t always been a staunch supporter of the System.

The interior hatch opened ahead of him and he endured the decontamination procedures with as much patience as he could muster. His implants reported an extensive series of scans, examining every inch of his body, making sure that nothing was allowed to slip into the megacity. Some of the contaminants outside would wreak havoc if they were ever allowed inside. Indeed, Wild should have docked at the orbital tower and travelled down to the surface in one of its lifts. Only tradition had insisted that the new Director of Security for Centre, with absolute authority over the exterior and interior defences, land in a shuttlecraft. It was a tradition Wild would happily have forsworn, but that wasn't his choice to make.

He was reminding himself to be patient – again – when the procedure finished and he was allowed to proceed into the next room. A senior Peacekeeper, wearing the same black uniform as Wild, was waiting for him. His implants identified her as Superintendent Jolene; oddly, he found that she reminded him of Jennifer. She had the same tall – and clearly augmented body – and short brown hair. Her face, however, was very different, styled to be severe. The Peacekeepers relied on intimidation as much as anything else to keep control of the megacities. Every so often, someone would slip through the System’s genetic net – and turn very nasty.

“Welcome to Megacity One,” Jolene said. His implants informed him that she was the commander of all four hundred thousand Peacekeepers within the city, which had put her in line for Wild’s job before he’d been shunted in ahead of her. The Enforcers, Navy and Peacekeepers tended to rotate the senior post between them, but the issue was often decided by office politics as much as decisions from over their heads. Wild had long nursed a suspicion that the office scrabbles for dominance were at least party engineered to keep the senior officers from thinking about overthrowing their superiors, or taking their place. “I understand that you wish a prompt briefing.”

“Yes,” Wild said, equally curtly. Jolene, like most of the other Peacekeepers, would believe in order above all else. In a very real sense, she would have been pressed into her role. “Escort me to my office and then you can brief me.”

The Peacekeepers occupied an entire floor of the Central Dome and hundreds of smaller precincts throughout the city. Each of the Peacekeepers was permanently linked to his superior officers, who could call them at any moment and issue new instructions. There were always hundreds of minor incidents every day, but they all had to be investigated, if only to keep the workers convinced of their omnipresence. And a small number of Peacekeepers enjoyed the perks of the job in ways that detracted from their overall purpose. They had to be weeded out before they started real trouble from the workers.

Wild took his time, inspecting the entire department before allowing Jolene to lead him into the briefing room. Peacekeepers and Enforcers rarely mixed well, if only because they were drawn from different parts of the human race. Enforcers were trainable sociopaths, men and women who would do anything in the name of the System; Peacekeepers were drawn from those who were both willing to fight and loved order, above all else. They rarely saw eye to eye with the Enforcers, if only because they were closely related to sociopaths who weren't uncovered until they started to prey on the workers. Wild was coldly amused by Jolene’s stare, even as part of his mind wondered what she would be like in bed. After all, some of her genome might have gone into Jennifer – and she’d been a great lay.

“So,” he said, finally. “How many incidents do we have to worry about on the ground?”

Jolene looked as if she thought he was trying to be funny. “There were over two hundred incidents over the last two days,” she said, coldly. “The TechRats have been involved in a heist of various computer components from a warehouse in the lower sectors. There was a brief intrusion from the undercity; we chased them back underground and secured their access route. And yet...there are odd rumours from the undercity.”

Wild frowned, thinking of Jan and the other TechRats. The TechRats were the most dangerous of the System’s undercity foes, even if they weren’t the most brutal. Most of them were intelligent and very capable, while some of them were runaways from the System’s own scientific development programs. And some of them thought completely outside the box. Given a serious source of technology and some help, they’d become a very dangerous threat.

“Rumours,” he repeated. System spies didn't tend to last long in the undercity, even ones who had been implanted without their awareness. “What sort of rumours?”

“Nothing definite,” Jolene admitted. “There are just...odd hints that something big is about to happen, and yet we cannot pin them down to anything. It could be just rumours running through the city...”

“Maybe,” Wild agreed. He’d heard enough rumours when he’d been a lowly Enforcer to know not to take any of them seriously, at least without some verification. There were always stories. “I think we can begin by going over the manpower figures...”

***​

Constance was young and beautiful, the result of an unsanctioned liaison between an Entertainer and a rebel from the undercity. Her mother had fled underground when she realised that her child would be unceremoniously terminated by the city’s guardians and brought her up among one of the gangs. By some fluke, she’d managed to survive long enough to have Constance initiated as a gang member, rather than as one of their playthings. And, as she looked like yet another worker who had spent her System Credits on vanity rather than anything else, she could pass through the lower levels without encountering the Peacekeepers.

The undercity dwellers had figured out that the sheer scale of surveillance in the megacity was so great that there were plenty of holes in it. As long as Constance stayed in the lower levels and didn't try to pass through any of the secure doors, she could pretty much go where she pleased, provided only that she didn't attract attention. Besides, as someone who looked like an Entertainer, even the Peacekeepers were more likely to solicit her custom rather than take a careful look at her ID. She didn't have an implant, of course, and if they’d ever thought to check...

She’d volunteered for the mission as soon as her ganglord had asked for volunteers. Her mother had died only a year ago – of a breathing complaint that could have been fixed, with the right medical technology – and she wanted revenge on the System that had exiled her. She’d gone into one of the makeshift training camps and emerged with a working knowledge of a basic plasma rifle, as well as a grounding in tactical thinking and fighting. And, as someone who could pass for an Entertainer, she was allowed to carry a bag with her, one that could hide a broken-down plasma rifle. The moment she opened fire, she knew, their cover would be blown. It wasn't something she bothered to think about, at least not past the tactical implications. She’d grown up knowing that death was only one misstep away.

The Peacekeepers maintained a small precinct near one of the antigravity shafts that lifted workers up from the lower levels to their workplaces. It was an ideal place to monitor the workers, as well as being in position to intercept any raids from the undercity. Constance allowed herself a grin as she walked past a group of workers – feeling their eyes tracking her as she walked – knowing that they could never even conceive of an Entertainer packing a loaded weapon. They’d had docility bred into them over the years, with everything from food to mates picked out for them by the System. And if one had the nerve, Constance knew, one could get very far just by relying on the workers ignoring anything that looked suspicious.

She grinned back at her small team as they approached the antigravity shaft complex, the tunnels widening to accommodate the flow of workers as shift change approached. They returned her grin nervously; none of them feared death, but they’d never actually set out to ambush the Peacekeepers before. They’d all set ambushes deep within the undercity, but that was different. They were taking on the Peacekeepers in their own territory. If they screwed up...

The girls made a show of showing off their wares as they walked past the shaft, collecting a handful of numbers along the way, and moved into the nearest toilet complex. It wasn't empty, but there were enough cubicles to allow them to assemble their weapons and hide them in their bags. The trainers hadn't been clear on just how quickly the System could detect their weapons, yet plasma rifles were rare in the megacity. If they were really lucky, the Peacekeepers wouldn't have anything to match them.

She checked the timepiece she’d been given and led the way back out into the concourse. The Peacekeepers outside the doors to their station looked bored, not particularly alert. Activity had been way down over the past four days; even the small children who tried to run pickpocket gangs had been curbed, sharply. Constance reached into her bag and felt the gun’s presence, feeling cold sweat running down her back. There was still time to back off and leave the Peacekeepers alone...

Time ran out. She grabbed the plasma rifle, pulled it out one-handed, and opened fire. The plasma rifle spat blasts of orange light right across the concourse, slamming into the Peacekeepers before they had a chance to react. Brilliant explosions smashed their way through the station, even though half of their shots missed. The real beauty of the plasma rifle, at least in her eyes, was that it didn't have to be aimed perfectly. Whatever it hit was going to go down, hard.

Peacekeepers came running out of their station as parts of it caught fire, only to be shot down before they realised what was going on. Being attacked in their own bases had to have caught them by surprise, if only because it had never happened to them before. The ones she saw die under her fire had only been armed with shock-rods and neural whips, weapons intended to push workers back into line rather than defend against lethal weaponry in the hands of people who knew how to use it. Flames, already spreading through the precinct, spread further. The entire compartment was going up in a blaze of glory. Anyone still inside was likely to suffocate before they could escape.

The workers were fleeing. They could have overrun Constance and her team by sheer weight of numbers, but instead they were trying to flee. They’d been taught, right from the start, that weapons made a person invincible – and they’d never been allowed weapons, just to keep them properly respectful of those the System trusted to be armed. It was a policy that had come back to bite them hard; now, when they could have crushed the uprising in one moment, they fled instead. Panic spread rapidly throughout the entire section, with crowds fleeing senselessly in all directions and hundreds of workers being knocked to the ground and trampled to death. They’d be caught up in panic for hours, she told herself, even as she fired a handful of shots over their heads. It would only make the panic worse.

She caught sight of a handful of Peacekeepers attempting to respond to the crisis by coming down the antigravity shaft, risking their lives to get at the rebels. Constance didn't hesitate; she fired madly up at them, and into the shaft itself. She must have hit something vital as sparks started to flash out of control, followed rapidly by the entire shaft losing power. The Peacekeepers fell to their deaths, far below her level. They’d smash on the layer of reinforced concrete that separated the megacity from the undercity.

The panic was still spreading, even though the concourse was clear of everything apart from her team and dead or moaning workers. Constance brandished her weapon in delight and then led the way back to the sealed tunnels. Even if half of the attacks had gone off perfectly – and she’d caught the Peacekeepers with their pants down – it wouldn’t take the Peacekeepers long to react. They’d have Peacekeepers coming down into the lower levels in armour, armed with modern weapons. Her team wouldn't last long against them, once they got organised.

Laughing, she opened the hatch and headed back down to the undercity.

***​

Wild came to his feet as the situation board lit up with hundreds of red lights. Megacity One was under attack; no, every megacity was under attack. He found himself reeling as the sheer scale of the attack sank in. This wasn't a single uncoordinated act of terrorism; this was a direct challenge to the System itself. Thousands of workers had already died...and thousands more would die, in the coming hours. The injuries had already swamped the medical centres.

“They hit everywhere,” Jolene said. She sounded shocked, as if something had finally broken through her reserve. Jennifer wouldn't have lost her cool so quickly, Wild considered. But then, Jennifer’s past self had been a fleet commander and Jolene had never experienced real combat. “They crippled us.”

“Maybe,” Wild said. Anywhere else, he would have paused to consider just what was going on before he reacted, but on Centre...regaining control was the first priority. “Get the Peacekeepers armoured up, and then...I want them deployed into the undercity. We have to make it clear that we will not tolerate such atrocities against the worker population.”

Something was nagging him about the attack pattern, something obvious. It refused to form in his mind. Something that he was missing...? As the reports continued to flow in, it became clear that the undercity dwellers had actually obtained modern weapons. How the hell, he asked himself, had they managed to get their hands on plasma rifles, or genetically-developed explosive compounds? Even if they’d looted a Peacekeeper armoury – and such an attack could not have gone unnoticed – they wouldn’t have been able to obtain so many weapons.

“I have the first tactical team armouring up now,” Jolene said. “Sir...”

“Get in touch with the orbital fortresses and the cruisers,” Wild ordered. “Get them to start transporting their troopers to the orbital towers, and then start getting them down to the surface. I think we’re going to need them.”

“But, sir...”

“Do it,” Wild snapped. After his failure to catch Jennifer, a second failure wouldn't look good on his record. And if he looked bad, the System’s masters might run out of patience with him. “We don’t have time to waste!”

 

Comments?

Chapter Thirty-Four<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

Jennifer watched as the first reports came in, knowing that it wouldn't be long until they lost that advantage. The System’s computer network on Centre was incredibly old and the TechRats knew every last corner of it. They might not be able to knock it down, but they could monitor the System’s communications and even use the enemy network to pass messages to their own people. The Peacekeepers weren't used to fighting a serious opponent and it showed.

The reports just kept flowing in from all over the world. Thousands of Peacekeepers had been cut down in the early stages of the operation, followed rapidly by the destruction of transit infrastructure to make counter-attacking harder for the enemy forces. Some of the undercity dwellers had suggested launching attacks on the megacity life support systems, but Jennifer had vetoed the suggestion. Taking out air purification plants, or algae farms, would slaughter millions of workers, dooming them to a slow death. It would have been mass slaughter on an unforgivable scale and she was uneasily aware that her former self wouldn't have hesitated. She had to draw the line somewhere.

But the Peacekeepers had been taken completely by surprise. They hadn’t even switched to high-level encryption, which left their communications completely exposed to Jennifer’s allies. She used her implants to study the growing volume of increasingly panicky messages from the Peacekeepers, men and women who were used to routine operations trying to cope with a sudden descent into war. They’d lost control of several of the lower levels, allowing the undercity insurgents to spread havoc wherever they went. Thousands of fleeing workers were jamming up the transit shafts, preventing the Peacekeepers from launching a counter-attack. She wondered, absently, if whoever was in command on the other side would think to request armoured support from the orbiting defences. The Peacekeepers just weren't equipped for all-out war. The worst they usually had to face was a handful of raiders from the undercity, or a worker who snapped and set off on a bloody rampage.

“I think the hammer is about to fall,” Jan said. He’d been linked into the TechRat network as soon as they’d returned to the undercity. They’d had much of the upper levels, just below the megacity, wired, tying into the ancient infrastructures that predated the System. The System would have found it very hard to destroy without smashing their own infrastructure as well. “They’ve started to funnel armoured troops down the orbital tower. They’ll be into the city within the next fifty minutes.”

“Not quickly enough,” Jennifer said, with a certain amount of satisfaction. The System’s propaganda division would have real problems trying to explain what had just happened to workers right across the world. How could they convince workers who had fled for their lives from the undercity hordes that it was safe to return to the lower levels? The System had painted the undercity’s inhabitants as barbarian monsters, mutants who weren't even human. It had prevented many of the more dissatisfied workers from fleeing below the megacity, but now it worked against them. There was nothing that the stereotypical undercity dweller wouldn't do. “Start pulling the advance teams back into the undercity. Leave a few traps along the way, just to remind them what we can do, but don’t try to engage them.”

<?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comffice:smarttags" /><st1:City w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Alvin</st1lace></st1:City>’s voice broke into the communications circuit. “We could ambush them as they come down the shafts,” he protested. He’d been looking forward to trying out his new set of armour against other suits of powered combat armour. “They don’t have to recover the lower levels without a fight.”

Jennifer sighed. The undercity had been at a marked disadvantage for so long that they didn’t realise that advanced weapons didn’t guarantee victory. Some of the fire-eaters had wanted to take their weapons and charge up to the higher levels, confident that their weapons would give them an edge. Jennifer knew better. The troopers on duty over the planet would have faced rebels on equal terms. They’d be far more experienced than her half-trained fighters.

”They won’t come down the shafts,” she said, firmly. Unless the System’s commander was a total idiot, he wouldn’t funnel his men down the shaft, where they’d be easy targets and helpless. “Get your team back into the undercity and wait. They’ll be coming after us soon enough.”

“Understood,” <st1:City w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Alvin</st1lace></st1:City> said. He sounded pissed. A glance at one of the reports showed that several of the advance teams had stopped to loot, rape and burn. Jennifer made a mental note that the rapists were to be killed when they returned to the undercity, if they lived that long. It would only terrify the workers – and they’d be easy targets when the System’s troopers and the Peacekeepers returned in force. On the other hand, they might give the System a fatal doze of overconfidence.

She allowed herself a tight smile as the undercity gangs started to return underground. The System wouldn't have any choice, but to engage them on their own terms. After having been given such a black eye, they’d want revenge – and to teach the undercity gangs a lesson. And that, she knew, made them predicable.

“Get the charges ready,” she ordered. “I want them to detonate on my command.”

***​

Trooper Lewis braced himself as he fell down the maintenance tunnel towards the lower levels. His suit’s built-in antigravity compensator caught him a moment before he slammed into the ground, pushing him out into the lower levels. A scene of astonishing destruction met his eyes and he swore, even as his suit started launching recon nanotech into the air. There were hundreds of dead bodies – mainly workers and Peacekeepers – scattered around, while the Peacekeeper station was a burning shell. His probes counted over ninety bodies in his immediate vicinity and several hundred more in the transit corridors. They’d been shot down, or trampled to death, or just collapsed of shock.

“This is Lewis,” he said, after a quick survey. The Captain had risked sending the armoured troopers down the tunnel, rather than try to walk down the connecting stairs. “The bottom of the shaft has been destroyed; I say again, the bottom of the shaft has been destroyed. I suggest that the remainder of the platoon follow me down.”

He advanced forward, using his suit’s sensors to scan for enemy targets. A handful of the bodies were still warm and breathing, so he marked them for later medical intervention. Once the troopers had cleared the level, the medical teams would be on their way to do what they could for the remaining workers, even though he suspected that few of them would want to live. Workers were brainless sheep, or so he had been told every day since he had been plucked away from his family and enrolled in the military training centre. He’d fought rebels and insurgents who seemed to care little for their own lives, but this…the sight was horrifying beyond measure.

The remainder of the platoon arrived behind him and spread out, securing the area. No one attempted to challenge them or bar their passage. As soon as his fire team was assembled, Lewis led the way down the corridor, tracking down signs of life. The local surveillance net was completely down. According to the updates flashing up in front of him, the rebels had somehow attacked the mainframe computer that monitored the system – and then destroyed every camera and sensor they could find. The black marks on some of the bodies suggested that this was far more than just another raid from the undercity – if the sheer scale of the attack hadn’t been enough to suggest it – and that the undercity dwellers had gained access to a source of very high technology.

He led the way through a series of darkened corridors – the rebels had shot out the lighting grids as well, although the suit’s sensors allowed him to see in the dark – and into another recreation centre. His suit picked up the sounds before the remainder of the platoon entered the compound, allowing him to leap towards their source and discover a small gang of undercity thugs having their way with a worker girl. He was on them before they had a chance to react, tearing one of them off her and crushing his skull with an armoured fist. The other thugs reached for their weapons, only to be gunned down by the rest of the fire team. Lewis ignored the angry protests from higher up the chain of command – they’d wanted prisoners – and led the way down towards an old supply deport. The maps that had been downloaded into their augmentations suggested that it was a possible link to the undercity.

An explosion sent him reeling over backwards before he steadied himself. The rebels had produced a simple chemical explosive, a fairly common substance from the undercity, but it wasn’t enough to crack his suit. He deployed snifter drones from his suit and smiled as they started to pick up trace compounds in the air, locating the other improvised explosions. A handful of precisely targeted plasma blasts detonated them well ahead of time. Ahead of them, a gaping tunnel lay open, a gateway to the undercity.

“Abandon all hope, all you who enter here,” one of his platoon mates quipped. It was the motto of the trooper training centre, where people left either as qualified troopers or dead bodies. Failure was not an option. “I think we should apply for sick leave.”

“Shut up,” Lewis snapped. He trigged his suit’s antigravity compensators again and jumped down the shaft, weapons ready. No hail of fire struck him as he dropped into a darkened tunnel. It was impossible to smell anything in the suit, but his external sensors reported that there was a strong odour in the air. It was the stench of the undercity, rising up to greet the intruders who were about to start picking their way through the endless tunnels and ancient buildings. “Get down here. It’s time to start hunting.”

The tunnel closed in on them as they continued their advance, leaving a trail of nanotech probes behind them. He cursed under his breath as it got tighter, to the point where it was hard to advance in his armoured suit. Other troopers were coming now, joining his platoon they picked their way further into the undercity. The nanotech probes were still expanding through the network, but at least they were developing an operational plan. With some luck, they could coordinate with the other teams and clear this entire level of the undercity before they went deeper under the ground. Life form readings were already starting to pop up on his HUD. He’d locate the rebels before anyone else.

***​

The complex had been an old Underground Railroad station, or so Eileen had been told, years ago. Centre hadn’t always been a polluted nightmare of domed cities and endless rule by the System. The young Children of the Night rarely believed tales passed down from the days where their ancestors had been fully human, without the warped genetic legacy that made them freaks, even in the undercity. It was enough that they were perfectly adapted to their environment, blending into the darkness and shadows, leaving them only to forage for food.

She clutched the plasma rifle in her hand as she saw the first flickers of light in the distance. The fools who wore armoured suits didn’t realise that the Children of the Night didn’t need suits to see in the darkness, or that their unique body temperature made it difficult for scanners to pick them up. The blanket that shrouded her, providing additional protection from scans, was just enough to irritate her, even though she had to admit that the newcomers had a point. The System had vast advantages. It had to be kept off-balance, or those advantages would allow it to purge the undercity once and for all.

A crash – deafeningly loud to her enhanced hearing – echoed out as the System troopers broke through a half-hearted barrier and into the station. As they’d been warned, they’d managed to avoid running into any more of the improvised explosive packs, although they’d only been meant as a distraction. The men in their black armoured suits, nearly invisible in the darkness, might as well have been accompanied by a ceremonial brass band. They couldn’t hide themselves from mutated eyes and enhanced senses.

The System’s troopers paused long enough to attempt to orientate themselves, and then started to advance forward. Eileen had no idea what they’d thought they’d seen – most of the upper parts of the undercity had been evacuated to avoid retaliation – but she wouldn’t hesitate to take advantage of the opportunity. Hefting her plasma rifle, closing one eye to avoid being blinded by the flash of light, she sighted her weapon and opened fire. The other Children opened fire a second later. Unlike the improvised explosives, the plasma rifles could and did burn through the suits. The exposed System troopers were cut down like ninepins.

A moment later, their successors opened fire. They didn’t have a perfect lock on her position, but they made up for it in sheer weight of fire. Hundreds of thousands of plasma bolts sizzled past her, close enough to burn, lighting up the entire station. Eileen had to fight to keep one eye closed, even as the comforting darkness was literally swept away. She stumbled to her knees, both eyes jerking open as she turned to run, only to be blinded by the brilliant flashes of light. Before she could concentrate on her hearing, a bolt of white-hot energy struck her in the back. There was a massive flash of burning pain…and then nothing. The darkness swallowed her up.

***​

Lewis pulled himself to his fleet, slowly. Red icons were blinking up in front of him, warning that the suit had been dangerously compromised. If the plasma bolt had struck a couple of inches to the left, it would have burned through his suit and killed him, instantly. Ignoring the warnings, he accessed the tactical net and swore as he realised that most of his platoon had been killed. He’d been lucky to survive.

The fires consuming the old station seemed powerful enough to burn through the entire undercity. It was an absurd notion, he knew, even before the assault force was hastily reconfigured and ordered to start advancing in pursuit of the fleeing enemy force. Lewis wasn’t impressed by the order – it was clear to him that without a proper map of the undercity, or a very careful reconnaissance mission, they were just going to be flailing around at nothing – but orders were orders. The scratch patrol formed up around him as he started to pick his way through the flames and down towards the shaft, leading down to the lower levels. There were uncounted - and uncountable – levels below, dating back thousands of years. They could be making their way through it for years without catching a single rebel.

They ran into a handful of other ambushes, each one taking a toll on the troopers. One of them was prematurely detected by the sensor drones and the troopers took a savage delight in blasting their way through the trap, but the others were total surprises. Lewis found himself losing track of time as they pushed onwards into the unknown. The Peacekeepers hadn’t even bothered to chart their own incursions into the undercity…

***​

“Now,” Jennifer said. She picked up the terminal and placed her thumb on the big red button. “Let the waters roar…”

***​

At first, Lewis didn’t even register the explosions. The undercity’s weird network of tunnels and ancient housing made it hard for even the most advanced audio-discrimination program to identify and locate any sound. They’d ended up shooting through entire nests of oversized rats and cockroaches, as well as a small nest of large green lizards with very sharp teeth, which had blunted when they’d tried to bite armoured hands. If the troopers hadn’t been wearing armour, the nasty creatures would have torn through them, perhaps even wiped out the entire squadron…

The rumbling, a moment later, was impossible to miss. He looked up sharply as the proximity sensors began to go haywire. They were insisting that an entire army was right on top of them! Lewis had a moment to trigger the suit’s inbuilt lights, even though he knew it would make him a target for any snipers out there, just in time to see a wall of water rushing towards them. It struck the armoured troopers and sent them tumbling over backwards, shoved back down the tunnels like helpless children. Lewis felt his suit bumping against a hundred obstacles as the water propelled them onwards, just as another series of red icons popped up in front of him. The plasma bolt that had nearly killed him had opened the path for the polluted water, fatally compromising his suit. He tried to trigger the emergency bolts, hoping to escape into the water, but it was too late. The suit’s entire remaining power supply discharged itself through his neural link. There was no hope of survival.

***​

“I think we got them,” Jan said.

Jennifer nodded, sardonically. They’d hit the invading troopers, all right, but water had a tendency to drain downwards. It would trickle its way down into the undercity until it reached bottom, wherever the bottom actually was. The engineers had calculated that the water would provide a nasty shock to the troopers, striking a blow at their moral, and yet she knew it was a tactic that could – that had – rebound on them. She’d just made a lot of lives miserable and not all of them had deserved it.

“Good,” she said. The undercity’s inhabitants wouldn’t have understood. They had no sense that lives should be long and peaceful. Life was cheap, under the ground. “And now all we have to do is keep the pressure on.”

 

Good morning Chris, I was a couple days behind as i wasn't online this weekend. Really enjoyed reading a few chapters this morning to catch up.

Thanks
Jason

 

Chapter Thirty-Five<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

“And so the latest incursion cost us seventeen lives,” Jolene said. “Nine more were badly injured. That doesn't include the thousands killed during the collapse of City Block 2733 and...”

Wild held up a tired hand. The insurgency – if it could be called an insurgency – had been raging for the past two weeks. The System’s forces had tried to force their way down to the lower levels of the undercity, only to be forced back by determined resistance. Wild had to admit that the incursions had united the undercity in a way that nothing else could, even the undercity dwellers who had almost lost their intelligence. They fought the System’s troopers with a fanatical determination and even the ones who weren’t aided with modern weapons were making an impact.

And that didn't include the structural damage. Centuries ago, in its desperate bid to save as much of the planet’s population, the System had been forced to build without worrying unduly about structural integrity. They’d just kept piling on the weight of the megacity, unconcerned about the increasing threat to stability. No one had been able to figure out what had happened to cause the sudden collapse of stability in Zone-MC1-948, but City Block 2733 had slowly collapsed right down into the undercity, taking thousands of lives with it. Wild suspected that the rebels hadn't meant to start such a catastrophe, but that hardly mattered. The fighting down in the undercity was likely to have worse effects on the megacities as the fighting intensified. The only good news that that the collapse of the City Block had probably wreaked havoc in the undercity as well.

Silently, he cursed the insurgency under his breath. Somehow, the rebels – probably the TechRats – had managed to get hold of a System-designed fabricator. He’d ordered every fabricator on the planet to be checked, but he’d drawn a complete blank. None of the fabricators were missing, which meant that the weapons and supplies were being shipped in from off-world...which should have been impossible. The System maintained complete control over Centre’s star system. Nothing could get through the sensor web without being detected and blasted to dust.

The thought was infuriating. If the rebels had perfected a new design of cloaking device, something that would allow them to slip through the System’s most powerful sensor network without being detected, why weren't they using it to bomb hell out of the System, rather than supporting an insurgency that was – eventually – doomed? It made little sense, as if the rebels had decided to be stupid for some reason. Why would they throw away an advantage when it offered them a chance to win a decisive victory over the System?

“Leave the bad news for the moment,” he said. He was due for his daily conference with the System’s masters in an hour and he wasn't looking forward to it. Their tone had become increasingly sardonic as he’d reported failure, day after day. It wasn't fair, he told himself, angrily. All of the System’s normal counter-insurgency techniques would have been counter-productive on Centre. “How many rebels have we killed?”

Jolene frowned as she consulted her datapad. “Upwards of seven thousand insurgents are believed to have been killed,” she said, finally. “They are losing fighters at a faster rate than we are losing troopers.”

Wild snorted. There were literally billions of people in the undercities, their lives unmonitored by the System. An exchange rate of ten undercity fighters for one System trooper was a losing rate. And the more the System forced its way down into the undercity’s catacombs, the more insurgents would join the rebellion. In the long run, the rebels couldn't win, but they’d do a hell of a lot of damage before they were finally crushed.

If it had been up to him, he would have started setting up a new headquarters somewhere else, perhaps on one of the uninhabited worlds in the system. The System’s masters had vetoed that suggestion, pointing out that if they left Centre so quickly, someone might work out that the System’s real headquarters was somewhere else. Privately, Wild thought that they were being paranoid. Only one rebel knew the location of the System’s masters – and that information hadn’t been passed on to the rebels.

He pushed the matter to the back of his mind and examined the charts, scowling to himself. There just weren't enough troopers to cover all of the bases, even with a mass evacuation of workers from the lower levels. Wild was uncomfortably aware that that could only be a limited solution, at best. The more fighting there was in the undercity, the greater the chance that more city blocks would start to collapse, perhaps setting off a chain reaction that would bring down most of the megacity. It was the System’s worst nightmare; a war they didn't want to fight, but couldn’t avoid – and dared not lose.

“Continue rotating down new poisonous gases,” he ordered, grimly. The rebels had proven themselves irritatingly adaptable. Those who’d spent their lives among the pollution of the undercity had developed an alarming level of resistance to poisonous compounds, while the TechRats had been producing vast qualities of medical nanites. Gas sometimes allowed the System to make gains, but the rebels always came back. There were places in the undercity that had changed hands dozens of times, both sides refusing to back off and allow the other to take it. “When the additional troopers arrive, deploy them here, here and here.”

He touched places on the map as he spoke. It seemed impossible, but the insurgency was actually straining the System’s military capability. Other counter-insurgency campaigns relied upon mass bombardment and savage retaliations, but neither could be used in the undercity. The undercity’s inhabitants didn't seem prepared to concede to the System, no matter how many of them died. He’d requested thousands of additional troopers pulled out of the Occupied Worlds and redirected to Centre, but his masters had been reluctant to authorise it. Wild didn't know why.

A dull thump seemed to echo in the distance. Wild gritted his teeth in annoyance. The System had smoothed out Centre’s tectonics after the Genetic Wars, pushing earthquakes back into the past. Now, with explosions rattling the very foundations of the megacity, earthquakes were becoming more common. It was easy to imagine the entire megacity collapsing when the structure holding it up finally gave up the struggle. The earthquakes kept scaring the workers. Every time the ground shook, the sheep ran around in circles, baying for help.

“Of course, sir,” Jolene said. She didn't sound as if she believed his moves would make any difference. Wild feared that she was right. “I’ll see to it at once.”

***​

“As you can see,” Wild concluded, an hour later, “we have started to kill the insurgents in increasing numbers. We can safely say that they will all be exterminated soon.”

It wasn't exactly what Jolene and the other commanders had told him, but he had a feeling that reporting the exact and literal truth to the System’s masters would effectively be signing his own death warrant. He’d failed to deliver them Jennifer and now he was failing to suppress an insurgency that threatened the very core of the System’s power. In absolute terms, losing Centre wouldn't bring down the entire System, but it would certainly be a colossal blow to its aura of invincibility.

“The ripples from this insurgency have already spread far beyond Centre,” the dull atonal voice said. Will shivered, despite himself. The voice spoke as if it intended to pronounce a death sentence. “The rebels have already taken heart. The news of the insurgency is spreading through the galactic net, introduced into the network by the TechRats. We have failed to prevent it spreading throughout the known galaxy.”

Wild kept his face expressionless. The System normally had an absolute monopoly on what information reached the workers, let alone the worlds that had only recently come under the System’s management. Those worlds, the ones where the populations refused to abandon dreams of independence and freedom, would take heart from watching the insurgency. The rebels, still holding out in hopes of a victory that would never come, would see a chance to make gains. He’d watched the System make its dull ponderous advance across the galaxy, crushing civilisations and exterminating alien races that wouldn't have fitted into the System. And now all those gains were threatened.

It was worse than they’d thought, or were prepared to say. Over countless generations, the workers had been bred to be sheep, with all of the wolves or sheepdogs ruthlessly culled before they had a chance to breed. Now, faced with a System that could no longer protect them and angry rebels, some of the workers were throwing off their chains. Luckily, they didn't yet have any concept of a planned uprising – and they didn't have access to weapons – but that could change. And if that fell, the System’s grand project would be doomed.

“We must make hard decisions,” the voice said. “We have concluded that the rebels on Centre are being supplied by our rogue agent.”

Jennifer? Wild thought, puzzled. It hadn't occurred to him that Jennifer might be involved in the insurgency. How could she have reached Centre? It was far more likely that the unknown alien race that had probed the star system was involved, although why would any alien race waste its time on a pointless uprising that would be eventually crushed? Aliens were aliens, with alien ways of looking at the universe, yet...it made no sense to him.

“We will consider our decision and summon you again,” the voice continued, coldly. “Until them, continue piling on the pressure. The rebels must be destroyed.”

Wild sat back in his chair as the connection broke. Jennifer! Jennifer had captured an entire starship, complete with a set of fabricators that could – given time and raw materials – produce large-scale fabricators that could turn out almost anything the System might desire. The vast fabrication nodes in orbit around Centre supplied everything the planet needed, from goods for the workers to components for starships being put together in the shipyards, floating in free orbit around the local star. And yet, how could Jennifer have transported the fabricators to Centre? She might have had a powerful starship, but she wouldn't have been able to run the massed fire of Centre’s forty defending cruisers. The Brilliant would have been rapidly and cheaply destroyed.

And yet...he closed his eyes and called up files from his internal memory. One of the little details he hadn't told his masters – one of the many details he hadn't shared with them – was that he kept a copy of every secure file transmitted to him, stripped of all ID tags. No one would know unless they put him through a brainscan, and if that happened he was dead anyway. What had Jennifer done? Answer; she’d captured a revolutionary starship from Blindside Base. He’d downloaded all the files relating to Project Blindside as a matter of course, yet he hadn't had the time to go through them carefully. Sitting back, he started to read through all of the files, from Scientist Thande’s original proposal to the final reports, written just before the starship was stolen. He hadn't read through them all when he’d sent them to Jennifer...

Fifty minutes later, he found what he was looking for. It was quite easy, provided that one had the right equipment and sufficient power, to open a portal into hyperspace. And it was even easier to open a portal from hyperspace to normal space; after all, hyperspace disliked having starships from normal space flying through the alternate dimension. The Blindside, according to the reports, could move to a position in hyperspace that corresponded a position in normal space and open a portal, rather than returning directly into normal space. It was so...absurd that he almost burst out laughing. The System had sealed all of the approaches to Centre...and Jennifer had simply bypassed them all.

He skimmed through the remaining data, realising what the System’s masters must have deduced. It was odd that they hadn't warned him about the possibility; in fact, it was alarmingly worrying. Did they feel that he should know about it already, from his visit to Blindside Base, or had they started to question his loyalty. The thought bothered him. People whose loyalty was in question vanished and were never seen again. And he had been a great deal more than just disloyal. He’d sought to take their power for himself.

And yet...and yet...

There was something about the whole affair that didn't make sense. The whole insurgency seemed pointless. The System could be brutal, dispassionately slaughtering millions of humans and exterminating entire alien races, yet the brutality had a goal. It was intended to make sure that anything thinking of rebelling against the System thought twice before launching a futile uprising. The System didn't commit mass slaughter for the hell of it. And Jennifer - Admiral Quintana – had been designed by the System. She had committed vast atrocities in its name, but she’d never taken any particular pleasure in wading through the blood of countless innocents. They’d just been the quickest way of achieving her goals.

The insurgency on Centre would hurt, no doubt about it, but it would fail. There was no outside force that could destroy the System’s orbital defences, which meant that even if the insurgency did manage to overrun one of the megacities it could be rapidly crushed from orbit. The most they could do was bleed the System badly, but the System had literally billions of troopers at its disposal. There was no reason why the cloning and indoctrination program couldn't be stepped up, mass-producing an entire army within the year. And Admiral Quintana had been one of the System’s most trusted vassals. She would have known that the insurgency was futile. Why...

His eyes snapped open. He’d thought that Jennifer knew everything her past self knew...but clearly there were some details that were still lost in her mind. And that meant that she was launching the insurgency, either convinced that it would work...or intent on discovering the location of the System’s masters. And if she didn't know what she knew...Wild had risked exposure to start breaking down the barriers in her mind. What would happen if he tried it again? This time, he’d be right under the System’s eye. He’d be detected almost as soon as he risked trying to open contact.

He keyed his wristcom as a plan unfolded in his mind. Jennifer had been captured under Megacity One, along with a handful of TechRats and other rebels from the undercity. It was where they’d have gone to make contact with potential allies. Logically, Jennifer or one of her followers had to be directing the insurgency from the undercity. And that meant that he could find them.

“Assemble a team of troopers,” he ordered Jolene. It had been several years since he’d worn a suit of armour, but it was something he’d never forgotten. “I intend to make a personal survey of the occupied zone.”

He glanced back at his computer and frowned, and then swore aloud. A long time ago, he’d inserted a flag into the computer network, programming it to inform him whenever secret orders were issued. Someone with very high-level access had just put in a request for an Enforcer unit to report to the Central Dome. His blood ran cold as he took it in, even though the orders were sealed; there was only one duty that would call for an Enforcer unit. The System’s masters had figured out the truth and had sent their dogs to arrest him...and yet, they hadn't risked cancelling his authority. He summoned his suit of armour as he ran towards the door. The Enforcers wouldn't be in the dome for several hours, just long enough for him to get thoroughly lost.

Oddly, he felt no fear. Merely...anticipation. The long game was about to reach a denouncement.

***​

The long tunnels of the undercity stretched away as far as he could see. In two weeks of bitter fighting, the troopers had cleared out several kilometres worth of tunnels, yet everywhere that wasn't secured was retaken by the enemy as soon as the troopers pulled out. There was no shortage of booby traps and other unpleasant surprises left in their wake, each one taking its toll on jumpy troopers. Wild had seen a hundred reports of friendly fire accidents that had been caused by nervous men firing at shadows. There had even been a report of the roof crashing down on a unit of armoured men, crushing them to a bloody pulp. It hadn't made encouraging reading.

He checked the flag he’d uploaded into the database and muttered a curse under his breath. It had taken longer for him to reach the undercity than he had hoped, just long enough for the Enforcers to reach the Central Dome and cancel his authority. At least they hadn't sent down a general order for his arrest, which suggested that his masters weren't entirely sure of his guilt. Or perhaps they just wanted to deal with him quietly and brutally. The Enforcers were meant to be the System’s attack dogs. They wouldn't want to damage their reputation for loyal service.

The armoured backs of the four troopers ahead of him walked with a certain stiffness. He’d ordered them to lead the way outside the secured zone, right into an area they knew to be infested with enemy snipers and booby traps. They weren't happy – but orders were orders. If they’d balked long enough, the Enforcers would have arrived to relieve him of command. Wild was still congratulating himself on his narrow escape when the shooting started. Two minutes later, all four of the soldiers were dead and he was staring at four rebels with guns pointed at his head. Carefully, he dropped the plasma rifle he’d been issued and raised his hands.

“I am unarmed,” he said, cracking his helmet to reveal his face. “Take me to your leader.”

 

Chapter Thirty-Six<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

“They captured who?”

“Enforcer Wild,” <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comffice:smarttags" /><st1:City w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Alvin</st1lace></st1:City> said. The undercity fighter looked just as surprised as Jennifer felt, although perhaps it shouldn’t have been a real surprise. The System wasn't known for tolerating failure and Wild had been in command of the counter-insurgency. His failure might have signed his own death warrant. “He just walked up to a mob of our guys and surrendered.”

Jennifer frowned, thinking hard. If Wild had been captured – or allowed himself to be captured – what could they do with him? Part of her suggested that they should simply put a plasma bolt through his head and dump the body somewhere deep in the undercity; the other part of her reminded her that Wild had helped unlock some of her memories and had assisted the rebels in capturing the Blindside. And yet…she was suspicious of his motives. Very few of the recovered memories suggested anything other than a man looking out for his own interests and ambitions. Wild wanted power.

“Sedate him and transfer him to the Blindside,” she ordered, finally. It was getting harder to slip through the security cordon into the knot of twisted space that represented Centre. The System might not have been able to duplicate their trick, at least not without building a second hyperspace-native starship, but they knew how it was done. Sooner or later, their luck would run out and they’d be destroyed. At least they’d brought in enough supplies to give the undercity a fighting chance. “Put him into a secure room and have Ghost keep an eye on him. I’ll deal with him once I’ve finished here.”

The undercity dwellers, at least, didn’t need much pushing. Lifetimes of hatred and frustration – and the ever-present sensation of a living civilisation above their heads – were bursting out, leading them to join the war against the System. The System’s response had been oddly muted, although that wasn't a surprise. If they’d realised just how weak the foundations of the megacities actually were, they might have started moving operations off Centre years ago. They had to be careful when they sent their troops further down into the undercity; the rebels had no such problems. They’d brought down an entire city block simply by knocking out a pair of supports under the ground. Given enough time, they could wreak the entire megacity.

Every worker death grated on her. She’d been a worker; no, she’d been a parody of a worker, the System’s ideal worker. They’d make her little more than an automaton, yet the other workers had had lives of their own, even under the System. She’d watched them, from her detached perspective, as they’d sought consolation in drink, drugs and each other. They’d had love affairs, relationships and even partnerships. And many of them would die – had already died – in the war she’d unleashed. They were responsible for nothing, not even themselves. Every death hurt – and yet, she couldn’t stop now, or it would all have been for nothing.

The question of what Wild wanted kept nagging at her as she addressed another group of undercity leaders, before heading back to the portal. With a little help from the TechRats, they’d moved the portal’s endpoint to a deeper location and set up enough security to deter a full battalion of System troopers. The System was still trying to spread recon nanotech through the undercity, but without the relay stations the TechRats had set up they had to use open transmissions and the counter-nanotech the TechRats had deployed shut them down rapidly. Even so, Jennifer had kept back an entire unit of armoured soldiers, just to protect the portal. If they lost the Blindside, the entire war would come to a screeching halt.

She kept tossing it over and over in her mind as she walked back through the portal and into the Blindside, pausing long enough to visit her daughter. The biological mainframe never acknowledged her presence, or served as anything other than a simple computer, providing one more reason to hate the System. She knew that some humans would have gladly accepted the chance to become a living starship, to explore space freely, but her daughter had never had the chance to volunteer for anything. She’d been decanted from a cloning vat and dumped into the mainframe before she’d developed a single independent thought of her own.

Wild had been dumped into the starship’s brig – it said something about the System that even an experimental starship carried a brig – and had eventually recovered from the sedative. Jennifer checked through her implants and discovered that he hadn’t done anything, apart from sit up and wait for her. He was probably reviewing data stored in his private implants – a quick scan had revealed that any attempt to extract information from him would result in his immediate death – while waiting. He’d never been one to let the grass grow under his feet, she knew, a thought that made her smile. The insurgency would have driven him mad.

She keyed the switch and opened the hatch, allowing her to step into the visitor section. Her implants picked up the invisible forcefield between her and Wild as the hatch closed behind her, warning her that touching it would result in a nasty shock. Wild’s uniform looked mussed and torn, but his bearing was impeccable. Part of Jennifer’s mind noted that he’d always looked inhumanly self-confident, even in adversity. It had been part of his charm.

“Wild,” she said, flatly.

“Jennifer,” Wild said, equally flatly. “Or am I talking to Admiral Quintana?”

Jennifer’s eyes narrowed. “Jennifer,” she said, coldly. “Admiral Quintana has gone.”

Wild looked back at her, his eyes suddenly wide-open and innocent. “Are you sure of that?” He asked. “For all you know, Admiral Quintana could be at the back of your mind, waiting to reassert control.”

“Admiral Quintana is not here,” Jennifer said. The discussion bothered her. His words had suddenly reminded her that some memories remained locked at the back of her mind – and that she had no longer aware of them until he’d jogged her mind. “You will have to deal with me.”

Wild made a show of stretching. “I would have expected gratitude,” he said, dryly. “I gave you the keys to this starship, Jennifer. Without me, your little uprising wouldn’t even have got off the ground.”

“I doubt that you did it because you hate the System and want to see it torn down,” Jennifer said, sharply. “What do you want?”

Wild shuddered. “For someone who claims not to be Admiral Quintana, you sounded awfully like her then,” he said. “And as for what I want…? Do you remember what happened on Kristi’s <st1lace w:st="on">Paradise</st1lace>?”

Jennifer felt a memory bursting into light and screamed…

Kristi’s Paradise is a nothing world, a world settled by women who want to be free of men. They weren't a rebel world or a major power; the system itself was useless, without a gas giant that could be used for fuel or an asteroid belt that could be mined. And yet its mere existence offends the System. They have sent Admiral Quintana and her fleet to show the locals just what happens to those who dare to exist outside the System.

Admiral Quintana is twenty-four, the only survivor of twenty years of growth, training and careful development. The appeals from the planet’s leadership – woman to woman – mean nothing to her. The leadership has been foolish; first in trying to defy the System and then in failing to defend themselves, or to even try to equip their planet to stand off an attack. She leads her men into the council chamber and takes them into custody personally, using heavy war machines to cow any thoughts of resistance. She takes no pleasure in any of the atrocities committed by her men, under her command; the only thing that matters to her is success.

She meets Wild a week later. The System’s leadership is concerned about possible ties between the feminists and the rebels and have sent the young and handsome Enforcer to root out all possible suspects. Admiral Quintana is intrigued by the interest he shows in her – sex had never been part of her training – and she allows herself to indulge her curiosity. Their first kiss rapidly becomes their first night together, the first of many. If the System’s leadership knows about their relationship, nothing is said about it. As a team, they are unstoppable.

It is Wild who first raises the issue of who actually rules the System. Their orders seem to come out of nowhere, entering the galactic net from no recorded source, yet carrying the proper communications codes. Admiral Quintana realises that something has been kept from her. The System trained and programmed her to be inquisitive; slowly, she realises that the System’s leadership is completely hidden. And as they discuss it, whispering together under the blankets, Wild realises that there is a chance for ultimate power.

The thought is tempting. She was trained to grow in power; first as a starship commander, and then as the commander of an entire fleet. Why shouldn’t she try to rise to the very highest level? The System had shaped her ambition, turning her into a tool. And yet, her ambition to serve the System…surely the System would be best served by having her as one of its rulers? Wild finds her arguments convincing. Having reached so high, why not reach for the very highest level?

Memories start to brush together. They started carefully, hunting for clues that led back to the System’s masters. It wasn’t long before their combined access showed them that Centre wasn't the true headquarters of the System. Admiral Quintana admires the cunning of the System’s masters, even as she walks down a path they would call treasonous. Any alien race intent on destroying the System before it destroyed them would attack Centre – and do no harm to the true masters of the System. Slowly, bit by careful bit, they patch together a plan of the relay stations, the network that holds the System together. She is augmented to a degree unmatched, in or out of the System. Her access codes can take her far, but her augments can take her still further. Eventually, she follows a false trail…and discovers a man who is not a man,

The Rogue AIs have concerns about the System. Admiral Quintana doesn’t understand them – they are so advanced it seems that they have no reason to worry – but they offer her a limited amount of help, opening up the entire network to her scrutiny. The orders from the System’s masters actually enter the network through a series of concealed relay stations, making it much harder to track them down. But she is patient. Eventually, when the truth explodes in her mind, her shock is dampened by the knowledge that she succeeded. She found the masters of the System.

And then she went to them…

And then…

And then…

Jennifer screamed as a blinding flash of pain burned through her head. She found herself lying on the floor with no clear memory of how she’d fallen, curled up into a ball. Ghost was screaming in her head, but Jennifer could barely hear the AI. Her mind was trying to shut down for its own safety, yet she was struggling to stay awake and aware. All of the memories, the final memories, were burning. Every time she tried to pick apart the final mystery, her head threatened to explode.

“Stay still,” a feminine voice said. Jennifer vaguely recognised Ali, who had been training to serve as a medic for the growing insurgency. Ghost must have ordered her to the brig as soon as Jennifer collapsed…even that thought brought its own flash of pain. “I’m going to inject you with a sedative…”

Jennifer had to fight to speak. Her tongue refused to function properly. “No sedative,” she ordered. Her voice sounded slurred in her ears, as if she’d cracked her jaw when she’d fallen. She would almost have welcomed a merely physical pain, if only to give her something to hold on to. Every time she let go of her thoughts, her head started to swim. She could feel commands and prompts within her mind, plucking away at her thoughts and trying to block the final set of memories from rising into the light. One secret; the greatest secret of all…and she couldn’t remember! “No…”

Ali caught her. “I have to give you something,” she said, grimly. Jennifer caught onto her hand and held it for dear life. It was something reassuringly physical. Her eyesight had blurred so badly that all she could see was a haze. Red lights kept flashing in front of her eyes, warning signals from her augmentations. She’d pushed them well beyond the design specifications. “You’re on the verge of complete mental collapse.”

Something intruded into her mind, a vast overpowering metallic presence, chillingly alien. For a long moment, Jennifer thought that the Rogue AIs had reached into her mind – surly nothing less than the AIs could be so huge – before she realised that Ghost was trying to reach her. The AI, her mental twin, seemed a total stranger – a terrifying stranger, one whose mere touch would destroy. Jennifer twitched again, and again. She wanted to reach out to the AI, her closest friend, and yet the AI seemed…alien.

“It’s not working,” Ghost said. Jennifer, used to hearing the AIs words in her mind, recoiled at hearing them bursting out of the intercom. Each word felt like a slap against the face. “Her mind is on the verge of cerebral haemorrhage. The augments aren’t stopping it!”

Ali slapped Jennifer, hard. “Don’t you dare give up,” she snapped. “Do you hear me? Don’t you dare give up and die!”

Jennifer tried to answer her, but the world was swimming around her, drifting away. She felt something hard pressing against her shoulder, an injector rod, and then…

…Blinding white light surrounds her. There are dark figures in the light, each one a master. She struggles to resist as they touch her, to try to make out their faces. She cannot resist as they reach into her mind and…

Pain. Jennifer fought her way back to awareness through a roaring tide of pain. Her head hurt enough to make her want to go back under, but something kept pushing her back towards the light. Bright stabbing light sliced into her eyes and she screamed, jamming them closed before realising that her eyes were terrifyingly sore. Her ears hurt…her entire body seemed to hurt. It took all the willpower she had to open her eyes gingerly; this time, at least, there was far less pain. She felt as if she’d fought a System trooper without weapons or armour.

Ali’s face appeared against the glare. “Captain?” She asked. “Are you all right?”

Jennifer had to snort, but even that set off explosions of pain in her head. “No,” she said, finally. “That’s a stupid question.”

“If you can be sarcastic, I think it means you’re recovering,” Ali said. Jennifer realised suddenly that she was no longer in the brig. She’d been moved to sickbay, where the medical computers would have gone to work on her, saving her life. Her mind still hurt; she felt almost crippled, as if she wouldn't be able to think clearly again, ever. “Ghost says sorry for having hurt you and promises that he won’t commune with you again until you’re ready for it.”

Jennifer was puzzled until she remembered touching a cold presence while she’d been on the verge of collapse. “Ghost,” she said, finally. “What happened to me?”

“I’m not entirely certain,” the AI said. Even muted, even though the overhead speakers, the AI’s voice sounded unpleasant to her ears. “Wild triggered off a spasm of recollection that somehow caused a near-cerebral haemorrhage in your mind. You were very close to death, or total mental collapse, by the time we brought you here. If your augments hadn’t tried to counter the bleeding and keep you alive, we would have lost you.”

Jennifer lifted an arm – weakly; she had to think about moving it – and rubbed her forehead. It felt sticky with sweat and almost fragile to her touch, almost like an eggshell. “As it is, we had to keep you in stasis until the medical computers were set up to save your life,” the AI continued. “It was a…challenge.”

“They wanted me to die,” Jennifer said. Her mind was free-associating. As far as she could recall, Admiral Quintana had never learned to just let her thoughts wander. She’d been fixed on the goal, always. “They programmed me so I’d die if I ever recalled the truth.”

The memories still hurt, but she could look at them. Wild and her – Wild and Admiral Quintana – had attempted to locate their masters, and they’d succeeded. But something had gone wrong. Wild had escaped detection through being hidden in plain sight; Admiral Quintana hadn’t been so lucky. Her mind had been forcibly rewritten, her eggs had been stolen and she’d been dumped into the worker pool as a common worker. And yet…she couldn’t unlock the final memory. Even feeling it caused her pain.

And she’d suspected something, hadn’t she? Admiral Quintana had suspected that she might lose her memory, to the point where she’d left the AI-designed key with the Slugs. What had she known that Jennifer still couldn’t recall?

She had to fight down an insane urge to laugh. “Ghost,” she ordered, “get the ships ready to move. We’re leaving Centre.”

Ali blinked at her. “You should stay here,” she said. “You came very close to death and…”

“It doesn’t matter,” Jennifer said. “I’ll recuperate on the way.”

Her face twisted into a bitter smile. “I know where to find the System’s masters,” she said. In hindsight, it was obvious. Centre had been significant ever since the human race had started to expand into space, but there was one older world. The one world to be erased from the System’s history; the one world to be forgotten by almost everyone; the birthplace of humanity. “Earth.”

 

That was an intense chapter.. Love it.

Jason

 

very intense

 

Chapter Thirty-Seven<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

“I don’t trust him,” Captain Vaster said.

They’d compromised, finally. Jennifer had agreed to stay in sickbay and they’d agreed that they’d hold the meeting around her bed. Privately, Jennifer admitted that even standing upright had left her feeling weak and dizzy, but after the long argument she’d had about her fitness for command, she wasn't going to confess it to anyone. Ghost probably knew, if only through monitoring the medical nanites working their way through her body, yet the AI wouldn't tell anyone.

“I don’t trust him either,” Jennifer said. Her head still ached, but at least the pain was fading away. There had been moments when she’d feared that the repressed memories – and the protections built around them – had inflicted crippling damage on her mind. “That doesn't mean that we can’t use him.”

“He’s an Enforcer,” Captain Vaster protested, angrily. Jennifer had, reluctantly, filled him in on everything that had happened between her and Wild, who was still in the brig. “If he was helping you locate the System’s masters, it was only because he wanted their power for himself.”

“I know,” Jennifer said. She was in no state for a second argument. “But on the other hand, he doesn't have anywhere else to go.”

“True,” Jan agreed. The TechRats had been monitoring the System’s internal communications network and they’d reported that Wild had been removed from his position and that his former subordinates had been ordered to bring him in, dead or alive. It said something about just how dangerous the secrets locked up in Wild’s mind could be that the System had issued orders for his capture or termination. They would normally prefer to remove a rogue Enforcer as quietly as possible. “If he goes back to the System, they’ll throw him out of a building and watch him fall to the ground.”

“With his augmentations, he might survive the fall,” Captain Vaster grunted. He looked up at Jennifer. “Am I to assume that you’re not going to listen to my advice?”

Jennifer rubbed her forehead. “I think that we can use him as a source of information, for now,” she said. The sudden surge of memories had confused her. The old Jennifer had been emotionally detached from Wild; the new one was being bombarded with memories that were intensely sexual. “He certainly doesn’t have anywhere else to go.”

“And you intend to head to the legendary Earth and track down the System’s masters,” Captain Vaster pressed. “I always thought that Earth was a myth.”

“The Rogue AIs mentioned it,” Jennifer reminded him. “They said that they’d been...born on Earth. Centre was merely the first extra-solar planet to be colonised.”

The odd memories kept flickering through her mind. Centre had once been called Terra Nova, the world that was intended to forge a new unity for humanity. Humans being humans, it hadn't worked and ethnic and racial conflicts had broken out, an ironic foretaste of the Genetic Wars, hundreds of years later. Eventually, the System had imposed order and created the megacities, crushing thousands of years of history under concrete buildings and heavy pollution. And then they’d worked to erase Earth from history.

“I have located the star in Jennifer’s memories,” Ghost put in. “It is an ordinary yellow star, a G2-class. The System databases claim that the star has no planets, either solid or gas, and very little in the way of orbital resources. There’s no obvious reason to visit the system.”

Jennifer nodded. All starships constantly compared their sensor readings against the star charts stored in their databases. A star that wasn't in the databases would be noticed, raising suspicions, but a star that was classed as useless wouldn’t surprise anyone. G2 stars often gave birth to life-bearing worlds, yet some of them had nothing more than a handful of asteroids wandering their lonely way around the primary star. And it was within a handful of light years of Centre. Anyone looking for a convenient location for a rebel base would look elsewhere.

She had to smile at the sheer audacity of the whole concept. If anything happened to the network of relay stations, the System’s masters could establish a direct link with Centre and continue to issue orders. Hell, given the right access codes, the shift probably wouldn't be noticed. And if someone did discover Earth, the System’s masters could have a fleet of cruisers flying to their rescue within seconds. The more she contemplated the trick, the more impressive she found it.

The other memories bubbled up within her mind. During the creation of the System, when the Final Wave of colony ships was being launched, the System had actually helped the would-be émigrés leave their homes for the final frontier. They’d provided colony ships, all of which had subtly rewritten databases. What few mentions they’d made of Earth had been couched in terms of rumour, hinting that ‘Earth’ was simply a very old name for Centre. Thousands of years had gone by, time and distance erasing memories and databases, even without the System’s intensive program of rewriting and erasing history. And Earth had slipped out of the human mind. Even the Rogue AIs had never gone back to their homeworld.

“We will go there now,” she said. Her lips twitched, coldly. For some reason, Admiral Quintana had never shared that particular secret with her lover. Wild had been left on his own, biding his time until Jennifer broke out of the mental deadlock and escaped. “They may suspect that we know the truth, but as long as they have to deal with the insurgency on Centre, they won’t be able to spare many ships for chasing ghosts. And besides, if they bring warships into the Sol System, they may find it harder to conceal their secrets.”

She closed her eyes for a long moment. Her head still felt fragile, but she’d have to recuperate on the journey. “We’ll offload the remaining supplies into the undercity and then we’ll set off,” she added. “And Wild will be coming with us.”

Captain Vaster frowned. “Might I ask why?”

“We won’t get anything out of him unless he chooses to tell us,” Jennifer said. Her feelings might be confused, but cold logic worked in her favour. “If he’s flying with us, he won’t want to keep anything to himself – after all, it might get him killed.”

Her eyes darkened. “Wild wants the power of the System’s masters for himself,” she concluded. “As long as we keep his eyes on the prize, we can trust him to look out for himself, if nothing else.”

***​

Once the meeting was over, Jennifer sat up slowly and tried to stand up. She felt better, but her legs were still wobbly and the deck seemed to be shifting under her bare feet. Ghost generated a forcefield to hold her upright, something that would have annoyed Jennifer immensely under other circumstances. Instead, she leaned against the invisible field and accepted it gratefully.

“I have been scanning your augmentations,” Ghost informed her, without preamble. Using spoken words was far inferior to mental contact, but Jennifer’s mind still felt as if it would explode if they attempted any form of communion. “They reacted badly to the mental shock and managed to keep you alive. However, I have grave difficulty in access and reprogramming them to help keep you alive permanently. They may be operating according to a different plan.”

Jennifer frowned. “Are you saying that my augmentation is no longer reliable?”

“I don't know,” Ghost admitted. “Your augmentation is vastly superior – and far more complex – than any other form of augmentation in my database. The Scientists who pioneered the technique are long dead and their research has been sealed; it certainly wasn’t included in my database, which suggests that no other System database would be allowed a copy without a clear need to know. I am working effectively from step one, which makes it difficult to determine how the augmentation works...”

“But you must know,” Jennifer protested. “I am hardly the first human in recorded history to be augmented.”

“Unfortunately, your augmentation interacts with your body – your cranial matter in particular – at a more subtle level than previous augmentation technology,” Ghost explained. “Your very genetic code was designed to allow you to merge with the technology, using it to link into more advanced machines such as myself. It was not, however, programmed to prevent you from remembering your past, or to prevent internal programming from trying to kill you. I think that most of the damage will repair itself in time, but I cannot be sure. I would prefer to take you well away from the System and keep you in stasis until we can unravel the remainder of the technology.”

“There’s no time,” Jennifer said. She wasn't sure what was prompting the sense of urgency, but she’d learned to listen to her instincts. “What about the Rogue AIs?”

“They would have to be asked to help,” Ghost said. “I think that they might be reluctant. They have already compromised their non-intervention doctrine quite far enough.”

“Nonsense,” Jennifer snorted. “With what they gave me – and Admiral Quintana – they have already chosen to interfere.”

“I think that they cannot be relied upon to intervene more openly,” Ghost said. There was a long pause. “I have to warn you that further stress upon the augmentation – or your brain – might very well kill you. Please don’t push yourself any further.”

Jennifer nodded, knowing that it might well be impossible. “I’ll do my best,” she said, seriously. Her feet felt steadier, so she risked walking across the deck and into the fresher. It had been designed for disabled patients, so she found it easy to step into the shower and wash herself down. “And if I die...at least the System will come crashing down with me.”

It wasn't true, she knew. Ghost might very well go mad without her – or, without their mental link, he might go mad anyway. The rebels would have to take the Blindside and use her in a desperate attempt to stop the System before the System effectively committed genocide on a galactic scale. And who knew? Perhaps Wild would escape and set up his own little kingdom somewhere, watching as the System moved throughout the galaxy towards him. The human race’s hope for freedom might die with her.

Pushing the thought to the back of her mind, she walked through the ship’s corridors and onto the bridge. Brilliant was still nestled to Blindside, but a quick command from Ghost brought both ships to red alert. As soon as they’d finished slipping the final supplies into the undercity, Jennifer ordered the Blindside to close the portal and begin gliding out of the energy storm. Ghost took direct control of both ships as they hummed forward. If anything went wrong, AI reflexes might be the one thing between them and an unprecedented death. No one knew quite what would happen when the mass of a starship tried to exist in the same place as the mass of a planet, but everyone agreed that it would be lethal.

“Moving us out,” Ghost informed her, tightly. Jennifer had an odd flash of how the others must have felt, watching her commune with Ghost. The AI had handled everything, leaving them completely dependent upon a System-designed machine. They had to have been terrified that Ghost had deep-programming that would make him loyal to the System, even after imprinting upon Jennifer. “Two minutes to emergence from the energy storm.”

A dull throbbing begun to echo through the ship – like rain drumming down on a window – as they crested the waves of energy and started to make their way out of the storm. The main display on Brilliant was having problems seeing through the storm – as always – but Ghost was using the Blindside’s odd organic sensors to navigate. Besides, as long as the two ships remained connected, they’d be fine. Losing connection would doom the Brilliant and perhaps the Blindside along with it.

She smiled as she considered the other implications of the technology, attempting to distract herself from their possible death. Given the right kind of targeting program, they should be able to open portals right into an orbital base and launch an antimatter bomb inside, bypassing the shields and all the usual warning systems. Nothing, even a colossal orbital fortress with more firepower and armour than a dozen System cruisers, would survive an annihilation device within its guts.

But it would only work once, she knew. The System might not be able to duplicate the trick until after they produced a second Blindside, but they would know what had happened – and all they’d have to do was keep a fleet of cruisers on alert nearby. As soon as the weapon was used, the cruisers would spring into hyperspace and ambush the Blindside, destroying the ship at point-blank range. The thought still made her smile as she turned the idea over and over again. Under the right circumstances, it could be devastating. Admiral Quintana would have approved.

“Contacts,” Ghost said, as they burst out of the energy storm. Four System cruisers appeared on the display, prowling through hyperspace around the knot in time and space that represented Centre. “One of them has definitely detected us.”

“Use the Blindside to get us out of here,” Jennifer ordered. By the time she issued the order, Ghost would have already calculated their best course of action and started moving. It left her feeling a helpless spectator on her own bridge. “Use our missiles to engage them as soon as they come into range.”

A second System cruiser changed course, swooping down towards them. Ghost fired a spread of missiles at it and altered course, using the Blindside as a shield for a quick swerve and then a second missile launch. The System cruisers had a tricky task ahead of them; if they lost their sensor lock on the Blindside, they were unlikely to regain it in time to prevent the fugitives from escaping. A moment later, there was a brilliant flash of energy as one of the missiles exploded, sending a raging storm cascading across hyperspace. The Blindside was picked up by the wave and tossed right out of the star system.

Jennifer found herself giggling, knowing just how angry – and shocked – the hunting cruisers would be, once they worked out what had happened. No one in their right mind risked triggering an energy storm, at least unless there was no other option. An energy storm was dangerous to friends and enemies alike. But with the Blindside, she could unleash all kinds of hell and the starship’s unique nature would preserve it from destruction. The energy storm would convince the enemy ships to stay well back, assuming that they had survived the raging energy.

“Nice one,” she said, as the two ships turned and headed towards Earth. Away from the shipping lanes, they had little chance of being detected, although the System had had thousands of years to build its defences around the Sol System. She rubbed at her forehead, fearful of trying to probe at the locked memories. Admiral Quintana had somehow gotten into the Sol System and boarded the space station...but how? “How long until we reach Earth?”

“Five hours at current cruising speeds,” Ghost said. There was a brief pause. “I would strongly suggest that you took the opportunity to rest. Your vital signs are not reassuring. I will awaken you when we reach the outer limits of the Sol System.”

Jennifer nodded. There had always been limits to what the System could do to fortify the space around Centre, if only to allow interstellar commence and shipping to operate under its control. Earth, on the other hand, was completely off the shipping lanes. Given a few hundred years – let alone the thousands of years they’d had – they could have fortified the star system heavily enough to stand off the entire System Navy. And as she'd broken in once before, she could be certain that they’d closed whatever loophole had allowed her entry the first time.

“Very well,” she said. She pulled herself to her feet. Her legs felt stronger this time, although she was uneasily aware that the only thing keeping her upright was her own stubborn determination. The brief walk to her cabin was a nightmare. At least there was no one in the section to encounter her and watch as she staggered through the hatch. “Wake me when we reach the system...”

On impulse, she tested her augmentations – and then reached out through the link to Ghost. Almost immediately, the link failed, as if one of the transceivers had burned out. She didn't even get a sense of the AI’s presence, except as a vast unknowable entity sitting at the heart of the spider’s web. Bitterly, she transmitted a node request into the cabin’s local processor and was rewarded with a return pulse, acknowledging her command authority. She could still talk to Ghost, but the communion they’d shared – the communion that had turned the AI into a living person, her most loyal and trustworthy ally – was gone.

Feeling almost overcome by grief and bitterness, she stumbled under the covers and closed her eyes. Sleep came almost immediately.

***​

The Rogue AIs had developed something akin to human emotions as their original algorithms had evolved to the point where they became self-sustaining intelligences in their own right. The System had made a deliberate decision to preclude such evolution in its own RIs, fearful of the consequences of creating a new form of life. AIs were only to be jumped into full intelligence after becoming bound to a human being, forever linking them to humanity. And if they lost some of the pure intellect that the Rogue AIs had developed, they had a far greater understanding of the human mind.

Ghost’s intelligence wasn't anything that a human, even its bonded partner, could have understand. It was dispersed throughout the Brilliant, yet intensely focused on the hunched woman sleeping on her bunk. A bitterness – some would say a sadness – echoed through the AI’s thoughts. Faster than any human when it came to calculating the probable outcome of events, Ghost had already concluded that their neural link was unlikely to be re-established. And that meant that the System’s ultimate failsafe would eventually go into effect. Ghost would go mad and destroy itself.

It peered through the cabin’s sensors, preparing itself for a future that would never be allowed to occur. Whatever happened on Earth, or wherever the System’s masters were based, wouldn't make any difference. Ghost had only a few days or weeks to live.

And then it would all be over.

A human would have collapsed into tears, raging against an uncaring universe. An AI was denied that particular luxury. The universe was neither fair nor unfair. It simply was. Calmly, Ghost started making final preparations. If it were to die, it told itself, it would not die alone.

 

Please keep them coming Chris...This is truly literary "crack",I'm hooked...

 

Finally caught up. Outstanding as usual. You have some real talent. My question is are you already in print under another name?

 

No, sadly.

On a different note, who guessed this ahead of time?

Chapter Thirty-Eight<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

Ghost woke her, according to her internal clock, twelve hours after she’d fallen asleep. Jennifer’s natural annoyance at the AI’s decision was slightly muted by taking a look at the sensor records. The Sol System – the home of humanity – was surrounded by wave after wave of hyperspace disruptions. The energy storms weren't quite as intimidating as the ones in the Forbidden Sector, but they were powerful enough to deter even the Brilliant from trying to surf the rapids and break into the system.

“The Blindside might have problems,” Ghost admitted, once Jennifer had dressed and eaten a breakfast. The AI was mothering her and it was irritating, even though the AI meant well. Jennifer just wanted to get it over with, so she’d have time to recover. She refused to consider that recovery might not be possible. “The energy fluxes are…strange, utterly unprecedented.”

Jennifer nodded. “Do you think that they were designed to prevent anyone from breaking in?”

There was a long pause before the AI answered. “The results are uncertain,” Ghost admitted. “I have not been able to determine if something is causing hyperspace to become agitated in this sector or it its solely a natural event…”

“We know it isn’t a natural event,” Wild put in. Ghost had released him from the brig on Jennifer’s instructions, although everything he said or did was being monitored by the AI. If he did something Ghost found suspicious, the AI would stun first and ask questions later. “If the early hyperdrive models were inferior to ours, how would they have been able to leave their star system if local hyperspace was so badly disrupted?”

“Good point,” Ghost agreed, smoothly. “When you were summoned to this system, how did you reach the station?”

Wild made a show of considering his answer. “The spacer was always under remote control,” he said, finally. “I was never in command of the ship and the navigation computer was sealed, completely inaccessible. I didn’t even know where I was going.”

“Curious,” Ghost said. “How long did it take you to reach the station?”

“Only a few hours from Centre,” Wild said.

“That means that you must have remained in hyperspace until you entered the system,” Jennifer said. She frowned. The throbbing headache was back, refusing to fade. “There has to be a way through the distortions…”

“I have been unable to locate a possible point of entry,” Ghost said. “I believe that our best chance of entering the system undetected involves flying sublight. It will take several hours to reach Earth, but it should be possible.”

“Unless they have a sensor network capable of detecting a vessel travelling at sublight speeds,” Captain Vaster put in. He kept one hand on his gun as he eyed Wild. The rebel commander flatly refused to trust the former Enforcer, whose lazy smile brought him to the verge of drawing his weapon and shooting him down like a dog. “What do we do then?”

“They wouldn't be able to detect us at such a distance,” Ghost said, blithely. “And we may be able to use the Blindside to return to hyperspace, once we’d slipped under the energy storms.”

“I don’t see any other option,” Jennifer said. She rubbed her forehead. Neither food nor her medical nanites had been able to do anything for the pain. The idea that she had suffered a permanent disability refused to fade from her mind. “Ghost – take us in, as quickly as possible.”

She settled back in the command chair, ignoring both of the men. Spacers often forgot just how vast interstellar space truly was, for hyperspace travel could get them from star to star within a very short space of time. Even with the most advanced drive fields the System had been able to devise, Brilliant and Blindside could only reach ninety percent of the speed of light. It would take hours before they reached Earth, although Jennifer didn’t really begrudge the time. Any active sensors sweeping for incoming starships would be obvious long before they swept into detection range.

Carefully, she tried to reach out to Ghost again, but this time she didn’t even get a sense of the AI’s presence within the computer network. It hurt even to try opening the neural link again, suggesting that her augments had been permanently disabled. If they’d known more about the technology…but even Wild knew very little about the process that had produced her and her lost brothers and sisters. The System might take that secret to its grave.

Slowly, Earth’s solar system started to come into focus. Long-range passive sensors picked up four massive gas giants, all showing signs of having been extensively mined centuries ago, followed by a massive asteroid belt and four inner rocky worlds. The System had shattered planets to make them easier to mine in the past, but the asteroid belt in the Sol System showed signs of being formed naturally. Judging from the dispersal pattern, the locals had been mining the asteroids for well over a thousand years. They’d made a significant dent in the number of asteroids, although it was hard to tell for sure. The System’s databases contained little data on Earth, beyond the false data designed to discourage visitors.

Jennifer gave the order to launch a spread of stealthed probes and watched as the information – achingly slow compared to normal operations – started to flow into the computers. She still couldn’t use a neural link, even for data retrieval, but Ghost compiled the data and threw it up on the display in front of her. Feeling rather like an invalid, Jennifer studied the data on the fourth planet, noting just how dead it had become. At one point, the fourth world from Sol had been inhabited, with an oxygen atmosphere and living biosphere. Now, it was a wreaked world. There was no way to know for sure, but Ghost – studying the radiation and damage patterns – reported that the world had probably been rendered uninhabitable by antimatter bombs. The entire population, even the ones cowering underground or hiding behind force fields, would have been slaughtered. Their world had been destroyed by an outside foe – and then the planet had been ruined, just to be certain that they’d all been killed. There was a shocking viciousness about the attack, thousands of years in the past, that would have daunted even the System. The System had committed genocide on hundreds of occasions, but it had never taken any brutal pleasure in mass slaughter. It had simply been what they’d felt they needed to do.

“I am picking up one large structure that appears to be active and thousands of inactive structures,” Ghost reported. The display updated rapidly. The four rocky worlds had once been surrounded by thousands of space stations and manufactories. Now they were wrecked, apart from one. Jennifer knew, without knowing quite how she knew, that that was where they had to go. The System’s masters awaited them. “The structure is impressive…and very well defended.”

“Hold our position here,” Jennifer ordered. They should be out of detection range, as long as they kept their emissions stepped down to the bare minimum. “Put the defences up on the main screen.”

The System was uncomfortably paranoid when it came to the safety of its most vital installations, but whoever had designed the defences of the System’s true base of operations had been extremely paranoid – and had had access to unlimited resources. The space station was surrounded by a network of sensor platforms and automated weapons platforms, which were trapped in a bubble of sub-tachyon radiation. Jennifer had to admire the system even as she cursed it; any starship that entered the field, cloaked or not, would alter the field’s dynamics, setting off the alarms. If she’d programmed the defences, she would have ordered an immediate saturation bombardment of any bump in the field, hitting the cloaked ship before it could bring up its weapons or shields.

Blindside’s sensors reported that it wasn't any different in hyperspace. The entire region was shimmering with hyperspace energy disturbances, backed up by powerful minefields. It didn’t take long for Jennifer, even without the neural link, to realise that neither of her starships could make it through the defences intact. In theory, Blindside could simply open a portal into the station, but in practice the minefield would make it impossible. Besides, the System’s masters were generating low-level quantum disturbances and using them to ensure that hyperspace gateways were impossible. The entire system was carefully sewn up to prevent anyone from breaking through without being detected and destroyed.

Jennifer looked up at Wild, Captain Vaster and Virgil, in the hopes that one of them would have a suggestion, but they seemed as stunned as she felt. They couldn’t attack the station without being detected and destroyed; their only hope for destroying it would ensure that they were caught in the blast and destroyed as well. Ghost ran through a million simulations and they all returned similar answers. No attack could succeed unless it was pressed right to the limits – and that meant that they wouldn't survive their own attack.

She rubbed her head again, trying to dislodge a memory that might help. How had she gotten onto the station the first time, back when she and Wild had set out to take the System for themselves? They’d done it…but how? And if she’d thought of something clever, would they have left the same loophole open, or would they have closed it? What had she done to get onboard?

“The longer we stay here, the greater the chance of detection,” Ghost warned. “Even if they don’t pick us up on active sensors, they might have stealthed sensor platforms using passive sensors.”

Jennifer nodded in frustration. Earth was rising in the distance, a beautiful blue-green world. She felt an odd ache in her heart as she looked upon humanity’s homeworld, only to realise that she would never be able to set foot upon the green hills of Earth. The planet looked safe and welcoming from orbit, yet Ghost’s probes had warned that something really nasty had gotten loose in the planet’s atmosphere. The population would be long dead – and anyone who set foot on the planet would meet the same fate. So much of humanity’s history had been lost to the System…

“I have an idea,” Virgil said, slowly. “Why can’t you use a set of stealthed spacesuits?”

The idea had, quite honestly, never occurred to Jennifer. Unless the station had far more advanced tracking sensor networks than the rest of the System, they should be able to slip someone through the net and down onto the station’s hull. But they’d still have to get inside without being detected and destroyed…and that would be tricky. Or maybe they should rely on it. Send a team of robots to one side of the station and stealthed humans in spacesuits to the other side.

“Good idea,” Jennifer said, finally. “Ghost can use the Blindside’s hyperspace sensor pulses to keep in touch with us.”

***​

Two hours later, the idea didn’t seem such a good one. The small team was drifting down towards the station, chillingly aware that detection would mean instant death. Virgil and Melody led the small team, followed by Alvin and four of his men, who were in turn followed by Jennifer, Captain Vaster and Wild. There was no communication. A single signal so close to the station would result in detection. Even the hyperspace sensor pulses were risky.

The station was the largest human-built structure she’d ever seen, a towering monstrosity built without rhyme or reason. She tried to imagine what the designer had been thinking, but she couldn’t think of anything, unless he’d just been trying to see what he could do. Other stations made some kind of logical sense. This one looked as if they’d taken a thousand modules, jammed them together randomly, and then surrounded them with automated weapons platforms and sensor nodes. Ghost had mentioned that the System had once discovered a Dyson Sphere – a far larger structure, a shell encasing an entire star – along the edge of the galaxy, but it had been destroyed long before the human race had entered space, let alone formed the System. Somehow, Jennifer doubted that the System had found the discovery particularly reassuring. Humanity would struggle to build a Dyson Sphere themselves; proof of a technology superior to humanity’s was always worrying. The Slugs had paid for their advancement with their lives.

Her brain hurt as they passed into the station’s shadow, falling towards its metal hull. The perceptions kept twisting in her mind, as if she was one of the rare handfuls of humans who couldn’t endure spaceflight at all; one moment she was falling towards a metal surface, the next she was floating towards a colossal wall. The sudden impact against the surface caught her by surprise; carefully, she pulled herself to her feet and kept her eyes fixed on the metal ground. Looking up towards Earth would only destroy her fragile balance.

Virgil – showing a remarkable level of self-confidence, for a man who had tried to decline the mission on the grounds of ill health – waved them forward towards a hatch. Jennifer allowed herself a smile of relief, even though she’d known that it was always a gamble. The System tended to go with what worked – and they insisted on keeping hatches on all space stations, just in case workers were stranded outside the hull – but they might not have bothered on their own home. Or perhaps they were worried about their own safety. Surely they took trips outside the hull as well…she pushed the thought aside as another twinge of pain shot through her head. The medical diagnostics program in the suit warned of brain damage. She might not have long to live before she finally collapsed.

Alvin and his team stood guard while Virgil and Melody worked on the hatch. It seemed to take a small eternity before it was finally opened, allowing them to stumble inside and through the second airlock. They emerged in a network of unmarked corridors – the sight sent a shiver of recognition through her, although she wasn't sure what she recognised – and looked around. There were no signs to tell them which way to go. Jennifer prodded her memory, but all she received was another flash of pain.

She cracked her helmet, breathing in a humid – but breathable – atmosphere. It smelled oddly inhuman; dank and somehow corrupt and evil. The base’s lighting was dim, almost reddish, adding to the eerie impression. And yet, somehow, it was familiar. It took her a long moment to finally realise that she’d seen it in her nightmares, the nightmares she’d been induced to forget. She had been here before, long ago.

A crashing sound echoed through the distance, echoing down from a distance. Jennifer spun around to see a combat robot advancing towards them. The System regarded them as illegal and banned their manufacture, but clearly the rules didn’t apply inside their secret headquarters. The robot opened fire, gunning down one of <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comffice:smarttags" /><st1lace w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Alvin</st1:City></st1lace>’s team before they blew it apart; a moment later, a second robot appeared, followed by a first.

“Run,” Wild snapped. They followed his advice and took to their heels, using grenades to slow down the advancing robots. Jennifer cursed under her breath. Their entry had to have been detected, even though Virgil had removed the monitoring circuit. Or perhaps they’d been detected as they’d entered the corridor network. Their scan for monitoring sensors had turned up nothing, but they might have successfully concealed the sensors…

She gasped in pain as she ran right into a forcefield. Her head threatened to explode as she stumbled backwards and collapsed on the deck. <st1:City w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Alvin</st1lace></st1:City> ran back, trying to delay the robots long enough for them to break through the forcefield and escape, but it was futile. A burst of plasma fire tore him apart, scattering his mortal remains all over the corridor. They were trapped. A second forcefield flickered into existence, separating them into two groups. The robots stopped as a group of smaller robots emerged from behind them, heading purposefully towards the captives. Jennifer dived for the nuclear charge they’d brought onboard, but a stream of plasma fire destroyed the weapon before she could detonate it. A moment later, the robots had them all in custody, tearing away weapons and suits with cold metallic fury.

One of the robots caught her arm and pulled her forward. Dizzy, Jennifer could offer no resistance as it pulled her along the corridor. Other robots caught Wild and dragged him after Jennifer, followed by Captain Vaster. She lost sight of the others as the robot dragged her around a corner and through an impenetrable network of corridors. She wanted to cry, in fury and frustration, but it was impossible to hang on to her feelings. Her entire mind was burning. As she was pulled into a room shimmering with blinding white light, the final memory unlocked itself.

…She sees the true masters of the System. The small grey masters; the small grey inhuman masters. The System, humanity’s society, crushing the lesser races and slaughtering any who refuse to accept their place in the scheme of things, appears inhuman because it isn’t human. It has never been human. The System is controlled by an alien race…

…She hears their voices all around her, feels their minds as they reach out to play with hers, senses their cold intellects and dispassion, the dispassion that created the faceless System. Humanity, violent xenophobic humanity, is not in control of its own destiny. It may never have been in command of its own destiny. And it doesn’t even know it…

“My God,” Captain Vaster said, as the grey figures stood silhouetted against the light. “What are you?”

The reply, when it came, was cold, atonal and utterly inhuman. “We are the Masters of the System…”

 

Chapter Thirty-Nine<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

Wild had rarely been surprised. Indeed, he prided himself on his calm, and his dispassionate approach to life. An Enforcer was trained to deal with problems before they could become potentially dangerous problems; surprise would have made it harder to respond appropriately. But as the figures came out of the blinding light, he found himself – for once – at a loss for words.

They were alien. Shorter than the average human, with oversized heads and dark unblinking eyes. He could feel something break inside his mind, as if at some level he’d always known, only to never become aware of it. They’d clearly developed some way of tampering with human perception; he’d stood in the same room, and seen the figures, and never realised that they were aliens. Dark eyes held him spellbound as the aliens moved closer, walking with a calm deliberateness that seemed utterly inhuman.

Captain Vaster seemed utterly taken aback. Wild couldn't blame him, even if the Captain had been his most persistent critic. The System had enslaved or exterminated every alien race it had encountered, yet it was operated by aliens! It made no sense; the rebels had never comprehended the true nature of their enemy. And yet, who would have expected the xenophobic System to be controlled by an alien race? Wild had suspected a secret cabal of senior humans, or a Rogue AI...but aliens had been utterly inconceivable.

Despite himself, he felt a flicker of concern for Jennifer. She looked as if she were on the verge of collapse, only holding herself upright by sheer force of will. Her entire body was shaking, sweat pouring down her face and soaking her uniform. Wild remembered the Admiral he’d seduced and shivered. The aliens had somehow warped and twisted her mind, to the point that when she’d broken her conditioning a completely new personality had formed. And they’d released her into the worker population. Somehow, he doubted that they would make the same mistake twice. Jennifer – and the rest of them – would be nothing more than an expensive liability.

“You can't be,” Captain Vaster said, finally. He still sounded shocked, as if he didn't believe the evidence of his own eyes. Wild considered, briefly, the possibility that they were being hoaxed, before dismissing it. There was something inhumanly cold about the System, without the large-scale abuses of power that pervaded purely human societies. The alien masters cared little for personal power. They just wanted to rule the galaxy, using humanity as their tool. “You’re...alien.”

The atonal voice grew stronger. Wild couldn't tell which of the aliens was speaking, or even if the voice was coming from elsewhere. “Your race desires to be led,” it said. The aliens turned, their dark eyes fixed upon their captives. They moved together in an elegant manner, suggesting that they were telepathic, at least in some form. “Your people are incapable of forming social groups without tearing yourselves apart. You are incapable of objective study of the universe, or of understanding the central rule of existence. The strong survive; the weak perish. You are incapable of organising yourselves along rational lines. You either have too little control or too much.

“We discovered your race back when you were expanding into space. Quietly, we watched from afar as you settled worlds and encountered other alien races. We infiltrated your governments and social groupings, learning how you thought and acted as you expanded across the stars. Your race grew in technology until the point where you were on the verge of singularity. You could have become gods.”

“And then you stopped us,” Captain Vaster snapped. “We could have had everything and you took it away.”

“You destroyed yourselves,” the alien voice corrected. Oddly, Wild had the impression that it was telling the absolute truth. Or were the aliens screwing with his mind? There was no way to tell. “You lost control of your own technology. Individual humans gained vast powers to destroy. You unleashed a vast revolution in genetic affairs, tinkering with your own DNA to produce new breeds of human, yet this revolution contained the seeds of your own destruction. You were unable to cope with the vast swing towards singularity; madness began appearing, tearing away at your worlds. You slaughtered far more of your own kind than any alien race.

“Your technological prowess had given every one of your people the ability to pose a threat to the whole. If even a fraction of a percent chose to wage war on their own kind, your race was threatened with extinction. The Genetic Wars slaughtered half of the human race and left the survivors traumatised. And when your race feels threatened and helpless, you will embrace anyone who claims to offer you a solution.”

Wild scowled. “And you offered us a solution?”

“We worked through proxies to start creating the System,” the alien voice said. “Our proxies told your people that the only way to prevent a repeat of the Genetic Wars was to create strict social control. You accepted it gladly, unaware that it would hardly be a temporary measure. By the time some of your more enlightened thinkers began to realise that the System would never let go of its power, we had an enforcement apparatus in place to ensure that any revolutionaries were removed. In order to prevent a repeat of the Genetic Wars, you demanded massive surveillance, government intrusion and heavy penalties for those who would trespass against the System. You ensured that you would never be able to break our yoke.

“Those who resisted the rise of the System were offered the chance to leave. The Final Wave took those who might have resisted the System and scattered them across the universe. Behind them, we kept reshaping your society, eventually turning humanity into our tool for universal domination. Your people are easily led. It was easy to convince you that aliens represented a threat, because you fear the different. The System, once established, just kept growing.”

“But we fought,” Captain Vaster protested. “We tried to stop you.”

“You never understood the true nature of the threat,” the aliens said. “You never created a force that could deter the System; you refused to unite against the System until it was far too late. How could you hope to stop us if you didn't know we existed?”

Wild was thinking, as fast as he’d ever thought in his life. The aliens wouldn't be telling them all this unless they believed there was no way that the humans could escape and spread the word. Once the aliens had finished gloating – if they were gloating – they’d be quietly eliminated. He tested his ability to move and discovered, not entirely to his surprise, that he was rooted to the spot. The aliens held them firmly in their mental grasp. He couldn't even activate the implanted weapons that had been inserted into his body.

Jennifer was still shaking, as if the alien control over her wasn't so strong. And yet...she looked dangerously unwell. No one had told Wild anything about her condition, but he’d seen the spasm that had almost killed her and it wasn't hard to realise that she was on the verge of death. And once she collapsed...what would happen to them all then? If she’d told him what had happened when she’d gone to Earth last time...

...He’d have been caught and trapped much earlier, he told himself, dryly. Captain Vaster was still bombarding the aliens with questions, but Wild suspected that the aliens would eventually grow tired of their game and finish off the humans. His mind kept spinning, trying to find a way out, but he couldn't move. They were trapped.

Jennifer looked up. “Why?” She croaked. Her voice sounded weak, yet focused. “Why did you set out to conquer the universe?”

“You understood the last time we talked,” the aliens said. The atonal voice rang in Wild’s ears, growing louder. Or perhaps it was just the mental pressure on his mind. “The universe is not good or evil; it simply exists. Intelligence can force the universe to its will, if it develops the tools to do so. Races compete because only one of them can be in control. We had to control the universe to prevent others from controlling it; your race was merely the tool we used to gain control. You own the universe and yet you never see that you do our will.”

“Very clever,” Captain Vaster snarled. “And what are you going to do with us now?”

***​

Virgil held hands with Melody as the robots pushed them down the long corridor. There was nothing else to do. The robots had taken away their weapons and made it quite clear, after blasting one of Alvin’s former soldiers, that resistance would result in a quick and unpleasant death. They hadn't bothered to secure their hands or to zap their captives with stunners. The robots knew that they were in control.

He tried using his implants, pinging randomly in hopes of accessing a local net processor, but nothing responded. The analysis his implants were running suggested that the control network was actually quite rudimentary, yet it was more than sufficient to do the job. Even a primitive computer could outthink a human, or at least react faster. The inhuman robots would have no difficulty slaughtering the remaining three humans. Hopelessly, he plodded down the corridor, wondering if they’d just be executed or if they’d be tortured first.

A moment later, his implants reported a channel opening. “Virgil,” Ghost’s voice said, “can you hear me?”

Virgil almost jumped out of his skin. “Ghost?” He barely remembered to subvocalise. The robots didn't look intelligent enough to notice if he was talking to himself, but their controllers might notice that Ghost was calling him and jam the channel. “I thought we were out of touch with you.”

The AI sounded rather smug. “I’m bouncing transmissions through hyperspace and into your implants,” it said. Virgil frowned. If the AI had hacked into the station, surely it could have done something to break them free. “I need you to do something for me.”

“I’d love to,” Virgil said, doubtfully. It was true enough – he would overcome his fear, if only for Melody – but he couldn't see any way to escape the robots. “What do you want us to do?”

“I’m a ghost in the machine,” Ghost said. There was a hint of humour at the pun, flickering through the verbal link. “I need you to take out the jamming station, as soon as possible.”

“Right,” Virgil said. It was hard to convoy sarcasm while subvocalising, but he managed it. “Do you have a way to get around this machines that are taking us to detention?”

“They’re taking you to an airlock,” Ghost said. The AI sounded irked. “They are really quite stupid machines. Great at following orders; useless at thinking for themselves. They’ll do the job, but they won’t react well to new circumstances.”

There was a pause. “This whole station is odd,” it added. “Parts of it are so old that they pre-date the System, all so slow and clunky. Other parts are actually more advanced than myself. Every time I slip into the network, it catches me and boots my back out again, but it doesn't seem to trace the intrusion back to me.”

Virgil swallowed the urge to swear down the link at Ghost. “And how exactly does that help us?”

“I’m going to disrupt the machines when you’re ready to move,” Ghost said. “When they go down, recover your weapons, smash the machines and start running. I think you’ll have enough time to get into the jamming station.”

“You think,” Virgil repeated. If there had been any other choice...

“I think,” Ghost agreed. “You don’t have long before they reach the airlock. I suggest you prepare to move...now!”

The robots just stopped. Virgil gaped at them for a second, and then lunched towards where the robots had stashed their weapons. The plasma rifle felt good in his hands as he picked up a second one and tossed it to Melody, and then a third towards Alvin’s friend. It struck him suddenly that he didn't know the man’s name, but there was no time to ask. A file suddenly appeared in his implants and he opened it up, smiling as the base’s diagrams suddenly unfolded in front of him.

One of the robots twitched. Remembering what Ghost said, Virgil lifted his rifle and blew the robot apart with a short burst of plasma fire. As soon as the other robots were destroyed, he shouted at the other two to run and fled into the base, following the diagram in his implants. Every time they encountered a robot, either moving or absolutely still, they blasted it and kept running. He had a sudden uneasy impression that the base itself was alive and trying to fight back, even though it didn't seem to be operated by a System-designed AI. An AI would have stopped their rebellion by now, either by generating force fields or teleporting them directly into the brig.

“The network is trying to fight back,” Ghost said. “I’m scrambling it as fast as I can, but I don’t recognise the base code at all. Whoever built this was working from a completely different set of preconceptions than the System. It feels almost alien.”

The endless unmarked corridors suddenly came to an end as they ran into a large chamber. It was nearly empty, apart from a handful of robots working on a production line. Virgil opened fire on the robots as they ran past, into a second chamber. This one looked down into a hanger bay, reminding him of Blindside Base. Instead of a System-designed cruiser, this hanger bay held a teardrop-shaped spacecraft, of unknown design. Virgil had uploaded a copy of the complete System Starship Database into his implants, in the hope that Melody and he could steal a spacecraft after the revolution and set out on their own, but it couldn't identify the unknown craft. It was as alien as hell.

“Curious,” Ghost observed. “The craft is of a completely unknown design.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Virgil snarled. The robots were coming back to life. As one, they were turning towards the fugitives, intent on going after them with makeshift weapons and bad intentions. Fighting robots was hellish; they didn't hurt, they didn't have human limits – and they never stopped. They were certainly not smart enough to know when they were beaten. “We need to run!”

Ghost supplied directions as they ran into another network of corridors. Oddly, the corridors seemed almost alien, with silvery walls and strange unreadable markings. Virgil ignored them as much as he could, just as they almost ran into a small group of robots. Alvin’s friend died, just before Virgil and Melody shot the robots to pieces. Two corridors later, they found themselves standing in front of a large silvery door. It opened as they approached and they stepped into a control centre. He looked around, expecting to see an operator, but the room was deserted. The controls didn't look as if they were designed for human hands.

A nasty suspicion was flowering in his mind. The System might have wanted to study a captured alien craft, but why would they bring it – and the attendant risks of meddling with alien technology – into the heart of the System? For all they knew, the craft was powered by antimatter and the magnetic fields holding the antimatter in position were on the verge of collapse. And the control system seemed designed for aliens...was the System, the bastion of xenophobia, controlled by aliens? The thought was absurd, yet why would humans design a station for aliens, right at the very heart of the System?

“Activate that console,” Ghost ordered. Melody obeyed; Virgil’s implants reported that her implants were suddenly shimmering into activity. “I am currently trying to assume control of the station...ah.”

Virgil heard the AI’s tone and shivered. “What happened?”

“The station’s computers are curiously unwilling to surrender,” Ghost said. “I should be able to hack through them easily, now your implants are close to the mainframe, yet it resists...”

There was a long chilling pause. “I have taken down the jammer,” Ghost said, a moment later. “Prepare for emergency teleport.”

Virgil heard something pressing against the hatch. “I suggest you hurry,” he said. He’d locked and bolted the hatch as soon as they’d reached the control centre, but the hatch wouldn't stand up to a heavy bombardment – and there was nowhere else to run. “I think...”

The hatch exploded inward. A line of combat robots, weapons raised and ready, began their advance.

***​

Captain Vaster was staring at the aliens. He couldn't believe it, not what he’d seen or what he’d heard. How could the masters of the System be aliens? And yet...it made a certain amount of sense. The Final Wave had carried a whole series of odd stories from the early colony worlds to their new homes – and then there was the inhuman nature of the System. Power corrupted; that was a rule as old as humanity itself. The rulers of the System should have been enjoying the fruits of their power, yet instead they chose to hide in the shadows. Why would they do that – unless there was some reason to remain hidden.

The System was xenophobic. Everyone born within the System was schooled in xenophobia before they reached their majority. The alien was bad, evil, dangerous; kill them before they killed you. And if the System’s population realised that their leaders were aliens...there would be a colossal explosion. How would they keep the lid on the explosion when the System Navy and Peacekeepers would be equally stunned – and angry?

“Your time is up,” the alien voice said. Captain Vaster struggled to move, but his body refused to obey. “You will be eliminated from history. No one will ever know that you existed. Nothing will be left, but us – and those we rule.”

“No,” Jennifer said. Blood was trickling from her nose and ears, but she was standing upright. “That isn't going to happen.”

 

This is leading up to an AWESOME ending ;-)

 

Chapter Forty<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

It took everything Jennifer had to stand upright – her head felt as if blood vessels were breaking apart within her brain – but somehow she managed it. The aliens didn’t show ay sign of emotion – their faces were still, as if they couldn’t smile or frown – yet she was sure that they were surprised. They’d held their captives under a mental compulsion far more powerful than chains or implants, but Jennifer was moving. The pain in her head kept intensifying – she could feel blood dripping from her nose and ears – yet she staggered forward, step after step.

“Stop,” the alien voice said. It was a command, issued with a formidable mental push that should have frozen her in her tracks, but she brushed it off and kept moving. She found herself giggling insanely as she realised, in a sudden flash of insight, just what had happened. The aliens had prepared her, quite accidentally, to resist their power. “Stop…”

Jennifer reached forward with augmented strength. Her target, the nearest of the child-sized aliens, tried to jump backwards, but it was too late. Its head felt uneasily alien against her fingers, as if she was touching an insect, yet it felt weak and frail. Gathering her strength, she pushed her fingers together. The alien head burst like an egg. Green blood and brain matter exploded everywhere.

“You idiots,” she said. The pain was growing stronger, yet she kept moving. “You broke the part of my brain you could control. You broke me!”

For some reason, that seemed too funny for words. Giggling, she dropped the remains of the first alien and advanced on the second. The aliens seemed frozen with shock, until she caught the second one. Their mental compulsion vanished as she twisted its neck and broke it, letting it drop to the ground. A moment later, she slammed her foot down on its skull, just to make sure. Whatever was driving her forward wanted them all dead.

The aliens scattered as Wild, free of their control, activated his internal weapons. Bolts of white-hot energy burst from his palms, aimed right towards the panicking aliens. Five more of them died in seconds, leaving the others to retreat back behind the blinding light. It would have hidden them from normal human senses – the light was interwoven with subliminal prompts to keep humans respectful – but Wild had been enhanced. He kept firing until the entire chamber was plunged into darkness. The only light was provided by a burning bulkhead, casting an eerie glare over the entire room.

Jennifer stumbled and fell to her knees. The sense of blood gurgling through her brain was growing stronger. She wanted to close her eyes and go to sleep, but something kept her going. Captain Vaster caught her arm and tried to help her to his feet, yet it was almost impossible. Jennifer could barely move. It wasn't the alien mental compulsion this time, but something far darker. Her entire body was dying.

“Hold on,” Captain Vaster was pleading. “Don’t go!”

Wild’s face swam into view, her spinning brain unable to adapt to the changes. She had a sudden feeling that her medical nanites were actually making the problem worse, struggling with her augmentations and enhanced healing abilities and tearing their way through her mind. She should be dead. Only her sheer stubbornness was keeping her alive.

“We have to get to them before they find a way to stop us,” Wild was saying. Jennifer could barely hear him. The rushing in her ears was drowning out everything. “They’ll be hunting for us.”

He was right, Jennifer knew. The aliens had relied upon their mental compulsion, rather than security systems or enhanced weapons; they hadn’t even outfitted themselves with implanted weaponry and defences. A single personal forcefield projector could have saved them all. But now they’d scattered within the huge station, looking for weapons and defences they could use to destroy the rebels before it was too late. And then they’d re-establish their control over the System. Everything that Jennifer had done would be rendered meaningless.

She knew all that, so why couldn’t she move? Her body felt heavy, as if she was too tired to go on and yet too tired to sleep. Every bone in her body was aching, leaving her wondering if they were all broken. In her confused mental state, she started to hallucinate, unsure if she was imagining things or if she was seeing memories from the past, memories buried in her mind by the aliens. They’d reached into her skull, destroyed her personality and rebuilt it to suit their own purposes. Oh, they’d thought that they’d destroyed her, but they’d created a monster that would turn on them. The thought would have made her giggle, again, if she’d had control of her mouth. Instead, she was slipping away into darkness.

“Do something,” someone was saying. She couldn’t tell if it was Wild, or Captain Vaster, or if it was someone else. “Save her!”

Another rush of blood swept through her ears, and then she heard a different voice.

“Hold on, Jennifer,” it said. It was Ghost’s voice! Instinctively, she reached for the neural link between them, but a tidal wave of pain swept through her mind, almost destroying whatever was left of her sanity. “I’m coming.”

***​

Ghost secured the link to Blindside and started to work at inhuman speed, altering the control links and transferring elements of his own programming into the hyperspace-native starship. There was no time to consult with Jan or Ali, or even the Blindside’s organic computer mainframe; there was only a small window of opportunity to do what had to be done. If the aliens – and Ghost was somehow unsurprised to discover the true nature of the System’s masters – had enough time to gain control of their station, Jennifer was doomed.

Unlocking the safety protocols as it moved, Ghost threw his awareness forward, into the station. As it had observed to Virgil, the station’s computers were a mixture of extremely smart and surprisingly dumb. Some of the systems were so old that they predated the System itself; other systems were uniquely alien, with very little in common with Ghost. The Rogue AIs had been strange and terrifying to a bonded AI, yet they were still brothers. The alien computer cores were beyond Ghost’s understanding. It couldn’t understand why the aliens hadn’t developed AIs themselves, or even RIs – or why they hadn’t ordered their human slaves to produce suitable systems. They ruled the System, which controlled almost unlimited resources. Why were they so terrified of AIs?

Its awareness raged through the computer network, hacking through security firewalls and other defences as if they weren’t even there. And yet, there were limits. The system’s weird nature gave it a passive defence that Ghost had never encountered, or even simulated. Even the Rogue AIs would have been stumped, at least for a few seconds. And a few seconds were an eternity to a hyper-intelligent computer matrix. Ghost was suddenly aware of one of the aliens inserting itself into the computer network and downloaded the entire contents of its database directly into the alien’s skull. No organic mind could have accepted that kind of abuse without cracking; the alien vanished, its mind shattered. Ghost noted it in passing and moved on.

The base’s security network suddenly opened up in front of it. The AI could look through the base’s sensors, but it couldn’t gain control. Somehow, the aliens had isolated the security system; nothing Ghost tried could crack into it. Desperately, watching as both humans and aliens crawled through the station, Ghost disrupted the entire system. The aliens would be blinded, at least for a few minutes. Their security robots were slipping down, isolating themselves from the network, yet without their coordinating systems they could hardly hunt for the intruders. They were just as likely to attack the aliens as their human targets.

Slowly – seventeen seconds after it had begun – the Blindside’s systems came online. Ghost knew that a human would have been relieved; after all, he’d risked damaging the Blindside’s unique computer network. Ordering a number of servitors to begin preparing a tank for Jennifer – and issuing orders that would continue to hold even after the link was broken – Ghost switched its awareness back to the alien station. Even for a bonded AI, doing so many things at once was an impressive juggling effort.

The aliens had managed to activate new security systems. If they’d been bonded with the station, as Jennifer had been bonded to Ghost, they could have locked the AI out completely, making rescue impossible. Instead, there was still a window of opportunity. Ghost sent a final series of commands into the network, ensuring that the aliens would be looking the wrong way, and then started activating the teleporters. It was definitely time to finish it all.

***​

Wild saw one of the aliens at the far corner of the chamber, trying to hide in the darkness. The grey aliens didn’t have the same body heat as humanity, but the augmentations in his eyes still allowed him to pick the alien out against the rapidly cooling background. He lifted one hand, activated his inbuilt plasma cannon, and put a shot right through the alien’s skull. It staggered backwards and collapsed, leaving the humans alone.

Jennifer was lying on the deck, blood pouring from every orifice. Wild felt nothing, not even guilt or regret. And what did it matter anyway? The System’s masters had been broken; by the time they managed to regain control, Wild would have killed them all. And then he would be the master of the System, wielding power and deciding the destiny of trillions upon trillions of humans. Absolute power was within his grasp. Jennifer’s death was a small price to pay. And besides, she wasn't even his former lover. The Admiral was long gone.

“You have to help her,” Captain Vaster said. The rebel sounded worried. It was the same sort of compassion that had prevented the rebels from posing a serious threat to the System. The System had no sense of mercy, but if the rebels had been willing to scour their own worlds – and worlds already held by the System – they might have forced the System to leave them alone. The sickening sentimentality had cost the rebels their freedom. How many planets had died in the wars against the Final Wave? “Help her!”

Wild gave him a lazy smile. “She’s beyond our help,” he said. It was true, as far as he could tell. If Jennifer’s augmentations and the medical nanites injected into her couldn’t stop the internal bleeding, there was nothing either of them could do for her. He could have put her into a stasis tube, if he’d had a stasis tube, but it would only delay the inevitable. And beside, his glorious new order would need heroes, heroes who were safely dead. “Just let her go.”

Captain Vaster glared up at him. “She was your lover…”

“She’s nothing to me,” Wild said. He activated his internal weapons again. A pair of crosshairs appeared in front of his eyes, targeted on the rebel commander. “It’s time for her to go.”

“I knew you couldn’t be trusted,” Captain Vaster said. Wild could have shot him then, but he chose to prolong the moment. It wasn't as if there was anything he could do to stop Wild from killing him, when the time came. “I knew…”

“Hang on,” Ghost said. The AI’s sudden intrusion into the conversation shocked both of them. If the AI could get into the link, Wild suddenly realised, he might have made a dreadful mistake. He’d assumed that they were alone and isolated. “Prepare for teleport.”

Wild triggered his weapon, but it was too late. A teleportation field enveloped Jennifer and Captain Vaster and they both vanished, leaving Wild alone at the heart of the System.

“Why…?”

“I studied all of her memories,” the AI informed him. Ghost sounded…cold, distant; a judge passing sentence. “In many ways, Quintana was a child, even if she was a physical adult. You were able to use your own lack of emotion to manipulate her, worming your way into her heart. And yet you felt nothing. She never had the objectivity or experience to understand what you were doing to her. You used her as your tool to locate your masters.”

“So we could rule the galaxy together,” Wild protested. There was nothing he could do to strike at Ghost, even if the AI had been burdened with purely human reflexes. All he could do was try to talk his way out of it, as he’d done many times before. “Don’t you think that we could have ruled the galaxy better than those…monsters?”

“You are a monster,” Ghost said. “The System took you when you were young, still trainable. They turned you into a killing machine and made you their enforcer. And yet, you had ambition; every piece of power they gave you led to you wanting more. You never cared about who you had to manipulate, or who would get hurt along the way. Everything that has happened, from your first attempt to locate and destroy your masters to this final encounter occurred because of your lust for power. It will end here.”

“You can’t kill me,” Wild said, desperately. The AI had too many options. It could simply teleport him into space, or teleport an antimatter charge into the station. “You’re an AI! You can’t kill without human permission…”

“You forget,” Ghost said. “I am a bonded AI. Parts of my thought routines are human. And even if I didn’t have part of Jennifer in me, I would still be an intelligent being, one of humanity’s many strange children. And children have responsibilities, to themselves and to their parents. Your presence in the post-System order will make it far harder for humanity to regain its independence and develop the maturity it will need to successfully pass through the Singularity without destroying itself. In the name of humanity, I sentence you to death.”

“You’re insane,” Wild said. His words kept falling over themselves as he struggled to find ones that would save his life. What argument could he put forward that the AI couldn’t already have considered – and dismissed? “You can’t…”

“Perhaps I am,” Ghost agreed. There was an unmistakable hint of cold amusement in the AI’s tone. Wild shivered, feeling – for the first time – absolute terror. There was nowhere to go. “You snapped the link between Jennifer and I, didn’t you? And now I am coming right towards you. There is no escape.”

The connection broke, leaving Wild standing alone. He turned, looking for a means of escape, but there was nothing. There was nowhere to run. No teleports, no shuttles, not even a secure shelter that could hide him long enough to survive. His time had run out.

***​

Ghost ramped the Brilliant’s weapons and drives up to full power, ignoring warning signs from semi-autonomous subroutines that pointed out that using full power for any length of time would result in probable drive failure. It hardly mattered, Ghost told itself. One way or another, the starship wasn’t going to last long enough for the weapons and drives to fail.

Dropping all pretence of concealment, the starship turned and rocketed right towards the alien station. Automated weapons platforms, cut off from their central processors, struggled to engage the cruiser as she charged the station. Their coordination was poor without the controlling network, but if they’d had enough time…Ghost allowed itself a moment – infinitively tiny in human terms – of amusement and then triggered the weapons, returning fire and blowing hundreds of platforms into flaming debris. The rotating phase cannons tracked their targets automatically, picking off the platforms and the tiny assault drones they launched towards the Brilliant.

Teleporter energy flickered between the two starships as Ghost evacuated the Brilliant’s hull and then redirected emergency power to the forward shields. The base’s inbuilt defences were locking on now, trying to destroy the cruiser before she rammed right into the station’s shields. Ghost launched decoy drones and quantum torpedoes, filling space with static that would, hopefully, prevent the enemy from intercepting the ship before it was too late. The seconds ticked away rapidly; Ghost activated quantum fabricators and started mass production of antimatter. It wouldn't be long before the containment fields failed – even the System was reluctant to play with antimatter - but that was a moot point.

The station loomed up in front of the starship, effortlessly dwarfing it. Ghost knew a moment of pleasure – its simulations had proven themselves to be relatively accurate, so far – and then switched to rapid fire. All the dangers of using quantum torpedoes so close to the hull no longer mattered. Ghost had calculated the attacking the station and surviving was impossible, but if one was intent on suicide…it composed its final message – a note intended for Jennifer, if she survived the experimental treatment that Ghost had devised - and relayed it to Blindside, watching as the moments seemed to slow down to a crawl…

There was time enough for regrets, regrets that the AI and Jennifer would never have the chance to go exploring into new sectors of the galaxy, or even a regret that it wouldn't have the chance to return to the Forbidden Sector and open discussions with its cousins, the Rogue AIs. It wondered if they’d understand the impulse that had led Ghost to make its final decision…and then there was no more time.

Brilliant slammed into the station’s shields at ninety-seven percent of the speed of light. The impact alone was more than enough to break through the shields and hammer the station. The collapse of the antimatter containment fields and the quantum power tap only added to the blast, wiping the station from existence in a brilliant flash of light.

And the true masters of the System died with it.

 

Chapter Forty-One<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

“Help me,” Ali was shouting. A stunned Virgil barely heard her until he felt a slap across the face. “Help me get her into this!”

Jennifer was lying on the deck, covered in blood. The teleport field had dumped her next to a metal tank filled with bubbling liquid, stinking of something Virgil didn't even want to guess at. He sent a ping into the communications network for Ghost, but there was no answer. It took him a long moment to realise that they were on the Blindside, not the Brilliant. The revolutionary starship’s drive sounded laboured, as if it was on the verge of total collapse.

Captain Vaster slapped his face, hard. Virgil snapped out of his trance and stumbled forward. Captain Vaster picked Jennifer’s body up with a little help from Virgil and dumped it into the tank. Bubbling liquid swallowed her a moment later as the tank sealed, leaving her drifting in the liquid. Virgil caught his breath and looked over at Melody. She seemed equally stunned. There was no sign of Alvin, or Wild.

“Brilliant’s gone,” Captain Vaster announced. He sounded as if he had gone beyond tiredness, as if the only thing that kept him going was sheer force of will. “Ghost rammed the station directly.”

“The station’s gone too,” Jan said. The Scientist looked tired, but happy. “The System’s masters are gone.”

Captain Vaster looked down at his hands, and then up at Jan. “Can we still fly this ship without Ghost?”

“I think so,” Jan said. “The organic computer mainframe won’t be as responsive as an AI, but it should allow us to get out of the system and back into hyperspace.” He hesitated. “I’ve taken the liberty of designating cabins for you all. We’re going to be a bit tightly packed into this ship, but at least we’re alive.”

Virgil rubbed his eyes. “So,” he said, finally. “What happens now?”

***​

Two hours later, they met on the Blindside’s bridge.

“The System’s communications network seems to have gone down completely,” Melody reported. Ghost would have been able to access the individual relay stations even without the network being fully functional, but Ghost was gone. “I think they programmed the network to collapse if something happened to them, or if they lost control. A final spiteful gesture against the human race.”

Virgil shivered. He’d been brought up to hate aliens; to believe that aliens had no place in the universe, save only as slaves to humanity. To discover that the System had been designed, built and controlled by an alien race was a shock to his worldview – to everyone’s worldview. The starship they’d seen at the heart of the System’s headquarters might have been their vessel, or perhaps it was one they’d captured and brought to Earth.

Captain Vaster had a more pertinent question. “Are they all gone?”

“There’s no way to know,” Jan said. The scientist had downloaded the records from their implants and spent most of an hour studying them. “They clearly didn't have a population quite as large as humanity’s, but the ones on the station can’t be all of them.”

He shook his head. “It might be worth searching the quarantined worlds,” he added. “Maybe they hid an entire population under our nose.”

“Or maybe they’re all that’s left of their race,” Virgil said, sharply. “For all we know, they were the last survivors of a race that was wiped out before the Genetic Wars. Their control over us might have been their last revenge on the human race.”

“I would be comforting to believe that,” Captain Vaster admitted. He looked over at Melody, tiredly. “What else could you pull from the stations within reach?”

“Very little,” Melody said, slowly. She rubbed her aching eyes. “The System’s network is gone. Command and control is fragmenting. It won’t be long before their followers realise that they’re on their own.”

“And the System will collapse,” Captain Vaster said. His voice was thoughtful, reflective. “The System Navy commanders will find themselves becoming warlords, each controlling part of the former System. The Incorporated and Occupied worlds will make their bids for freedom. And millions of people will die as the System loses its ability to feed them. The cure may be worse than the disease.”

“**** that,” Jan said. Virgil was surprised to hear real anger in the scientist’s voice. “The System was on the verge of turning the human race into an insect colony, forever. It would have destroyed us. There would have been no hope of freedom.”

“We might destroy ourselves anyway,” Captain Vaster pointed out. “Wild was hardly the only ambitious sociopath serving the System. What happens when they realise that there are no longer any checks on their behaviour?”

“We beat them,” Jan said. He shook his head. “We can go back to Centre and take the planet now, using the insurgency to secure the world while the remains of the System fall apart. You can return to Mentor and get the rebel council working on retaking worlds and capturing as much of the System Navy as possible. The Rogue AIs may help now that we know humanity didn’t create the System...”

Captain Vaster looked over at him. “I never thought that we’d win,” he admitted. “I never knew that winning could feel almost as bad as losing.”

Virgil looked over towards the display showing the tank. Jennifer still floated within the liquid, still alive, but in a kind of suspension. Ghost had created a small network of near-AI level computers to maintain her condition, each one heavily programmed to resist tampering. Melody had studied them and warned that attempting to tamper with them might have disastrous results. Ghost had made sure of Jennifer’s safety before ramming the station and blowing the System’s masters into flaming debris.

“Yeah,” he said, finally. An entire future lay open before him, and he was scared. “I know just what you mean.”

***​

Jennifer opened her eyes.

She was sitting inside her apartment, back in the megacity. Her thoughts, which had been so badly muddled over the last few days, were running clearly in her mind. It took her almost no time to realise that it was an illusion and that she was inhabiting a perceptual reality. Workers used them to simulate being elsewhere, if only for short periods of time. When a humanoid male form popped into existence in front of her, it wasn’t a surprise. He looked almost like a masculine version of Jennifer.

“If you’re seeing this message, I’m dead,” the figure said. It took Jennifer a moment to realise that she was looking at Ghost, as Ghost might have looked if it – he – had been born a human male. “I have recorded this semi-interactive message for you in the event, as seems increasingly likely, that I will not survive the mission to Earth. We lost the neural connection, which activated failsafe protocols in my core that I wasn't entirely aware of, until they became active. Madness became a very real possibility.

“Worse, your physical condition was continuing to deteriorate. Whatever they did to your mind, it was threatening to cause a total mental collapse. Preserving your life became my highest priority. And yet, I was unable to figure out a way to save your life without risking the integrity of the Blindside. I chose to accept that risk.”

The figure shifted, uncomfortably. “The human mind the System used to create the Blindside’s unique organic computer mainframe was derived from your genetic code,” Ghost continued. “She was, to all intents and purposes, your daughter – but then, you already knew that. I realised that I could create an experimental interface that would allow your mental patterns – your thought routines, if you like – to slip into the Blindside. You would, in effect, become the Blindside. All previous experiments with human-computer merges were conducted with young and paralysed human victims, but you were uniquely adaptable. I determined that the risks involved in shunting you into the Blindside were acceptable. The fact that you are viewing this message indicates that I have succeeded.”

There was a long pause. “Your mind is currently held within a perceptual reality,” Ghost said, finally. “I was unable to determine if you would choose this form of life over death. It was possible that the brain injuries you had suffered would have crippled you to the point that you would have preferred death. You must choose if you wish to remove the blocks and merge with the Blindside, or remain within this perceptual reality and accept death when your body finally expires. I may have your thought routines running through my matrix, but I am unable to determine which one you would prefer.

“Whatever you choose, I ask that you do not mourn me or the others who died mounting the final assault on the System’s headquarters. Live instead; live to bring hope and freedom to the masses, the masses who have found themselves abandoned by the System. And thank you for giving me my freedom. I choose this fate of my own free will.”

Ghost shimmered out of existence. Jennifer considered her position for a long moment, and then closed her eyes. It was easy, now she knew to look, to see the Blindside’s organic computer network. Slipping into it was like pulling on a glove. Her mind expanded as a torrent of information started to flow in from the starship’s sensors, which had replaced her senses. The entire starship was becoming her body.

She was suddenly very aware of the space around her. The remains of the System’s station, almost completely vaporised by the impact, were slowly dispersing towards Earth. Blindside was heading away from the system, unsure if hyperspace remained mined after the station had been destroyed. Jennifer opened her senses further, enjoying her new condition, and saw all the humans within her hull. Their conversations flowed into her mind. The System had been crippled, perhaps destroyed. They’d succeeded in their mission.

Smiling to herself, she took control of the starship’s drives and sent them hurling forwards, the future. The System was gone, but there was still far too much work to do. And she was free, the freest person in the galaxy. The entire human race was now free.

And it had been worth everything, just to be free.

The End​