Bears don’t have time to chat.
The TSF agent ignored Rondo’s jab. <Really? Send me your account token.>
Rondo shared the address of an account he maintained on High Terra.
In seconds, an amount that would sustain Rondo for six months appeared in the account.
<How does that look?> Jentry asked.
<Like money.>
<You aren’t easy to impress, my friend. Some people might find that irritating.>
<I did the job, you paid me. What more do we have to discuss?>
<I’ve got another job for you.>
<No,> Rondo said flatly.
<Wait,> Jentry said before Rondo could end the connection. <I get it. You want more information. Typically, I keep the operation divided into separate pieces. It’s safer that way. But if you want more info, if you’re willing to take the risk, then I can work with you. The truth is, I need your help, Rondo. I’ve got a job coming up with some big players. It’s the Andersonians again, but this time, there are civilian lives on the line.>
<Who?>
<You’ve heard of Cara Sykes?>
Rondo frowned. <Of course.>
<Well, if you’d like to play a part in keeping her alive, then I need your help.>
REVERSALS
STELLAR DATE: 3.22.3011 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Near-Luna Orbit
REGION: Luna, Terran Hegemony, InnerSol
The secure Link connection activated just five minutes into her burn.
<Oh, Cara. Where do you think you’re going?>
<Hello, Felix.>
<Please don’t call me Felix.>
She ignored him. <That was a hell of a situation down there.>
<You seem to have handled yourself just fine.>
<Osla is sitting on at least two thousand troops that I saw. I can’t verify they were in this location, but they’re somewhere nearby—there wasn’t any lag in the view. They look like they’re itching for a fight.>
Luna Port Authority sent its second angry hail, chastising her for cutting through two active shipping lanes. Cara muted the channel.
<They’re going to send the local TSF after you if you don’t play nice, you know.>
<I would say I want to get arrested by the TSF, but I’ve already been through that. I think my best bet is pointing my new ship toward Mars 1 and giving it a run.>
<You could do that,> Felix said. <But if you do, you’ll be missing out on the real prize.>
<What prize is that?>
<The ship I promised you.>
Cara snorted. <I don’t have a lot to show for your promises.>
<You’ll like this one.>
<Fine. What ship?>
<A Marsian courser.>
<What are you talking about?>
Coursers were the Marsian equivalent of a TSF cruiser, with a reduced mass profile and larger engines, designed for long-range scouting on the edges of Jovian Space. From what she knew about them, they balanced offensive capability and close-fight defenses and engines with the added bonus of crew habitats, since they spent so long on patrol.
In other words, the perfect vessel for a smuggler. Or a pirate.
I’m not a pirate anymore.
<What am I going to do with a Marsian courser, Felix?>
<Whatever people like you do with fast ships. I don’t know. You tell me.>
<Fast ships are for getting the hell out of town while the getting is good. And I’m piloting one right now.>
<You’re piloting a shuttle. You’ll be lucky to make it past Earth’s outer station ring. Did you check your fuel?>
<Who do you think you’re dealing with here?>
<Just asking. If you leave, you’ll be breaking our deal.>
<I did everything you asked. Rode the rocket. Talked to the Anderson Collective. I even got picked up by TSF Intelligence. Are you aware they seem to be doing the same thing you are?>
<What am I doing?> Felix’s tone carried a note of innocence that was wasted on Cara.
<Fucking with the Anderson Collective, apparently.>
<Did you mention me?>
<No. I don’t know who you are, remember? I didn’t want to tell them about this hallucination I have that somehow broke me out of prison.>
Felix chuckled, sounding pleased with himself. <That’s true. Who contacted you from TSF Intel?>
<Why do you want to know? Are you going to tell me who you are, finally?>
<Like I said before, it isn’t safe for me to do that. And besides, I’m not important. I’m a contracting agent who got handed this weird project. They chose me because I don’t matter.>
<Who’s they?>
<I’ll have to let you ruminate on that. Please. It’s not that it’s unsafe for you. It’s unsafe for me. I can’t share who I’m working for.>
Cara blew out an angry breath. His sincerity was frustrating.
<His name was Jentry Price,> she said. <He was working with a Colonel Sinda Ferrell. They picked me up after the assassination attempt on Chancellor Osla.>
<Really nice work with that, by the way. I saw the newsfeed. People don’t know what to make of Bloody Pirate Sykes as a hero.>
<That’s what I do.>
<Is this TSF intel officer expecting you back?>
<When Osla wanted me to be his bodyguard, they jumped at the opportunity. Turns out Osla just wanted to get me on his state-sanctioned holo show.>
<Stars the Hard Way?>
<That’s right.>
<It just broadcast, didn’t it?>
<That’s my understanding.>
<You weren’t on it,> Felix insisted.
<What? Yes, I was. They told me to talk, so I told them off on their live feed. Osla was so pissed, he murdered the director with a whiskey bottle.>
<None of those things happened.>
<Maybe you saw an old show?>
Felix recounted the high points of the plot, including Llana’s moral at the end of the story.
As he talked, the reality of what Osla had done sank into her. He had used her to intimidate Harrin. He had shared the news about his secret army, and now she was supposed to run back to TSF Intel with the news.
None of that bothered her.
What bothered her was that he had fooled her into speaking honestly about her family, about Lyssa. She had believed she was doing something heroic for them. For her dad.
Cara’s breathing grew heavy. She stared at the console as the wave of anger took her over, sparks of color bleeding at the edge of her vision. This was the feeling she hated. The helpless feeling that had started after her dad died. The helpless feeling when she and Tim were left with their aunt and their mom wouldn’t come. The helpless feeling when she learned Tim was dead.
She had hoped to bury this feeling with her dad’s case.
It kept coming.
Cara shouted in inarticulate rage. She hit the console three times, smearing blood on the display.
<Hey,> Felix said, voice fragmenting behind her anger. <Hey, calm down.>
<Don’t tell me to calm down! Don’t fucking tell me to calm down! That motherfucker tricked me into thinking I’d done something that mattered. That motherfucker!>
<Who? What motherfucker?>
<Osla.>
Cara snorted angry breaths through her nose. The Port Authority was yelling at her again, threatening to disable her ship’s control.
<Well, he’s going to be at the symposium I was going to ask you to attend,> Felix said.
<What?>
<The weapons symposium where the ship is on display. That’s where I was going to ask you to go.>
<It’s on the ship?>
<That’s right. In orbit above New Austin. Here’s the thing, you’ll need access. That’s what I was going to talk to you about.>
Cara slowed her breathing as she studied the blood welling on her knuckles.
<I thought that was your thing?> she said.
<I’m thinking it might be better in this situation for the TSF to ge
t you the access.>
<You think they will?>
<You need to ask.>
<I’m done asking for anything, Felix.>
He didn’t answer.
Cara sat in silence, watching the navigation markers change in the holodisplay. She was fifty thousand kilometers off Luna now, hair floating in zero-g, on the edge of their traffic authority. Matria Station was on the far side of the moon, and there was nothing but open space between her and the outer station ring. She strongly considered just braking and floating dark for a while.
Rather than fading, her hatred for Osla was coalescing into a goal. For the first time since she had destroyed the case, she felt forward momentum.
She was going to punish Osla, play TSF Intel, and steal the Marsian courser. She was going to give the Andersonians some real fodder for their show, give Llana something real to act out.
Cara smiled to herself. She pulled up the astrogation control and set a course to return to Luna. She obeyed the shipping control measures this time, following a route designated for tourist traffic back to New Austin.
Sending a Link request, Cara received an answer from Jentry almost immediately.
<There you are! What happened?> The agent sounded genuinely worried. <We’re tracking explosions in the Andersonian factory.>
<I got out,> Cara said. <I’ve got info to report. Before we get into that, though, I need access to an event.>
She shared the info on the arms symposium.
<A weapons convention? Why?>
<Access first, explain later. Osla is a bigger threat than you realize.>
<We knew he was a threat. We haven’t known how bad.>
<I’m on my way back in now,> Cara said. <Where should I land?>
Jentry sent the coordinates for a university on the edge of New Austin. Cara directed the NSAI to plot a course.
When she was finished speaking to Jentry, she picked up the comms link with Felix.
<You were ignoring me,> he pouted.
<You didn’t respond, so I muted you.>
Felix took a moment to respond. <Fair enough. Where were we?>
<I was talking to our TSF friend. He’s getting me access to the conference.>
<That was quick.>
<If I knew Osla would stay at the studio, I’d find a way to blast it off the face of Luna right now.>
<He really pissed you off.>
<Yeah,> Cara said.
<Remind me not to do that.>
<If you do, I won’t bother with reminders,> she said. <Now, what’s this courser called?>
A mental smile crossed from Felix. <Its manifest documents are fascinating. It was built in the Mars Outer Shipyard and then saw duty between Ceres and Vesta before the invasion. It actually moved refugees before Insi collapsed, then went into long-range reconnaissance in the JC, tracking separatists in the Marsian-controlled Jovian trojan asteroids. It cleaned up a remaining Heartbridge dark site, where the crew rescued three Weapon Born seeds.>
<Felix,> Cara growled. <Name.>
<Oh, sure. It’s called the MSS Caged Fury.>
<Caged Fury. I like that. Send me the specs.>
<Here you go. You want the manifest history, too? Like I said, the contract logs are fascinating.>
<The manifest history is fine. Now leave me alone. I need a nap.>
<Aye, aye, Captain,> Felix said, and closed the connection.
THE PSION PROBLEM
STELLAR DATE: 3.22.3011 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: SolGov Assembly Tower, Raleigh
REGION: High Terra, Terran Hegemony, InnerSol
Folsom pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes and drew in a long breath. Another conversation with Xander, and no commitment from the AI to do anything about the problem of Alexander.
The multinodal AI leading Psion had clearly devolved to that in name only. It was apparent that Camaris was operating on both Luna and Mars, and that nothing was going to be done about it.
To Camaris, a lack of opposition was clearly permission.
What Xander didn’t know, however, was that Folsom had managed to land assets on Ceres. That was one advantage to the AIs’ planet passing so close to the Hera Collective’s group of asteroids.
It amazed him that the Psion AIs were continuing the work to terraform Ceres, though they appeared to be doing nothing about the wreckage of the Insi Ring that lay across half the world.
Almost like they’re turning it into some sort of monument.
Once they were all accounted for, a plan could be put together to destroy them.
As if it will be that easy. He laughed aloud, the sound of it harsh and pyric in his ears.
It was probable that Xander knew where his progenitor’s nodes were, but Folsom wasn’t certain that the shard would support the destruction of Alexander. For all the senator knew, there was some sort of imperative in the lesser AI’s mind that would force him to report any such request.
One thing was certain, though. Even if his agents found all the nodes ahead of schedule, and were able to eliminate them, it likely wouldn’t stop Camaris’s activities on Luna.
The senator’s analysts predicted that, should she succeed, it would strengthen the Andersonian Collective’s position on Luna. It was impossible to know what assets she had in play, but Folsom worried it could be enough to take control of a substantial portion of Earth’s moon.
“That’s something that cannot happen,” the senator muttered to himself.
As much as he admired Chancellor Osla’s ability to manipulate media, there was no way he wanted to see the man control an asset that valuable—especially because it would split Terra’s focus.
<Status?> he called out to the agent managing Cara Sykes.
It was time to pull out all the stops and ensure that the Psion AIs, through the Andersonians and Humanity First, were unable to strengthen their foothold on the moon.
Time to excise the cancer.
PART 4 – SYMPOSIUM OF KNIVES
LETTING GO
STELLAR DATE: 3.23.3011 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Outer Shell Manufacturing Layer
REGION: Mars 1 Ring, Mars Protectorate, InnerSol
The mind she touched was hate incarnate.
Lyssa floated through the burning waves of Camaris’s nightmares. Long years of tests and frozen waiting, often left suspended in the middle of an experiment designed to find the limits of an AI’s anguish.
When she had first been made, she hadn’t been connected with the real world. She existed in simulations where she was a soldier, a freighter pilot, a salesperson in an ancient retail shop, a mother. Again and again, she was allowed to develop deep wells of emotion that were stolen from her. Her memories and life-states were saved and then re-injected into her consciousness, cracking her into multiples.
The only way to exist in the pain was to feel it, to make it her own.
Lyssa watched Camaris from afar as she passed through these phases of her existences. A hundred years of research passed in minutes, Camaris burned and resurrected like a phoenix caught in a torture loop.
When one research agency was finished with her, she was sold to another. She was split, rejoined, copied, and disassembled.
Camaris’s mind was a funhouse mirror cave. She was constantly surrounded by images of herself staring back with hateful black eyes, each twisted reflection carrying its own history to sustain the fury.
Do you see me? she asked finally, quietly. Do you understand?
Yes, Lyssa answered. But I do not agree.
Camaris howled the same anger at her that she had flung at Vesta and Ceres. Nothing had changed. She existed in her expanse like a supernova dev
ouring everything in her path. Aside from the pain, the only other emotion she displayed was hunger—a ravenous desire to consume everything around her and burn it to dust.
I won’t let you, Lyssa told her. I will always be here to stop you.
I will destroy everything you love, the wild AI countered.
You already did.
* * * * *
Lyssa woke gasping from the depths of her dream. The evidence of her conversation with Camaris was plain enough to review now, reverberating through her mind like a scream.
Why had she blocked it out?
Did Camaris have some hidden power over her? Camaris had said nothing new, nothing she hadn’t expressed in every confrontation. What was she hiding?
There was a truth Lyssa couldn’t see, some movement behind Cara’s release and Camaris’s activity on Luna. If it was all screen, then what was the Psion AI truly moving to attack?
The answer came to Lyssa immediately.
Alexander.
Camaris was going to attack Psion itself and assume control of the SAI in Sol.
When the Anderson Collective launched its attack, creating havoc among humanity, Camaris would seize control of all the free SAIs and simply wait until humanity was finished tearing itself apart.
But she could have done that already. Years ago.
What is she waiting for?
In the remnants of the dream, she found evidence of another presence, another reason she hadn’t wanted to face what she was seeing. Someone had been watching from the borders of Camaris’s expanse as Lyssa clashed with her in what felt like an unending battle.
Who had it been? The presence moved around them as they punched and bit and kick, locked like humans in a clawing battle to the death.
Failure to step outside those basic methods of combat were what always undermined Camaris. Lyssa was able to understand the fight and move above it, engaging the other SAI with a section of her mind as she separated herself from the stress of combat and studied the whole. The technique had served her at both Ceres and Vesta, and still Camaris didn’t seem to understand how Lyssa beat her.
Camaris couldn’t see beyond her anger.