V. Moody's Blog, page 21

Book 2 – 61: Cat Fight

Third Quadrant.

Asteroid Tethari.

Antecessor Facility - Level 4

 

Chukka couldn’t help but be impressed watching Guardian Tezla deal with the Antecessor droids. She moved with a fluidity that people in full battlesuits shouldn’t have. Her attacks were precise and elegant. The way she predicted what the droids would do was practically supernatural.

Of course, the suit had a lot to do with it. Even the most elite units of the VendX sales force didn’t have access to anything on the same level. The cost would have been far too high — no point going into a sales pitch where losing a single suit would make the whole deal unprofitable.

And then there was the suit’s AI.

“Movement, there,” called out Bashir from in front of the Guardian.

“New droid confirmed,” said the suit over comms. “Class seven, thirty degrees, one-six-point-nine, moving to vector two-five, two-three.”

Tezla pointed her fist at the top left corner of the room and beam of intensified light heat shattered the droid emerging from the wall.

“And here,” said Bashir.

“New droid, class six-a, forty-two degrees…”

“I see it.” A rapid burst of laser fire blew a smaller droid to pieces.

“One more.”

“New droid…”

Every call-out by Bashir was pinpointed by the suit and swiftly dealt with before it had a chance to cause them any real trouble. Even when they emerged in multiples, Tezla only had to point — there, there, over there, down there — and searing lasers would turn the droids into molten slag. The power expenditure alone would send the VendX accounts department into conniptions, and then there was the wear and tear, replacing munitions, insurance costs… The list was long and undoubtedly very expensive.

The Central Authority were funded — reluctantly — by the Greater Business Bureau, but they had to have other sources of income.

The passage they were travelling down was long and straight, the white lines static but still providing light, with occasional wider areas every hundred metres or so. It wasn’t clear what these larger spaces were for, but this was where the droids attacked. And were obliterated very soon after.

It also helped that the droids they had encountered down here on the fourth level had been small and no more than six at a time.

It was unusual to be facing such a low-level threat on a newly opened level of an Antecessor facility. The deeper you went, the tougher it got, normally.

The larger threats, though, had already been taken care of. The signs were hard to miss — the damaged walls, the debris not cleared away by the ever-efficient maintenance droids, the droid parts littering the floor. Unlike Tezla’s method, these remnants of droids had been crushed not melted.

The Insanium class droid was clearing a path for them and Tezla only had to deal with what the giant droid had overlooked or deemed as not a worthy threat. She was more than up to the job. Which begged the question: Why did she need any of them?

Even the two Seneca women walked along behind the Destroyer of Droids with their weapons holstered, looking a little bored.

“Up ahead…” said Bashir. He had stopped and was leaning forward, like he was trying to hear something in the distance, his glowing green eyes indicating his organic was active.

“Yes,” said Tezla impatiently. “What is it?”

“I’m not sure. Something… not there. A gap.” Bashir looked confused. “Either there’s some kind of void or…”

“Or whatever it is, it’s being shielded from you,” Tezla finished for him. “Rex, search the database for anything that matches. Go deep. Restricted archives if necessary.”

“Yes, Guardian,” said the suit’s AI.

The group stood waiting in the passage. It was completely quiet apart from the occasional buzz as sparks fell from the gouges in the walls. The Insanium droid had made it very easy to follow its trail.

“You think there’s a trap waiting for us?” asked Weyla. She was the more impatient one of the sisters, the one more likely to snap. Chukka had no idea what had made her so testy — the Corps was well known for its emotionless conditioning of its members, trained to act without feeling or morals. Cold and without regret, not willing to waste energy on whatever horrific act they were ordered to commit in the name of gender security.

“Undoubtedly,” said Tezla, flipping up her visor and checking her sidearm, which she hadn’t used so far. “Every site like this is riddled with them.”

“Very prescient of them,” said Chukka. “Taking precautions against people like us thousands of years in their future.”

Tezla’s lips curled into a sneer. “Do you really think they would care about what we did with their tech once they were gone? The traps were for the Intercessors.”

“Who?” said Flott, standing next to Chukka but barely registering as a presence. He seemed to have already given up.

“You people know nothing.” Tezla shook her head. “Intercessors. Rivals of the Antecessors. They often clashed. Chased after the same resources.”

“Another species of aliens?” said Weyla. “I’ve never seen any evidence of them.”

“Not another species, the same species. We know there were at least two factions of Antecessors — probably more. There was some kind of civil war, or an uncivil one judging by the level of destruction.”

“And the Central Authority has this evidence?” said Chukka.

“Of course,” said Tezla. “It’s not a secret among the larger corporations, either.”

From her tone, the implication was that she didn’t consider VendX to be one of those larger corporations. It would be hard to dispute. Even though it was considered a supercorporation, VendX was only mid-tier. The true superpowers, the megacorps, operated in the heart of the galaxy, buying and selling planets.

VendX could do as it pleased in the far reaches of the quadrants, where the populace were spread out and took time to profit from. In the heart, you could buy anything you could dream of and sell it for twice as much once you were done with it. If you could get in, that was.

“So every ship and base the Antecessors left behind was designed to keep these Intercessors out?” said Chukka, keen to keep Tezla talking. Knowledge may or may not have been power, but information was definitely money. “The droids and the booby traps. We just happen to be the lucky recipients of an ancient grudge match?”

“It’s a little more complicated than that,” said Tezal. “But as far as we know, there was no quarter given from either side.”

“What were they fighting over?” asked Bashir.

“No one knows for sure. Probably the usual — power, freedom, revenge, a demented leader. Who knows?”

“Search complete,” said Rex. “Anomaly identified with acceptable margin of error, red anti-gravity particles. Insanium class droid detected.”

The Seneca women drew their weapons and changed their postures to more aggressive ones.

“Could have mentioned that first,” said Weyla.

“It’s not here,” said Tezla. “It’s down there, with the anomaly.”

“Red anti-gravity particles,” repeated the AI.

“In the open?” said Tezla. “Unlikely.”

“The Intercessors,” said Bashir. “Did they have ships, too? Bases?”

“Yes,” said Tezla. “Less sophisticated, more powerful. Usually better hidden. Like on this asteroid.”

“Here?” said Chukka. “This is an Intercessor site?”

“No,” said Tezla. “This is Antecessor. But it’s built on top of an Intercessor facility. That’s what the archives suggest, anyhow. The Insanium droid, it’s an indicator.”

They walked a few more metres and the next open area, the Insanium droid was right there, in front of them. With its back to them. And most of it body inside the wall.

It took a moment for Chukka to understand what it was doing. There was a large hole in the wall, clearly not a feature of the design. It had been smashed through, cracks spreading in every direction. The white lines that had been static but present all along the passage had disappeared completely in this room, making it a lot harder to see. But the droid was dripping with sparks, its tail appendage swinging from side to side and sending arcs of electricity around the room, lighting it up to reveal the monster half in and half out.

It slowly reversed out of the hole and turned around to look at them with its one large eye. Something flashed by, falling from the top of the hole to the bottom, caught in the flashes of lightning from the droid’s mane.

There was some kind of space behind the wall.

“Shaft detected,” said Rex. “Gravity increase detected. Source of shielding detected. Anti-gravity particles, red, seven parts per billion.” The AI sounded a little smug. “Danger threshold low. Climbing.”

“That’s where I need to go,” said Tezla. “It’s uncovered an Intercessor access point.”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” said Flott drily, “but there’s a rather large droid between us and the ‘access point’.”

“Yes,” said Tezla. “What we need to do is distract it long enough to get into that shaft.”

“You want to jump into an unknown shaft?” said Flott. “Our suits don’t have thrusters. Not even yours.”

“I’ll be fine,” said Tezla. “You just have to keep it here while I investigate.”

Chukka started to get the feeling this was the end of their road trip. “You want us to stay here with that thing?” she said.

“There’s an increased gravity field through there,” said Tezla. “I wouldn’t advise any of you going any further in those suits, thrusters or not. You could be squashed flat in an instant. But let’s take care of the droid first.”

The droid was slowly stalking across the room towards them. It didn’t seem particularly aggressive. Maybe it recognised her. Chukka wasn’t sure if that was a good thing.

Tezla didn’t wait to see what mood it was in. She moved blindingly fast and launched herself forward, both arms extended and issuing a stream of instructions to her suit.

Chukka saw the droids chest open and the air compress in front of Tezla. There was a strobe effect from the droid’s flashes of blue light that slowed everything down. It showed Tezla open fire, the beams of light fracture as they made contact with where the air had been compressed, and then Tezla was punched back by a mini sonic boom.

As she came flying back the way she came, the two Seneca women were already moving forward. They had decided to go along with the plan, apparently. A charge into a superior opposition position was very much to their liking. How was she going to get them to do what she wanted? She needed people who used their heads — how was she supposed to use her training on people who acted on instinct? They were the hardest to control.

“What do you want us to do?” said Flott.

“Nothing. Stay out of their way.”

“As you command,” said Bashir with a relieved salute.

Weyla somehow avoided whatever weapon the droid was using and managed to spin it around. Leyla came at from its blind side, but its tail whipped out and caught her mid-air, slamming her in the chest and sending her flying across the room.

“No!” screamed Weyla, immediately knowing the injury was serious.

“I’ve got her,” shouted Chukka, running towards the fallen figure slumped against the wall on the far side of the droid, a large impression left on its surface where she’d struck it.

Tezla was back up already and rejoining the fray. Chukka managed to avoid being spotted by using Tezla as cover. This was her chance.

Leyla was clearly the one to target. She was going to be more susceptible to implanting, even if only by a tiny amount. If she could get one sister, the other would follow.

Chukka slid in next to Leyla and stabbed her with the heal stick Tezla had given her. The stick turned bright green as Leyla’s body jerked, practically trying to get back to her feet while still unconscious.

“She’s fine,” shouted Chukka as she grabbed Leyla and pulled her back down.

Her eyelids were fluttering. She was alive but weak. Perfect. Now was the time to probe her for vulnerabilities. Everyone had them, even the Corps. Which way did she favour? Visual, auditory, emotional? The correct insertion method made a huge difference.

Her pupils were dilated, eyes falling down and to the right. Emotional, most likely. It was hard to tell under the conditions, but it would be near impossible with Leyla fully conscious. Emotional, definitely. She was a feeler. Unusual for Seneca but lucky for Chukka.

Chukka’s eyes flickered blue and the hairs on her arm rose. Weak, her organic had always been the lowest tier. But it had helped in some ways. Harder to spot.

“You’re fine. You’re going to be fine. The pain will be gone in a minute. Hang on.” She put a hand on Leyla’s forehead. “I’ve got you. Hang on a little longer.”

Leyla groaned.

“Your sister’s fine. It hasn’t touched her. You need to be strong for her so she doesn’t get distracted. You have to fight. Strike back. Be firm. Can you feel it? The heal stick is bringing you back to full strength.”

It wasn’t the best way, to push so many trigger words in such a short time, but there was no other choice. Her eyes flashed and she couldn’t see for a moment. Then Leyla screamed and went stiff in Chukka’s arms. Had she pushed too hard?

Weyla yelled in response and came hurtling across the room, under the droid, knocking away one of its legs and sending it stumbling across the room. Weyla came sliding in to take Leyla away from Chukka, pushing Chukka away with her other hand.

A cube slid along the floor and came to a stop next to Chukka’s feet. It shook like an alarm bell was going off inside and a thin beam of yellow light shot straight up, making Chukka jerk her head back to avoid getting hit.

Just before the light hit the roof of the chamber, it spread open like an umbrella, encasing Chukka and her men, along with the two Seneca women, in a yellow-tinged force field.

The Insanium droid stopped and tilted its head. It was on one side of the room-blocking enclosure and Tezla was on the other. She was standing on the cracked bottom of the gaping hole.

“You’ll be perfectly safe as long as you stay inside this safety tent,” said Tezla. Chukka could hear her through her comms but the force field didn’t let sound in. “You can turn it off but I assure you, the droid won’t be happy.”

The droid didn’t look happy already. It was pawing at the force field, unable to get through or move it, and the fit was too close to the walls and roof to allow it to get past. Its mane swung from side to side in a manner that suggested agitation to Chukka.

“What are we supposed to do?” said Weyla. “Wait until we die of hunger?”

“No,” said Tezla. “Hopefully not. I should be back soon. Once I return, I will escort you out.”

“You’re going after Ubik alone,” said Chukka. “That’s not a good idea.”

“You needn’t worry,” said Tezla, “I’m sure I’ll manage.”

Chukka could see her thinking. Even if she had underestimated Ubik, having extra bodies along wouldn’t improve her chances. Not unless they had come specially prepared for Ubik and his shenanigans.

“Just sit tight and try to keep the droid amused. Insanium droids have shown a tendency to go easy on people they find entertaining. An odd quirk but one that might save your lives.”

“Are you saying it can get through the force field?” asked Bashir nervously.

“No, it’s impervious to any attack or damage. Or movement once it’s activated. But the resonator has a limited energy supply. It will eventually turn itself off.”

“How long do we have?” asked Weyla.

“Plenty of time. Eighteen hours at the very least. I should be back well before then.”

“And if you’re not?” said Weyla.

Tezla smiled. “I hope you know some good jokes.” She turned and faced the hole. “Rex, mute comms.” She jumped into the shaft.

“I knew she couldn’t be trusted,” said Weyla. “Good thing we came prepared.” She unholstered both her guns and slotted them together so they became an even bigger gun.

Leyla got to her feet with a series of grunts and did the same with her weapons. Both women were ready to kill the droid or die trying. Chukka knew which was more likely.

“Wait. I can get us all out of here alive.”

Everyone turned to look at her. So far everything had gone to plan. Now she just had to convince them to go the rest of the way.

Book 2 – 60: Integrated Support

Third Quadrant.

Asteroid Tethari.

Shaft.

 

The fall hadn’t been that bad. Ubik had no way of knowing what he was falling into, but the actual falling part was fine. It was kind of fun.

Hitting the ground, on the other hand, had been quite painful.

He lay there, slowly checking his body by sending out gentle suggestions for various parts to move a bit. Some moved better than others. Some hurt more than others.

“Hello? Fig? PT?” No response. The suit has suffered some kind of loss of power. Or the internal circuits were fried. The Antecessor symbols he pushed through it probably took their toll.

The suit, of course, had helped him not die. The suit had also been responsible for nearly killing him. Why it had slid through the platform as though it wasn’t there he couldn’t say for sure. There was probably a good reason. Well, not a good reason, but a logical one.

The ground he had struck on the way down, which he now flattened against, wasn’t the bottom of the shaft. The shaft probably didn’t have a bottom, it was most likely a loop. Ubik had fallen, eyes open, looking for an exit point from the grand asteroid loop-di-loop. He had seen the ledge ringing the shaft, very much like the one he had just left, and had tried to direct himself to land on it.

It wasn’t very wide — the same metre or so as the one above — but wide enough to stop his current trajectory. He had been right about that.

He had hit the ledge more or less as planned — not bad for a first time skydiver — but his expectation of what it would feel like to hit the metal platform, at the speed he was falling, at the current level of gravity, was a little off.

PT, no doubt, would have done a somersault, bounced off the wall to reduce the impact, and landed in a heroic pose with his theme tune playing in the background. But then PT was a man born between the stars, where falling was eternal. Even when you were asleep in bed, you were falling through space at ridiculous speed.

Ubik smiled to himself, impressed with the poetic image of PT as a child of the heavens — you never saw an angel with a head that square or a nose that squat. He grimaced. Something definitely wasn’t right with his shoulder.

For a start, he was pretty sure it wasn’t supposed to be bumping up against the top of his head. Maybe his shoulder was fine. Maybe his neck was broken.

His boots, of course, had absorbed some of the force. Even from inside the suit, they were able to automatically identify an impending traumatic episode rapidly approaching and had taken corrective measures to protect his ankles.

Unfortunately, the suit — also built to protect lives — had tried to brace his body for the same event.;

You would think with both the Delgado company and Ramon Ollo’s genius combining to save him, the result would be doubly successful. You would be wrong.

Ubik had struck the ledge with no ability to choose where he fell or control his fate.

His feet were fine. His ankles, never better. The rest of him had struck the wall, the ledge, the wall again (somehow), and then the edge of the platform in a manner that should have broken him into two, if the suit had allowed it.

His breathing was okay, if a little shallow. His chest didn’t hurt but he couldn’t seem to expand it more than a small amount. The helmet was up and the inside wasn’t full of blood, so that was a good sign. It was just the difficulty he was having moving any part of him that was a worry.

Arms and legs were still attached. He could see his feet and one hand. His head wouldn’t move from the position it was in, almost like someone had their foot on his neck. He could feel his fingers and toes, all present. Everything was just very, very heavy.

His first thought had been that the problem was gravitational. He was caught in some kind of extreme gravity field that not only didn’t want to let him go, it wanted to make him a lot smaller and compact, squeezing him into a fun-sized version of himself — an Ubik for your shelf. But the pressure was coming from above and below.

The only other explanation was the suit. It was keeping him fixed in place as a precaution. Broken bones healed better when prevented from moving. But he was pretty sure none of his bones were broken, apart from his shoulder. And that was just dislocated. It had happened before, not a terrible injury, and very handy for escaping from a straight-jacket. Not that anyone had ever put him in one, but someone was bound to try eventually.

The suit meant well, he was sure. Its final act to keep him safe until help arrived. Slave suits expected to be under supervision. They were designed with accidents in mind, precautions built-in. Full body cast on demand.

Luckily, Ubik had already made some adjustments to the suit’s functions which would enable him to override the suit’s natural inclinations.

Unluckily, he couldn’t currently reach those adjustments with his arms flattened on the floor.

There was a distant whooshing sound. Not very loud, but distinguishable in the complete silence. He managed to look to the side and up, and saw a helmet falling. Then it was gone.

Interesting. PT and Fig were obviously up to something. He could just wait for them to come rescue him…

No, that could take forever. They were both solid individuals who could be relied on to do their best, but when had anyone’s best been good enough?

There was no point leaving matters in other people’s hands. It was much better to do it yourself, Ubik had always found.

He wiggled his toes. His boots had kept them relatively unaffected from the suit’s well-meaning intentions. His big toe flicked at a small bump on the inside of the boot.

His feet began to get warmer.

Warm, dry feet were a boon in wet and cold conditions. Delgados made sure your feet didn’t rot, even if the rest of you did. It wasn’t particularly wet or cold down here, but it was still a pleasant sensation to have toasty toes.

The boots, however, continued to grow hotter. One of the first things Ubik had done on receiving his boots was to remove all the limiters the manufacturer recommended. The boots could be modified a reasonable amount, there was no need to go to extremes.

Ubik disagreed.

As the temperature of the boot increased, the suit noticed. It was designed to be fire-resistant, but to fires on the outside. Heat from the inside, the suit would act like tin foil around a potato.

Even without power or active systems, the suit would have built-in safety measures. It wouldn’t harm Fig, it wouldn’t allow its occupant to burn to death, things like that.

The pressure eased and Ubik felt the straps on the back of the suit unlock. The cool air felt nice and being able to move felt even nicer. His shoulder hurt a lot more now that the suit had let him go.

Ubik took the opportunity to get out of the suit. It was a little awkward and his body suddenly decided it was in a lot more pain than it had initially let on, but he managed to get out and roll over onto the ledge. His shoulder poked him in the ear.

The suit lay next to him, the back open like it was in the middle of undergoing a surgical procedure, the helmet turned off.

He felt a little exposed. He was inside an asteroid, sitting on a ledge in an alien shaft. Not really appropriate for casual wear. He sat up with a groan.

The walls were bright silver. There was no exit or opening. The ledge was here for a reason, though. There could be a door, it was just closed. All in all, not the worst position he’d been in.

He slammed his shoulder into the wall and it popped back in. He didn’t scream. Not that he wouldn’t have liked to, but he had learned early on not to announce his wounded state for everyone to hear. They had a tendency to hear it as a dinner gong.

The helmet went sailing past again.

Now what? He could jump off and follow it, see what else was down there. He didn’t very much like that idea. He leaned across and picked up the suit, and regretted the stretch. His shoulder burned with pain.

The controls he’d jury-rigged in the suit’s belt weren’t responsive.

“Hello? Anyone?” There was always the chance he was still sending, just not receiving. “Fig, if you can hear me, I’m alive and hungry. Please send food.”

There was no response, not even static.

He slowly got to his feet and looked around. The ledge went all the way around the shaft. There was one section of the wall that looked like the control area Head had been trying to access. It was hard to be sure with the silver liquid filling all the grooves now. It seemed to be moving, flowing through the channels, connecting everything into one seamless pattern, gently pulsating. But this part looked different. Sort of.

Perhaps he could access it. He’d done it before, although that had been through the droid. He had managed to instruct the droid through its language, perhaps the wall would also respond to some forceful suggestions. They shared some sort of heritage, as far as he could tell, why not a language?

He tried to think what he would say. His mind was suddenly blank, unable to recall any of the symbols he had seen. They had all been there at once, cramming every nook of his brain, and now it was like someone had cleaned out his closet without telling him.

Ubik looked at the suit in his hand. It had been a key part of his success. The success of controlling the droid. It also deserved credit for the failure of not being able to stand on a perfectly solid elevator.

Flaxen, Fig had called it — that must have been what did it. How had a material created in Ramon Ollo’s laboratory to interact with a specific type of force field managed to have the exact same effect on an Antecessor construct made thousands of years ago? It didn’t seem like a coincidence.

The wall began to pulsate. Something was happening. Ubik looked up, the silver lines flowing into symbols that seemed familiar. It was hard to see them clearly, just a glimmer taking shape for a second.

It was similar to the Antecessor language but not as harsh or as intense.

Information, lots of it, moving around the walls like a newsfeed. Now instructions. Taking control. Of what? Not the wall, not the shaft. This was reporting what was happening, not undergoing the change itself.

Ubik took a moment to let his mind clear. This was like what he’d experienced on the Central Authority ship. So much data flooding his senses. They were all related though, all shared a common base. The CA and Ramon Ollo, both keeping secrets about their links to the Antecessors.

He saw what was happening. Someone — Fig, probably — was attempting to take over the command routine of an Antecessor droid. Not a full droid… not a real droid… What? The virtual droid that he had destroyed. It must have returned, or they sent a replacement.

Trying to take control of it directly was incredibly risky. Getting it to expose itself to you also meant exposing yourself to it. The worst you could do to it was cause it to malfunction and break. The worst it could do to you was cause you to malfunction and die.

It was a terrible, risky, stupid idea. I love it, thought Ubik.

If it worked, Fig would have access to the shaft through the droid, the way he had, but in a more stable manner. He would be able to operate the elevator and a lot more.

The chances of success were ludicrously low, but that only made the idea more appealing. Bravo. The kid had potential, assuming he didn’t get himself killed first.

Now the walls were lit up with streams of information. The droid was aware of what Fig was going to attempt. It was waiting for him. It would use it to take him. It didn’t say how.

The suit? It would infiltrate the suit Fig was wearing. There were bound to be safety measures. The suit would warn Fig. He would find a way to reject it, probably.

But that would be a waste.

When would the droid make a move? Ubik thought it through, how he would do the same thing. Wait until Fig thought he had control, let him focus on what he wanted the droid to do, sneak up on him while his attention was diverted.

Ubik took the suit in his hands by the collar ring and bent it back. His shoulder protested but he ignored the pain.

Where the collar and the metal ring joined, Ubik felt for a connector plate. It would only be the size of a fingernail, maybe even smaller. He found it on the left side. Four of them. Even better.

The suit might be dead but it had residual power. If Ramon Ollo wanted to maintain failsafes, he had to have the power to activate them. Ubik just needed one short blast of juice.

Ubik reached into his memory and searched for the symbols the Antecessors had used. They might be hard to retain but Ubik had always found things stuck in his head, even if they sometimes slipped down into the murky depths. There was always a lot of space down there.

The symbols he saw in the walls helped, gave him a clue what to look for. He found them in a heap, muddled together, no way to tell them apart or sort out their meaning. If they had been confusing before, now they were completely confounding. No matter. He didn’t need to send out orders this time, he just needed to make some noise at the right time.

He looked up at the wall. It was like watching a crowd at a sports event, building with anticipation. It knew what was going to happen and was happy to wait and see the result.

Ubik saw Fig enter the droid, take control, or think he had. As he began to interact with the wall, Ubik pushed two plates together and touched the collar ring to the wall. He formed the symbols in succession, one after the other, in a message of complete gibberish. It made no sense, but there was a lot of it. An overwhelming amount.

Fig took control. The droid missed its opportunity. The wall hadn’t expected the sudden shift in attack and failed to defend itself from Fig-controlled droid.

There was a howl of surprise that seemed familiar. Junior? Then the pulsating wall stilled into a steady glow, under Fig’s control.

Ubik took a breath. He had timed it just right. Whatever had been controlling the droid had been kicked out before it could start its counter-attack. Ubik’s flood of confusing symbols had momentarily incapacitated the droid, just long enough for Fig to complete his takeover.

Ubik dropped the suit and rubbed his shoulder. Above him, he heard a rumbling sound. They would be here soon. He decided the suit still had its uses and put it back on.

A few seconds later, the elevator platform descended with PT carrying a body and Fig (presumably) wearing a droid. That wasn’t how Ubik would have taken control of a droid, but to each his own.

“What’s wrong with your shoulder?” asked PT.

“Nothing, what’s wrong with your face?” said Ubik automatically

PT’s mouth opened and closed a couple of times. “Nothing. I don’t think. It always looks like this.”

“Oh, okay. Looks good,” said Ubik.

“He’s got a droid on his head, why are you picking on me?” PT seemed a little offended.

“Nice,” said Ubik to Fig. “Suits you.”

“Thank you,” said Fig’s voice.

“While you’ve been taking it easy down here, “ said PT, “we’ve taken control of the shaft.”

“So I see,” said Ubik. “It’s like you don’t even need me anymore.”

PT frowned. “What have you really been doing down here?”

“Me? Nothing.”

“Yes you have,” said PT. “I can tell. That look… What did you do?”

Ubik stepped onto the elevator platform.

“NO!” said PT. Then he looked confused. “Why didn’t he fall through?”

“The suit’s dead,” said Fig. “He broke it.”

“So this is what it feels like to be the one who’s rescued. Kind of tingly. I like it. You should rescue me more often.”

PT looked across at Fig, or the droid on top of Fig’s head. The droid shrugged. The elevator continued to descend.

Book 2 – 59: Hand in Glove

Third Quadrant.

Asteroid Tethari.

Unknown Antecessor Location.

 

Point-Two looked at the space where Ubik had been a moment ago. The platform that had descended like a basic elevator ready to take them to whichever level they wished was still there. It looked solid. Metallic, silver, no gaps or holes. Ubik had slid right through it like it didn’t even exist.

He knelt down at the edge of the platform and reached out a hand. Gravity had stabilised at a little over standard. Ubik had saved them from being crushed to death, that much was certain.

The obvious thing to do was test it to see if it really was some sort of Holover. He pulled his hand back before he made contact with it. Ubik may not have fallen. He may have disintegrated from the feet up.

“Ubik?” shouted Point-Two. “Are you hanging under the platform?”
There was no reply.

“I’m pretty sure he fell,” said Fig, looking at the control panel on his arm. “I’m not getting anything now but the readings showed a downward trajectory for a few seconds before I lost the signal.”

“You’re not getting anything at all now?”

“Nothing. Either something’s blocking me or the suit was destroyed.” Fig looked up. “Do you think he’s dead?”

“I seriously doubt it,” said Point-Two. “Can you imagine Ubik letting a little fall be the end of him?”

“No,” said Fig. “I suppose not. Still, he hasn’t come all the way around, like your helmet.”

“Neither has my helmet.”

Point-Two’s helmet, which Ubik had volunteered into service, had taken only a couple of minutes to go down and come back around. It hadn’t done that since Ubik had summoned the platform.

“We could jump after him,” said Fig.

“What works for Ubik won’t necessarily work for us. Or anyone else. I’m not sure it even works for him, he just likes to act like it’s exactly what he intended.”

“It’s a good act,” said Fig.

Point-Two grunted in agreement and looked over at Nifell lying comatose inside his suit. The poor man had been through a lot and at least now he was resting peacefully. Which made Point-Two feel bad about what he was about to do.

He took hold of Nifell’s hand and pulled him closer. When the fingers of Nifell’s gloved hand were over the lip of the ledge they were on, he dipped them quickly into the elevator platform Ubik had fallen through.

The tips of his fingers disappeared and then reappeared when Point-Two pulled the hand back up. He tried again, this time lowering the whole of Nifell’s hand until only his wrist was visible, the rest sunken into the elevator floor as though he had dipped his hand into it when molten and allowed it to set.

The glove seemed undamaged when Point-Two retrieved it. He looked up at Fig.

“The suit’s fine,” said Fig, checking the control panel on his arm. “Nifell’s life signs are all stable. No effect. It appears to be some kind of projection but my sensors are seeing it as completely real. Possibly, the droid managed to distort whatever command Ubik gave it.”

“How did he get the droid to obey his commands in the first place?” asked Point-Two.

“I don’t know,” said Fig. “I guess… I think he was able to decipher the language it used. And then used it to speak back to it.” He didn’t sound like he thought what he was suggesting was very likely. But then, when had that ever been an obstacle for Ubik?

“What about you?” said Point-Two. “Can you learn their language?”

Fig shook his head. “I don’t think so. Not quickly, anyhow. It’s a very complex pictographic information delivery system. Incredibly dense. I can barely remember any of it. The alien nature of it makes retention extremely difficult. I think it would take a team of crypto-linguists decades to unpack the language fully.”

“It took Ubik about thirty seconds,” said Point-Two.

“Yes. But I don’t think he knew what he was doing.”

“You think he threw out random words and hoped for the best?”

“No,” said Fig. “I think he isolated a group of key icons he suspected of the same general function, and sent them in a concentrated burst in an attempt to trigger a desired outcome. Sort of like recognising a group of words in a foreign language refer to types of food, and saying all of them in the hope the foreigners realise you’re hungry and feed you. It’s a high-risk strategy which most people wouldn’t attempt, but…”

“But Ubik.” Point-Two looked at the platform. It looked entirely stable. But then any holographic image could be made to look that way. Most would have some telltale sign that they weren’t real, but the Antecessors possessed a lot of technology that was superior to their human counterpart.

There was a shimmer of light and the droid reappeared, but only for a second. As it flickered back out of existence, the elevator paled for a moment and became transparent. There was no evidence of Ubik underneath. Then the elevator became solid again.

“They’re trying to reestablish a connection,” said Fig. “I’m not sure what will happen when they do, but we should probably try to not be here when that happens.”

“Did you see what happened to the platform?” said Point-Two. “I think they’re connected. Them trying to break into this network affects the opacity of this thing. Which suggests it might be possible to make it solid enough to interact with, the way the droid was able to interact with the wall.”

Fig nodded. “Yes, solid light. It’s possible. But that still doesn’t give us a way to control it. I...” Fig turned his head slightly. “Can you hear that?”

Point-Two did hear something. He looked up the shaft as something came falling down, not very quickly. It landed with a thump on the elevator floor, bounced just a little, and then sat there. It was Point-Two’s helmet.

The two of them stared at it.

“Why isn’t it falling through?” asked Point-Two from the side of his mouth, not wanting to look away in case he missed something.

“Perhaps when the droid reappeared…” said Fig, suggesting the connection between Antecessor technology and whatever this was, was even now in operation.

Point-Two lightly kicked Nif’s hand over the edge. It fell through the elevator floor. The helmet was still sitting on solid ground. He nudged Nifell’s hand back. It was unharmed.

“Um,” said Figaro. “Try standing on it.”

Point-Two raised an eyebrow. Fig nodded at him encouragingly. Point-Two placed the tip of his boot on the elevator. It met resistance. He placed some more weight on it. It supported him completely.

The droid reappeared and Point-Two’s foot went through the floor, nearly taking the rest of him with it. The helmet slid through and disappeared below at the same time. Point-Two just about managed to jump back and stop himself from falling.

The droid came into sharper relief and took its full form, looking solid. Solid as the elevator. Then it disappeared again.

“I think I see now,” said Fig.

“Yes?”

“This platform, it’s similar to the force field in the helmets on Ubik and Nifell’s slave suits. If it is the same concept, the material the suits are made of can pass through it.”

“Flaxen?” said Point-Two, recalling the name Fig had used. “The material designed by your father?”

“Yes.”

“And the elevator, it’s made of the same stuff as the helmets?”

“It appears so. Similar.”

“That’s a bit of a coincidence, isn’t it?”

“Well, assuming both parties discovered the same underlying science, any practical applications would have a good chance of sharing certain attributes. People who discover they can turn sand into glass would probably use it for windows.”

“So you think it’s a coincidence?”

“No,” said Fig. “But we can ask my father, when we find him.”

“Your father’s never been down here, has he?”

“No one has, as far as I know.”

“Hmm,” said Point-Two. There was a thump as the helmet came back to land. “If the technology is the same, and you can control the helmet on their suits…”

Fig didn’t respond, just started tapping away on his control panel.

Point-Two tested the elevator with his toe. It felt solid. But it could turn intangible as soon as the Antecessors attempted to reconnect. If they were standing on it when the droid returned, it would be like the grim reaper appearing, sending them to their doom.

“I think I’ve got it,” said Fig after a few seconds.

“You can control the platform?”

“Not directly,” said Fig, “but I can control this.” He tapped on his control panel and the droid reappeared. The helmet fell through the floor. “Wait…”

Fig made some more taps and the droid became increasingly solid. It looked more solid than anything else in the room. Fig walked up to it and through it. He stood inside the droid, its body covering Fig’s head and most of his torso. The tentacle-like arms fell like a skirt around his waist.

“You were right,” said Fig, his voice coming out of the strange hybrid-creature he had become. “The technology they’re using is similar to my father’s, but like it’s a generation or two older. My operating system can access it through the visual interface, which gives me control of the internal matrix.”

Fig took a few steps forwards and backwards. The droid moved with him like it was a costume.

“The Antecessors aren’t going to like you commandeering their droid,” said Point-Two.

“No, but there’s not much they can do about it. The Antecessor systems are reliant on this place to manifest this droid as a Holover, albeit an advanced variant. My systems are able to interact with the tech down here much more efficiently than they can. I’ve switched this shell onto the suit’s matrix and taken it out of the public network. I am now able to use their insertion protocol as an adjunct of my suit’s slave override protocol.”

“What does all that mean?” said Point-Two.

The droids arm spread out and touched the wall nearest to Fig and also elongating to touch the wall on the opposite side. Both walls lit up with a silver glow. The elevator moved up a small amount and then down to be level with the ledge ringing the shaft. The helmet came falling down and landed with a thump once more.

Fig walked across and onto the elevator. The droid’s tentacles remained fastened to the walls. He didn’t fall through.

Point-Two stepped onto the platform. He walked into the middle, ducking under Fig’s extended limbs, and retrieved the helmet. He put it on before he lost it again.

“You can take it down?”

“Yes,” said Fig. “What about Nifell? Should we leave him here? I won’t be able to regulate his condition once we’re out of range.”

Nifell’s stiff body was lying in the same place. He already looked like a corpse. If they left him, most likely he would become one for real. Even if they took him, that would probably still be the outcome.

“No, we’ll take him,” said Point-Two. He stepped off and picked up Nifell by the armpits and dragged him onto the platform.

As soon as the lower half still on the floor touched the floor of the elevator, it slid through, jerking Point-Two forward. Nifell was now hanging down, his legs through the platform and his feet dangling beneath.

“Flaxen,” said Fig. “Its properties make it impossible to make contact with the floor no matter how much I reinforce its structural integrity. You’ll have to carry him.”

The material created by Figaro’s father was remarkably compatible with the technology down here. The technology that had been apparently undiscovered until now.

Point-Two heaved Nifell up and put him over his shoulder. The increased gravity, even though only slight, gave the body enough extra weight to be cumbersome. But Point-Two had given him his word — they would all get out of this alive or none of them would. He had a pretty good idea which of those two it would end up being.

“Okay, take us down,” said Point-Two. “Let’s see what Ubik’s been up to while he’s been left unsupervised.”

The droid’s hijacked arms slid along the walls as the elevator began its descent.

Book 2 – 58: Sum of Parts

Third Quadrant.

Asteroid Tethari.

Antecessor Facility - Level 3

 

The door down to the fourth level was open. Chukka could see the dark interior and the occasional flicker of light from inside. It wasn’t possible to see any more because of Guardian Tezla.

She was standing ahead of the group, facing the door, having a conversation with herself, or so it seemed from what Chukka could see through the visored helmet on Tezla’s very impressive spacesuit.

“Are we waiting for something?” asked Weyla impatiently. 

Tezla raised a hand towards the Seneca woman without turning around or interrupting her conversation. This did little to improve Weyla’s mood which had been growing steadily worse over the last couple of hours.

Chukka understood her frustration, but it was the sort of frustration one should be grateful for. They had made it through the third floor surprisingly easily. Ramon Ollo had purportedly been trying to access this level for several years and once he managed to get the door open, clearing a new level in a site of this type would be an equally slow and arduous process. 

Tezla had led them through this level’s long straight passages at a pace more suitable for a final sweep of a thoroughly explored site, not one that had just been opened. 

She had known which turns to take and exactly where she was going. There were no dead-ends, no doors to unlock, no rooms to search.

She had dealt with every droid they encountered, pathed the group around traps and hidden triggers as though she had been here numerous times before, and had only interacted with the rest of them when she wanted to make sure they stayed back and gave her space.

There had been nothing to do for the rest of the team, and the two Seneca women didn’t enjoy being along for the ride. They preferred to be the ones taking care of any problems, hands-on.

“Why are we even here?” muttered Leyla. “She clearly doesn’t need us.”

“I know,” said Weyla. “I think she just wanted an audience so she could show off her fancy suit. Like to see how good she is without it.”

Guardian Tezla turned around and the visor slid up and over her head, taking the rest of the helmet with it into the collar-ring around her neck. She was completely bald and her unblemished face hadn’t even a single wrinkle.

“The Insanium class droid went through here. You can see from the markings around the entrance that this door was forced open.”

Chukka looked past Tezla at the rectangular opening. She couldn’t see any markings.

“Yes, I can see that,” said Weyla. “Why don’t you go in? The droid isn’t here now, is it?”

The two women stared at each other with neutral expressions, neither willing to give the other the satisfaction of showing their annoyance publically. As though it wasn’t obvious.

Chukka looked over at her two VendX operatives, Flott and Bashir. Neither would be very useful if things boiled-over between the Guardian and the ex-corps women. It might be to her advantage later but right now they needed to work together. Once they reached their objective, then they could fight all they wanted.

“If the Insanium droid forced it open,” said Chukka, “where are the normal droids that tried to stop it? We saw lots of them on the second level — what was left of them, anyway — we haven’t seen any remains on the way here.”

“That’s right, well spotted,” said Tezla, her voice full of condescension, which Chukka ignored — she’d faced worse. “We took a different route, that’s why we didn’t see any trace of the droids. The defences targeted the droid and we were able to get through relatively unscathed, facing only the maintenance droids. I was able to handle those easily enough, but from here on it’s going to get much harder.”

She made light of how she had handled the droids they’d encountered. If they had been non-aggressive units, it wasn’t going to be much fun meeting the battle droids a site like this was no doubt fitted with. But Chukka knew enough about Antecessor droids to be aware of how multi-functioning they were. Even a lowly maintenance droid came with a full set of killing options as standard. 

Perhaps they had avoided the bulk of the defence droids thanks to the Insanium beast, but Tezla’s performance had been impressive whatever way you looked at it. Her and that suit she wore had cut through any impedance to their route.

“Once we go through there,” continued Tezla, “we’ll be facing a non-stop barrage of droids, of all types. I can locate and identify them, but I can’t fight them all at the same time. I’ll need you to hold some of them off until I can get to them.” 

She sounded very sure of herself, absolutely certain of what was beyond the door no one had ever been through before.

“Hold them off?” said Leyla, sounding put out. “Won’t it be quicker if we just kill them?”

“If you can, that would be very helpful,” said Tezla. “But I don’t think you’ll do very much damage with those Seneca blasters. What are they, third generation?”

Leyla frowned. “Second.”

“They do just fine,” said Weyla, defensively.

“For rounding up thugs and bounties, sure,” said Tezla. “Look, you don’t have to take my word for it, you’ll see for yourselves. Just remember, you wanted to come. I didn’t force you. I have it on tape, right Rex?”

Her suit collar lit up for a moment.

“And as for you,” she said, turning to face Chukka. “You’re practically unarmed. What was the idea behind the pellet shooters?”

She looked over at the gun Flott was carrying, a rifle with a huge magazine slotted underneath. 

“This has enough firepower to take down a class seven droid,” said Flott. Chukka recalled he hadn’t been very enthusiastic about the guns, either, but he wasn’t about to let someone badmouth a VendX product. He could be fined a large amount if head office were to find out.

“Ammunition runs out. Droids don’t.”

“It was a precaution,” said Chukka, also liable for a fine if she didn’t speak up. “One of the people we’re looking for is good at turning tronic devices against their owners, including guns. And suits.”

Tezla frowned. “I’m well aware of Ubik’s ‘gifts’. He isn’t going to cause you much of a problem if the droids kill you first though, is he?”

“We came prepared for the droids,” said Chukka. “My team…” Her team, her plans, that hadn’t quite played out as expected. “We weren’t prepared for the Insanium droid.”

Tezla nodded, acceding to the unlikely nature of this particular scenario.

“No, you couldn’t have predicted that. But that’s why you will adhere to my instructions and not think for yourselves.” Tezla looked from the VendX group to the Seneca duo. “You should all be used to that.”

Chukka could see both Seneca women stiffen. What Tezla was saying was true, of course. Both the Seneca Corps and VendX Galactic demanded obedience and complete loyalty from their subordinates. It was hardly an insult, that was how all successful organisations worked, even the Central Authority.

“Just let us know when we can defend ourselves,” said Weyla. “Wouldn’t want to break your concentration when you’re doing your Guardian business.”

“The fourth level of a facility of this type is when things get serious,” said Tezla, oblivious to Weyla’s tone. “You’ll have to work together and do exactly as I tell you. There won’t be time for questions and suggestions. I don’t care what you think or feel or what you’ve been trained to do, all of that is worthless down here.”

As a leadership style, Tezla’s approach was not recommended in the manual. The manual Chukka was thinking of was the VendX Manual of Management Strategy and Resource Acquisition, her personal bible and guide. She read it most nights before going to sleep and always found something new she hadn’t seen before.

In a situation like this, bullying was not the most effective tactic. Bullying was best employed in a one-on-one setting in a confined space with only one exit.

“We can take care of ourselves just fine,” said Weyla. 

“Yes, and get the rest of us killed while you do it,” said Tezla. “Fortunately, we have an advantage. The Insanium droid will have carved a path through the defences so we will only have to deal with what remains. That will still be quite a task, believe me.”

“How do you know?” said Flott, speaking up finally. “This is your first time here — not even Ramon Ollo has been down there before. It’s not like you bump into an Insanium class droid every day.”

The two Seneca women turned from Flott — who they had glared at with  disdain when he started speaking — to Tezla, eager to hear her response.

“That is correct,” said Tezla. “I have never encountered a droid of this class before, but the Central Authority has. All their knowledge on this droid and about this type of facility is available to me. My suit is constantly scanning and comparing this site to the data we have on file. Of course, if this is an entirely unique facility unlike anything we’ve encountered before, then we will be dead in a few seconds. But that’s fairly unlikely.” The collar lit up on her suit. “No, Rex, I don’t need the exact figure.” 

Tezla looked at Weyla again, eye to eye. “These droids were created for some unknown purpose but they ended up bugging out. Every one discovered so far was caged and kept separate from the rest of the facility they were found in. They have an ability to access the power source that powers all Antecessor sites against the site itself. This opening, it is impervious to any kind of forceful attack. What it can’t withstand, though, is its own power used against it.”

Tezla’s suit suddenly lit up and thin arms came out at the shoulders.

“In order to facilitate better communication, I will patch you all into my network. This will override your own comms systems and make it impossible for you to talk to each other via any other channels.”

The arms shivered.

“Hold on,” said Weyla.

“I don’t see why that’s necessary,” said Chukka.

“It isn’t,” said Tezla. “Just a byproduct of having to punch through the proprietary adaptors your respective superiors decided to use when constructing your suits. I can’t easily connect our three groups together, as simple as that might seem, and is. So instead, I will use brute force. Try not to move too much.”

“Why?” said Chukka. “What are you—” She felt her knees buckle as a wave of pressure shot down her ear canal.”

“Rex, confirm courtesy network stable,” said Tezla from inside Chukka’s ear. The quality was fantastic; much clearer than her regular comms.

“Stability confirmed,” said a calm, light voice that matched the rhythm of the flickering lights on Tezla’s collar.

Chukka checked her own internal comms. No response. The system was down, which wasn’t unheard of, but would it come back online once the connection with the CA network was terminated? If not, it wouldn’t be cheap to replace.

“Okay,” said Tezla. “You, Bashir, you’ll take point.”

“Me?” said a startled Bashir. “But I’—”

“Comms, I know. Won’t need you for that. Your organic, long-range sensor, right? I want you to be our early warning system. All you need to do is call out if you spot anything bigger than a house moving around ahead of us.”

“A house?” said Bashir. “What’s going to be that big down here?

“Pray you never find out,” said Tezla. “Go on, in front.”

“But if I’m in front, I’m going to—”

“Nothing’s going to happen to you.” She bundled Bashir into position facing the open doorway. Rex will keep you safe. Right, Rex?”

“I will do my best,” said the other voice.

“I can take point,” said Flott, looking like he didn’t care what happened to him.

“No, you’re in the rear. Shocker, right? That’s where you’ll be needed.”

Flott didn’t look happy but didn’t argue. 

“You two,” she said to the Seneca women. “Flanks, either side of me. Keep your guns pointed low. Anything higher than waist-high, ignore it.”

Her instructions were so strange and vague it was hard to dispute them. No one understood what she was planning. Or why.

As strategies went, this was fairly textbook. As long as no one knew what they were about to face, they had no choice but to follow the Guardian’s orders. She was the only one who had any idea of what they were about to face. Or the only who claimed to.

“What about me?” said Chukka.

Tezla looked at her. “You’re PR, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Well, stay close behind me. If any of them get through, try talking them into letting you live.” A thin humourless smile spread across her smooth face. She really looked like she took excellent care of her skin.

“I don’t think they’ll be very easily persuaded,” said Chukka.

“No,” said Tezla. Two small objects popped out of her chest armour. She caught them, one in each hand, and gave them to Chukka. “Heal sticks. About a hundred times as effective as those packs of sugar water VendX gives you.”

“In case I get injured?”

“In case one of them do.” Tezla pointed at the Seneca women, both of whom looked greatly offended by the suggestion they would take damage. “We need to keep them alive. Meat shields can’t tank hits if they’re lying on the ground.”

Neither woman appreciated the comment but they also recognised it as an attempt to bait them, so let it pass. Reverse psychology — the Guardian was impressing Chukka more and more.

Chukka looked at the long thin sticks in her hands. She wasn’t even sure which end was which. “I’m not a medic. I wouldn’t know—”

“Jab it anywhere you see blood or a gaping wound. If a limb comes off, try to grab it and save it for later. I have staples.” Tezla grinned menacingly.

Bashir wasn’t keen on going in first but Tezla didn’t give them any time to think of excuses. Chukka had to admit the Guardian’s methods were effective. It helped that she was carrying the most destructive power among them. It was always hardest to say no to the person with the biggest gun. Although, there were other ways to get your way, and Chukka hadn’t come to this rock completely unprepared for non-Ubik encounters.

The passage beyond the door was dark and sloped downwards. It was wide enough for the Seneca women to walk either side of Tezla. Drones separated from Tezla’s suit and hovered above her, sending beams of light ahead. The passage showed no signs of ending any time soon. 

Bashir gingerly stepped forward and the others followed. “I don’t sense anything. I mean no movement at all.”

“Good,” said Tezla. 

White streaks of light ran down the walls as though in an awful hurry to get somewhere. Only a few, though. They kept walking. Their footsteps sounded ridiculously loud and were sure to announce their presence. After about a minute, there was a low hum and the passage lit up with lines of white light covering the walls in their entirety. The cramped tunnel suddenly felt a lot bigger.

“Keep moving,” said Tezla. 

“They know we’re here,” said Chukka.

“They already knew that,” said Tezla. “This is just to help us get there quicker.”

There was a doorway ahead of them, bordered by white light that constantly moved around the frame.

“We’re just going to walk in?” said Bashir. 

“Yes,” said Tezla. She sounded very sure of herself, which was the right tone to take, whether it was true or not. Chukka wondered if Guardians had access to the Manual of Management Strategy and Resource Acquisition.

Bashir walked through the opening without hesitation, either accepting his fate or buoyed by the lack of movement ahead. They entered a large room, the walls glowing with streaks of light. There was another doorway ahead of them.

“Stop,” said Tezla once they were in the centre of the empty room. 

There was a marked difference between the two sides of the room. One was flat walls with regular Antecessor markings, the other had large gouges cut into the walls, the white lines skipping around them. 

“It’s been here,” said Tezla. “No one shoot until I tell you to, and don’t pick anything up. No shooting, no looting, got it? It took out about half of it, so we should be alright.”

“Half of what?” said Chukka.

The wall in front of Bashir erupted into shards of black and white. They flew out like shrapnel from an explosion, but rather than spreading out, they converged on Bashir, drawn to him.

A shield appeared around Bashir. The shards struck it and fell to the floor.

“Flott turn around and unload your organic into the back wall. Now.”

There was the crackle of electrical energy being released and the back wall lit up. Blue light arced across to the other walls, increasing the brightness of the Antecessor lines to a brilliant intensity. And then everything went dark except for the drones hovering over Tezla.

“Corps, thirty degrees, point-blank, full burst, thirty, follow-sighting. Fire.”

Chukka had no idea what that meant but the Seneca women obviously did. Both aimed their weapons down and opened fire.

The floor seemed to ripple. Limbs reached out like hands from the grave, and then exploded into splinters.

The ground shifted under them.

Cables shot out from the shoulders of Tezla’s suit, attaching to the walls on either side. The cables went taut, lifting Tezla off the ground. She kicked her feet up and inverted, pointing both arms straight down.

The floor opened, revealing a hole. Chukka stumbled backwards, barely avoiding falling in. Small rockets appeared all along Tezla’s arms. They launched with a whistling sound and flew into the pit, the explosion coming a surprisingly long time after. The hole snapped shut. Tezla rotated around and landed on her feet as the cables whipped back into her suit.

The drones grew brighter to show an empty room not that much different to when they first entered.

“What exactly did we shoot the shit out of?” asked Weyla.

The walls collapsed, their surfaces sliding off to form heaps of deconstructed droid pieces all around them.

“Mimic droid, pretending to be the room,” said Tezla. “No injuries? Good. Nice warm-up. Now it starts to get hard. Lead the way, Bashir.”

Chukka held on tightly to the heal sticks. If that was the warm-up, she was going to need more than two of these.

Book 2 – 57: Floor Please

Third Quadrant.

Asteroid Tethari.

Unknown Antecessor Location.

 

Ubik screwed up his face and bit down on the left side of his jaw. It helped with the pain in his head on that side. The images blasted into his mind had been like bathing his brain in acid. It took a little getting used to.

“What are you doing?” said Fig.

“Stretching my face,” said Ubik. 

“Okay. Good. I thought you were thinking of ramming your head through the shield.”

Ubik was a little thrown by the assumption. Why would he do something that stupid? The shield was the only thing keeping them alive — if he broke through it, the high gravity would kill him instantly. Then again, maybe…

“Stop,” shouted Fig, a little overexcited by the stress of the situation. “Don’t start considering it now.”

He was observant though.

“I’m not,” said Ubik. “I was just thinking about what our Ant friend told you.”

The droid was frozen in place. It wasn’t moving and it wasn’t interacting with Fig anymore. Ubik’s head was covered by the bubble helmet. He activated the colour filter, one of the non-essential protocols he’d managed to gain control of. The red shield changed to a more visually accessible pink that allowed him to see the droid more clearly.

The white streaks running along its tendrils were an unmistakable silver.

“That silver stuff, I think it’s undergone gravitational phase transition.”

“It changes structure based on the gravity it’s in?”

“Hey, you catch on quick considering I just made that term up,” said Ubik. “That droid is resistant to gravity, but it can create a localised field.”

“It can turn it back into a liquid, and then use it? But if it can do that, why not take over this place?”

“Probably never got round to finishing it,” said Ubik. “Everyone thinks of the Antecessors as all-knowing, all-powerful, the final product of some advanced civilisation, but they were probably just like us. Try stuff out, see if it works, sometimes you get results and sometimes it stops halfway through.”

They both looked at the droid. It flickered. The red shield flickered a fraction of a second later. The two were clearly connected. 

“It tried to increase the gravity, communicate and shield us at the same time,” said Fig. “Maybe it was too much.”

“I don’t think it turned on the gravity,” said Ubik. “The message it sent you was rushed and on a clock. It knew it had only a limited time.”

“You saw that in the message?”

“Sure,” said Ubik. “I think there are a lot of answers in there that we just have to find inside all the other stuff. Interesting language.”

“You really understood it?” said Fig.

“More or less. Some.” 

Ubik had always been good at picking up languages. Not spoken ones — they tended to follow no logic and break half the rules they set for themselves. It was a good thing most people spoke a standardised form so everyone ignored the same obvious mistakes without making a fuss about it.

But computer languages had always made sense to him. They followed very strict rules and followed extremely narrow definitions. Once you had firm laws in place, it was much easier to bend them into doing things they weren’t intended for. 

The Antecessor language was very strict. The possibilities were enormous.

“It’s more dense than anything I’ve seen before,” said Ubik, “but I sort of got the gist.”

“Dense? It felt like each symbol was an entire book.”

That was a good way to put it. The Antecessors had developed a lexicon that condensed meaning into a very limited space. One symbol could represent a lifetime of thought, with every nuance applied. What the droid had shot into Fig’s brain felt like a watered-down version, but if it had used the unabridged version… it would have been more like a weapon going off.

“That’s right,” said Ubik. “It’s like a concentrated pill they can give you that expands once it hits your frontal lobe. Or your cortex. Maybe it’s your medulla oblongata. I’m not a biologist. Just add water.”

“But you understood it? All of it? You know what it was trying to tell me about the origin of its people?”

“Sure. Not really very hard to follow, was it? Guy came along and opened a massive rupture in the fabric of space and emptied out all his garbage.” Ubik shrugged. “Probably planned to sort it out later. You know how that goes. But then all his assistants turned on him and ran off. Staffing problems, very common.”

“I thought…” Figaro hesitated. “I thought it was kind of beautiful. The white hole…”

“White hole, black hole, they’re both the same, really,” said Ubik. “One invades and swamps everything, the other steals and leaves nothing behind. I suppose they’re both very efficient at what they do. That’s sort of beautiful, if you’re into elegant design.”

Figaro looked confused. The poor kid still thought in terms of light and dark, good and bad. As though there was a difference.

“Look, you’re smart, you see the big picture — that’s good. After we get out of here and rescue your dad, save the quadrant from annihilation, etcetera, etcetera, I’ll take you on as a student, if you like.”

“You’ll be my master?”

“More like tutor. I charge by the hour. Don’t get me wrong, I think you’re very talented, but you don’t have the sort of life experience a person needs to get by in high-pressure environments. I mean real ones, not in a let’s-pretend machine. This engine, this whole place, very gravity-based.”

“You think it’s a gravity drive?” said Fig. He really was very quick on the uptake.

“Probably more like an anti-gravity drive.”

“There’s no such thing,” said Fig.

“Anti-grav? Sure there is. Just because every mathematician’s proved its impossible, so what?”

“But none of their other ships use that form of propulsion,” said Fig.

“Those ships probably didn’t need to,” said Ubik.

“Why would this one need to?”

“No idea. But when we find out, ooh boy. We’ll be going places. Might even take a trip into the cool arm of the galaxy. Not much to do out here in the backend of beyond.”

“This backend is my home,” said Fig.

“If you’re going to be the most powerful person in the galaxy one day, you’ll have to go to the centre. Where the real power is.”

“I don’t think I’m destined to be the most powerful person in the galaxy,” said Fig. “Actually, I think that might turn out to be you.”

“Oh, ‘cos of the Null Void thing, huh? Don’t you think if that meant anything, Head would have mentioned it? Or that thing.” He pointed at the droid. “They’re quite perceptive on the whole powerful entity proximity alert thing. Figaro Ollo, you must come with us… wait a minute, who’s that omnipotent dreamboat behind you. Oh, I can’t take my eyes off of him. Change of plans, let’s get this one to go. Didn’t happen, did it? No alarms go off when I’m around. But you… I think the jury’s in on that one.”

Fig paused to consider. That was good. At least he had the good sense to review his own thoughts when someone pointed out the flaws in his logic. That was quite a rare ability.

“That silver liquid,” said Fig. “How can you get it from in here? What do you plan doing with it?”

“Don’t worry about that, I’ve got the whole thing sorted. Just be calm. Look at PT.” PT was floating next to Ubik. “Serene as you like.”

“He’s unconscious,” said Fig.

“I know. Can’t get more relaxed than that. Look, the droid is using the silver stuff to operate these shields. If we can get it to turn them off—”

“We’ll die,” said Fig.

“Wait, let me finish. If we can get it to turn off the shields after returning the gravity to normal levels…”

“How? We can’t interact with the droid.”

“You just did.”

Figaro frowned. “Yes. But it instigated the contact.”

“Ah, ah. Don’t think so limited. If it can, so can you. You can do whatever you set your mind to, Fig.”

“Is this an example of what you’ll be teaching me,” said Fig.

“And then some. The language it used, it’s more than just descriptive or conceptual. It creates its meaning inside your mind. It bypasses the whole need to process.”

“I felt like I had to process a lot,” said Fig.

“Ah, well, that’s where you went wrong. You’ve got to let it flow. Be one with the alien gibberish.”

Fig didn’t look overly convinced. “And you’re one with the Antecessors now, are you?”

“Maybe not one. Maybe a three or four. Close, though. All we’ve got to do is show it the correct sequence of symbols and it’ll trigger it to follow the commands.”

“It’ll just do what you tell it?”

“It’s all in the syntax,” said Ubik.

“How do we do that while it’s buffering?”

“It isn’t buffering,” said PT, sounding groggy.

“Oh, decided to wake up, did you?” said Ubik. “Nice of you to join us.”

“I feel like I’m going to throw up,” said PT.

“Really? Could you do it in your helmet?”

“No,” said PT, becoming more animated. “You threw my helmet into the big hole over there. What happened to it, by the way. Is it still looping?”

“It hasn’t passed by for a while,” said Fig.

PT made a retching sound.

“Aren’t you the gravity maestro? No grav is a problem for the boy born in space?”

“It’s the fluctuations. Can’t you feel it?”

“No,” said Ubik. “It’s probably the droid. It can’t keep the shields up properly. That’s why it’s stuck buffering.”

“It isn’t buffering,” insisted PT.

“I used to have a refrigeration unit that did the same thing whenever I tried to reset the temperature,” said Ubik. “Identity crisis, very common in old machines. Get stuck in their ways.”

“It isn’t buffering, it’s stuck in a gravity fork. It’s caught between two different gravity planes. I think it’s trying to stop these shields from collapsing and it’s taking everything its got to do it.”

“It’s trying to keep us alive?” said Ubik. It was certainly a possibility, but not a very likely one. “Why not just focus on saving Fig and let us die? Conserve a bit of energy.”

“Say it a little louder, why don’t you?” said PT. “Might not be able to hear you through the red shield keeping us alive.”

“Yeah, sure,” said Ubik. “Because it won’t have thought of that already. It obviously can’t control the gravity field itself, it can barely keep these shields up. Look how they’re flickering. Integrity is rubbish. All we need to do is… Hey, I’ve just had a great idea.”

“Can you wait until I find something to hide behind?” said PT.

“No,” said Ubik. He changed the filter on his helmet. Instead of cancelling out the shield around them, he matched it. Then he touched the helmet to the shield and held it there despite the resistance pushing him back.

The droid was connected to the shield. There was no way to directly affect its connection but it could see him. It could see his effect on the shield.

Ubik cleared his mind and focused. The symbols he’d seen, the patterns and sequences, they appeared in the darkness. He moved the helmet across the shield to form the symbols he felt said what he wanted to convey. It wasn’t the most eloquent conversation but it would have to do.

The droid was stuck trying to keep control over a system it was in the process of being rejected from. Ubik had seen this sort of thing before. The droid was trying to maintain connection, keep the integrity of the shielding and stop itself from shorting out. It was too much. The obvious place to cut your losses was the droid itself.

Silver lines shot out from the droids tendrils and into the wall. The grooves filled up far faster than when the Head had tried to do the same. Silver liquid came from below like it was being siphoned up, going through the droid’s limbs and into the wall.

The wall on the opposite side of the shaft mirrored the effect, the entire surface turning silver in an instant. There had to be a huge source of the liquid below.

A rumble sounded from above them. The walls either side of the silver one started to also turn silver. 

Ubik wasn’t sure what was going on, but he felt an immense amount of energy around him. It was like the air was dripping with it. Perhaps a little slower would be better. He closed his eyes again and concentrated as he moved the helmet across the surface of the shield.

The silver spread even faster, every wall, up and down. The shaft became much brighter. The rumble got louder.

“I think you should stop,” said PT.

“Just a minute, wanna try something.” Ubik focused harder, sent more symbols. 

“Um, don’t turn the engine on, will you?” said Fig.

“Not planning to,” said Ubik. He tried his hardest to send a cease and desist. The entire shaft lit up. The walls shook. The platform he was standing on felt like it was going to fall apart. He sent more symbols. Some he made up himself.

A silver platform descended from above, levitating on air. It made an awful racket and came to stop level with the platform. The shaking stopped. The red shields disappeared. The droid shattered.

Ubik winced as he fell to the floor, but nothing else happened. The gravity was back to normal. 

“You called the elevator?” said PT.

“Ah, that’s right,” said Ubik, getting up. “Thought it would be quicker than walking.”

“Did you call it on purpose?” asked Fig, no longer separated from them. 

“Of course. What else do you think I was doing?” 

“I only caught some of it,” said Fig, “but it looked like you were begging it to stop.”

“What? No, you clearly need to brush up on your ancient alien languages. Lucky for you, I give lessons. Charge by the hour. Come on, let’s go.”

Ubik stepped onto the silver platform and fell straight through it.

Book 2 – 56: Historic Views

Third Quadrant.

Asteroid Tethari.

Unknown Antecessor Location.

 

The images poured into Figaro’s mind in a cascade of colour and abstract shapes. This wasn’t like the previous time he had communicated with an Antecessor creation, but then it had been a slow and methodical attempt to come to a common form of discourse.

This was not like that.

This felt more like he was being bombarded with information stripped down and sharpened to the most effective point so the message was clear. The effect was like being prodded with a thousand needles.

Figaro resisted flinching — which was all his body wanted to do even though there was no actual physical attack to retreat from — and hoped the deluge wouldn’t overwhelm him.

He understood. This method of sharing information was new to him but he somehow knew what was being said. Or offered.

They wanted him to come to them and they were holding the lives of the others as leverage. Now PT and Ubik were the hostages instead of him. If he accepted the Antecessors’ terms, his friends would be allowed to survive. There was no indication of how that would be delivered, but they were clearly going to die very quickly without assistance.

Agree to whatever was being asked of him and they would live for now. That was all he could be sure of receiving for his compliance.

Figaro had said no. He had considered the other option and rejected it immediately. It was a bad deal and not worth taking, even if it was the only deal. Now was not the time to grasp desperately for any solution, like a drowning man trying to breathe water on the off-chance he was part-fish.

Figaro had been trained in the art of diplomacy, in negotiation and compromise. Threatening death, directly or indirectly, was only used as leverage by those who had failed to find any other form of advantage. It was an admission of a weak position and always worth rejecting.

If someone wanted something from you that only you can give them, killing you or someone close to you wasn’t going to put that thing in their hands. Coercion, extortion, blackmail — all of these methods relied on capitulation by the victim. Which meant they had no way of forcing you to give them what they wanted. And the more they wanted it, the safer you were refusing to hand it over.

The droid floating in front of him wasn’t really here. It had materialised out of thin air, it had seemed, but it wasn’t solid. t wasn’t a Holover but it was something along the same lines. Something far more sophisticated, but its ability to interact with its surroundings was limited.

Its black, spherical body was outside the red partition that surrounded Figaro. The long tendrils that hung below it snaked along the floor and up the wall, fitting into the grooves recently vacated by the silver liquid. Streaks of light glittered along its limbs.

It wasn’t here but it could form an interface with the system operating the red shield. Partial control judging by the way the shields flickered.

PT and Ubik were on the other side of him, flattened against the ground. He didn’t have time to worry about them. Saving them now so they could be eliminated later would serve no purpose. Short-term gain was meaningless. Either you won the long game or you folded to save wasting energy. No point losing and also dying exhausted.

A red shield appeared around the others again. All three looked unconscious, hanging limp inside their protective bubble.

Another barrage of images struck Figaro’s mind. With a tremendous effort, Figaro managed to limit the effect on his consciousness. He had to be careful to take in a little information at a time or he would be swamped. It wanted to fill every corner of his brain but he focused on narrowing the entry point so the rate of image-flow was reduced to a manageable level.

This was an attempt at persuasion. PT, Ubik, Nifell. Each assigned a simple icon. A circle with an intersecting line, a squiggle forming a square, an oval with a dark spot inside it. Resistance, non-conformity, observer. The shapes broke apart into random lines and then reformed into symmetrical star shapes. A threat? Not of death, this time. Control? Slavery? Some sort of transformation?

His face felt strange, hot and malformed as though the images were piling up inside him and spilling over. He tried to open his mouth but the muscles wouldn’t work. The Antecessors had refined the language but not how to deliver it. The pressure inside his skull made it feel like he would go insane before he could come to any kind of arrangement.

The Head had managed to imitate human speech, more or less, but it had had time to learn. The Antecessors Figaro had encountered seemed to have woken from an endless slumber and weren’t able to work out the complexities of human language. Or weren’t willing to.

Using all the strength he could muster, he forced his mouth to form words. “I don’t care about them. Aggression will only anger me.”

He did his best to put the emotion of each word into his mind. He couldn’t use their system of images but he had managed to get across his basic feelings before. For all the advances they’d made, this was still a very clear extension of what had happened on the Origin. There was a link between the ship in a simulation and all the other Antecessor sites in the real world. They could speak to each other, but they couldn’t speak to whatever this place was.

This asteroid, this inner part, did not belong to them. At least, not the ones controlling this droid.

“I will agree...” He wasn’t sure how to convey his willingness to submit but only under conditional terms. Creating a shared language was hard when you were trying to communicate with aliens without mouths or ears or hands or even eyes. “For information. Tell me the reason you are here. Tell me about your god.”

The moment he opened up his thoughts to try to convey the enormity and all-encompassing idea of a deity, the images exploded a thousand-fold and Figaro felt his mind buckle.

There was no attempt to deflect or withhold. Quite the opposite. There was an eagerness to share. Figaro did his best to take it all in but there was so much. Perhaps he had been wrong to assume the Head was the one who had adapted to human language more competently. What he was now consuming directly would never be possible through words alone.

Language wasn’t too complex, it was too limiting.

An abundance of devotion washed over him. He wasn’t sure if he was genuinely receiving emotions or if the images in his head were so accurately describing what the Antecessors felt about their god that he was experiencing it vividly enough to give him a sense-memory. His arm began to feel warm and the bracelet on his wrist bit into him, stopping him from getting lost in the unbridled joy of loving a god.

The Head had also been reverential about this deity of theirs, but nothing as intense as this. These had a spiritual, near-transcendent quality to it.

The Antecessors were machines. Blocks of ancient technology built to kill. That was how they were seen. No one had any idea what the creators of these droids were really like, so they ascribed them with the same tendencies as the ones they left behind. Soulless robots.

What Figaro was experiencing felt far more human, and not necessarily in a good way. Devotion to a supreme being had led to many of humanity’s earliest atrocities. Were the Antecessor’s zealots in a holy war? They would need an enemy for that, and none was known. Unless they fought themselves.

The burst of ecstatic reverence faded.

It was replaced by sadness, regret. The moment of joy receded. It was pushed away. It came back but this time it was more than just a presence, it was a force of energy that was hard to be near. There was a whiteness in his mind that made him wince in pain.

It was a ball. No, a hole. A white hole. It was in space, pouring out its light and energy, filling the void. Sparks of life.

Figaro saw it like he was watching from a starship window. No, there was nothing between him and the white hole. He was in space, floating next to it. He felt waves of energy flowing through him as it travelled out from the hole.

It was glorious and majestic. The creation of stars and galaxies.

It was almost like this was his history, his legacy. He could be part of this. He could continue the journey to see where it ended. He was being called to join.

Tempting as it was to give himself over to this beguiling sight, to let himself be carried along by the current, he resisted. He closed his eyes and pushed the image out.

“Tell me about the Head.” He brought up an image of the large Head as it had appeared when they first met, the vertical eyes, the desperate desire to return to the inner sanctum.

He felt the Antecessor recoil. Here was something it didn’t like. That was good to know. He needed to find out the things it didn’t want to tell him. That was the whole purpose of asking it to open up and tell him about itself, about the Antecessor way of life, their purpose. Obviously, it would only want to tell him what it thought would serve its own interests. Figaro’s job was to tease out more.

Figaro felt the hesitation, and also the attempt at covering it up. It didn’t want him to know its true feelings on the Head.

Figaro thought in terms of oppression and servitude, put the concepts at the forefront of his mind. If what Head had said was true, the Head and its kind had once been the servants and the Antecessors the masters. He pushed that thought in his head and then extended it to the white hole. He turned the glory of creation into the power of domination. Chaos moulded by force into static order, bound and contained.

There was no denial. He pushed harder. The white hole sent out beams and waves of light to search and scour. It left nothing untouched. It was greedy and unrelenting.

Figaro had no idea if his representation was accurate but he could sense the uncomfortable reaction. There was an attempt to disconnect but he held on.

And then he saw it. For a brief moment, he saw the face of god. Their god. A child.

It looked human. But its skin was impossibly black and its veins were shockingly white. And the eyes glowed. They glowed with every colour imaginable. It was organic. All of them at once.

He watched it grow, surrounded by droids the size of planets building something immense, using stars as furnaces.

And then everything fell apart.

The images broke down into abstract shapes once more. The droids fractured into smaller pieces, into geometric patterns that attacked each other. They broke free and spread out. No, they ran, trying to escape.

Some formed a barrier to prevent pursuit. Some hid. Some destroyed themselves.

One shape caught Figaro’s eyes. One fleeing icon was a squiggle forming a square — the same shape that had represented Ubik. In all the chaos, that shape was the only one that didn’t touch any other. Didn’t interact, didn’t get caught. It headed out into the darkness and kept going.

Figaro lurched backwards as his mind went blank. Even though his thoughts were his own again, he felt his head had been emptied and was now hollow. He couldn’t think straight, couldn’t make sense of what he’d been shown.

The droid was still floating in front of him but it didn’t seem quite right. Like it was frozen.

“It’s buffering,” said Ubik’s voice over the comms. “You pushed it pretty hard. Nice job.”

Figaro looked over to see Ubik floating in his red prison. “You saw that?”

“Yeah. Interesting show. Lot to take in. Similar to what the CA use to talk to each other. Not as much lag.”

“What did it mean?”

“Oh, you know, lots of cool visuals and not much of the real story. Puff piece.”

“You think that was a promotional video?”

“Sure, something like that. But anyway, we should probably get out of here while it’s cooling off.”

“Okay. How?”

“You know, like in the video.”

Figaro shook his head. He hadn’t seen anything to do with the asteroid.

“The part where they showed how Head and his crew took over the organics and flew out of there at full speed. Good thing too, seeing where things were going.”

“Where were things going?”

Ubik shrugged. “Probably find out in episode two. But they set up these ships so no one but them could fly them. That silver stuff, that’s the key.”

“But we don’t have any.”

Ubik smiled through the red shield. It made him look strangely menacing. “Oh, I might know where we can get some.” He looked past Figaro at the droid.

February 2020 update

I’ve had a week off writing HTADDB and I slowly feel like my brain is decompressing back to its original shape. Here's my plan going forward.

Book 2 – 55: Heavy Wait

Third Quadrant.

Asteroid Tethari.

Unknown Antecessor Location.

 

Point-Two put his toe on the edge of the platform and tried to get a feel for any gravitational fluctuation. He looked up. The rumbling sound had stopped. On the wall across from him the grooves were still filled with the strange silvery liquid the Head had poured into them, but it was no longer shining, it looked dull and grey, like filler paste used to smooth over cracks. 

The Head had been dealt with, or so it seemed, but their situation had not. They were trapped deep inside the asteroid with no way to go deeper. Point-Two curled his toes. Something… drawing him closer.

“Poor Head,” said Ubik as he walked past Nifell’s body and Fig looking concerned. “All he wanted was to go home. And now he’s gone forever. I wonder what he was trying to do.”

“Are you sure he’s gone?” said Fig, looking at the panel on his arm.

“Do you see signs of him?” said Ubik. He was standing in front of the wall Nifell had been manipulating. The grooves on that wall matched the ones across from Point-Two. They had turned equally dull and lifeless when Head was terminated.

“No. But that doesn’t mean—”

“Of course, no, nothing’s definite in an infinite universe,” said Ubik. “But my nanodrones went full kamikaze, didn’t they? With Head still inside, he wouldn’t have anywhere to go. This wall, this alien tech, it wasn’t ready to take him. You didn’t give him enough time, Fig. Cut off his exits. Nicely done. This is so far beyond anything we have, isn’t it?”

Ubik reached out a hand. Point-Two winced, afraid of what first contact between Ubik and an alien technology might result in. His finger touched the grey matter between the grooves and flakes fell to the ground. He lowered his hand and caught some on the end of his gloved finger. Then he raised his finger to his mouth and stuck out his tongue.

It wouldn’t be a surprise if Ubik could identify the substance’s composition just by tasting it. Probably the date of manufacture and its point of origin, too.

Ubik pulled a face and spat out air.

 “What did that tell you?” asked Point-Two.

“That this alien tech tastes disgusting.”

“Is there tech that doesn’t?” said Point-Two.

“Sure. The wiring on an old P-19 chip has a high salt contact. And the coolant in a Mark V Lilette carbine tastes quite fruity. They go really well together.” Point-Two had heard of neither of those and suspected Ubik had just made them up. “Now you’ve made me hungry,” continued Ubik, licking his lips. “What do they do on your ship when the food runs low? Cannibalism? Eat the babies first, I expect. I’d eat the oldies, you know they’d just start whining otherwise. ‘Why are the portions so small?’” He looked down at Nifell.

“We aren’t eating Nifell,” said Point-Two.

“Of course not,” said Ubik, mock horror applied to his face and then whipped away as quickly. “Look how stringy he is.”

“Do you still have nanodrones held back with bits of Head in them?” asked Point-Two, switching the conversation abruptly to see if that had any effect on Ubik’s ability to lie freely.

“None at all. Even these ones killed themselves on Fig’s say-so.” He pulled out his hand from inside his suit and brought out a handful of tiny drones. He let them fall on the floor in a shower of metallic tippy-taps.

“It had very little to do with me,” said Fig. “The nanodrones were designed to self-terminate if they posed a threat to me. I wasn’t expecting all of them to do it, though.” He looked down at his feet where the inert nanodrones were piled into a small heap next to Nifell.

“Me neither,” said Ubik. “I rewrote most of their code and Head probably rewrote the rest, and neither of us found that gem of paternal precaution. Your dad must have hid it well deep.”

“Would you have tossed it out if you had found it?” asked Point-Two. He didn’t expect an honest answer but you could still tell quite a lot about a person from a dishonest one. Trying to work out where Ubik was headed required constant updates and new data, and even then the best you could do was cross off some possibilities from the list.

“I’m not sure. Depends what I wanted the nanodrones to do. I hadn’t really decided, and now I never will. Shame. They’ll be missed, my boys.” He sighed.

“You sound much more upset about the nanodrones than Nifell,” said Point-Two. “And you’re to blame for him.”

“Blame for what?” said Ubik. “He’s still alive, isn’t he?”

“Just,” said Fig. “These readings don’t look great. I’ve reduced his oxygen intake and put him in a coma. The nanodrones discharging inside him did a lot of damage. We need to get him to a medical facility.”

Ubik leaned across Fig and looked at the panel on his arm. “Looks fine. He’ll live to be a hundred.”

“The average lifespan on Enaya is one hundred and fifty,” said Fig.

“Really? No wonder they’re so upset about everything.” Ubik shook his head. “Old people love to complain.” Both Ubik’s hands were on the wall now, sliding around the same way Nifell’s had.

“Do you know how to operate that?” said Point-Two.

“Nope.”

“Good.” The last thing Point-Two wanted to deal with right now was Ubik randomly turning things on and off. “The Head wanted to take Fig somewhere, so there has to be a way out of here.” 

The shaft they were in was around ten metres in diameter with a one-metre platform going all the way around. Point-Two put his hand out over the hole and struggled to hold it there. There was definitely a difference.

“Gravity gets heavier here,” said Point-Two. “This shaft was designed to funnel something down to whatever’s at the bottom.”

“Oh, that’s interesting.” Ubik walked over to Point-Two. “Can I borrow your helmet?”

Point-Two unclipped his helmet from the collar-ring and handed it to Ubik.

“Thanks.” Ubik took the helmet and threw it into the shaft. It dropped out of sight in an instant. “Okay.”

“Did that tell you something?” said Point-Two, trying not to get annoyed. Sometimes zenity just abandoned you.

“Not yet. Hold on.”

“Couldn’t you have used something that I didn’t rely on to remain alive?”

“Life is a resource,” said Ubik. “You have to be willing to invest it.”

“Why don’t you invest your own?”

“Only a terrible investor would invest their own funds when they can use someone else’s,” said Ubik. He leaned a little closer to the edge. 

If he wasn’t careful, he’d be the next one to go over.

“Are you thinking of pushing me to my death?” asked Ubik with a wry little smile.

“Often,” said Point-Two. “But this is the first time there’s a chance my dream might come true.”

“There’s something coming,” said Fig. “Can you hear it?” He looked up.

The other two did the same. There was nothing up there, and then a small object. With a whoosh the helmet fell past them, again.

“Interesting,” said Ubik. 

Point-Two exchanged looks with Fig. Both had reached the same conclusion — if Ubik acted like he wasn’t expecting something, that meant he had totally expected it.

“This shaft,” said Fig, “it’s a loop?”

Ubik didn’t reply, just looked up, waiting. Did he want to see if it came around again? Point-Two followed his gaze, Fig had his eyes on his control panel, probably timing it.

The helmet returned in two minutes, at what appeared to be the same speed as last time. As it passed them, Ubik began counting. “One, two, three…” He threw a handful of nanodrones after the rapidly disappearing helmet. They fell like confetti that turned into a streak chasing the helmet.

Point-Two peered over the edge, leaning back quickly before he got pulled in. Ubik was already looking up again. What was that supposed to prove? Or was Ubik just amusing himself as usual? 

When the helmet came around again, the nanodrones weren’t following behind, they were side-by-side with the helmet in a flat layer. 

“The nanodrones caught up,” said Fig.

“Yep,” said Ubik. “Looks like this is a transportation system with automated stops.”

“An elevator?” said Point-Two.

“Sort of,” said Ubik. “Doesn’t just go down, goes round and round. But where it stops or how… If the nanodrones were still active, we might be able to find out.” He looked at Fig. Then he looked at Nifell.

“You can’t,” said Fig, standing in front of Nifell.

“Well, he is the best man for the job — the most experienced — but okay. One of us could go.” He looked at Point-Two.

“Are you volunteering?” said Point-Two.

“I thought…” Ubik’s voice trailed off. He was staring across the shaft at the far wall.

Point-Two looked as well and saw that the grooves that had been filled with the grey remains of the silvery liquid were now empty.

They all turned to look at the wall behind them. The smaller version was also empty but the contents had settled on the platform in a metallic pool. A pool that was moving. It trickled and spread and narrowed, like a mono-cellular creature, heading towards the edge.

“What is it doing?” said Point-Two.

“Should we stop it?” said Fig.

“No, let it go,” said Ubik, crouching down to get a better look as the mercurial liquid slithered past him. “I think this is some sort of flushing out of the system. Could reboot the engine.”

“Wouldn’t that kill us?” said Point-Two.

“Not immediately,” said Ubik. “But  it’s not like we can stay here doing nothing. Invest!”

The pool reached the edge of the platform and slid off. Point-Two watched it fall, wondering if this was such a good idea, and guessing it probably wasn’t.

The Head had wanted to activate something, possibly the elevator itself. But why put up a shield to summon it? No, there had to be more to it than that.

Point-Two was the first to feel the change in gravity. 

“It’s getting—” was all he managed to get out before he was slammed to the floor, pressed down by an irresistible force. His suit provided little protection from the pressure squeezing his internal organs but even if it had, without his helmet his head was completely exposed. 

Fig and Ubik were also lying down, grunting and wheezing as the air was pushed out of their bodies. Their suits weren’t helping much, either.

Nifell was the only one not to react, still unconscious — probably the wise choice.

The only option seemed to be to try to get to the edge and fall off. Whatever waited for them below, it could only be death or better, and even death seemed preferable to the agony of being slowly pressed flat.

But there was no way to move, the pressure was too great. He couldn’t even activate any of the suit’s basic functions. Perhaps Fig would be able to get Ubik and Nifell’s suits moving, and his own suit probably had advanced features that could do the same for him, but Point-Two’s suit was by far the least robust.

His vision began to blur as the force on his eyeballs increased. He saw something coming towards him. He wanted to tell Fig to not waste time and get the others off the platform, but it wasn’t Fig. It was large and black.

The pressure stopped. He was bathed in red light. A shield, like the one Head had produced. Point-Two began to feel light and floaty. He was floating. Gravity had reduced to around 0.3G. His body still ached, but the sense of imminent death was gone.

When his vision cleared, he saw a droid floating outside the shield. An Antecessor droid with a spherical body and tendrils. Inside with him were Ubik (unconscious from exposure to the unbearable pressure) and Nifell (unconscious from exposure to an unbearable Ubik). And his helmet.

It was floating next to him. He grabbed it and put it on. The effort was exhausting but he felt a lot better once he had it back on. He heard Fig’s voice.

“If I come with you, they will live?”

He didn’t hear a reply but it wasn’t hard to work out what was happening. Ubik throwing things into the shaft had attracted attention. The Antecessors had worked out that trying to separate them only made it harder to get Fig where they wanted him so now they were using a new tactic. Do what we want or your friends die.

All Fig had to do was agree to go with the droid, willingly, and they would be saved. They would probably be left trapped but at least they would be alive. Fig already knew they would find a way out. It was the obvious choice.

“No,” said Fig. “No deal.”

The red shield vanished and Point-Two was slammed back into the floor, his body rapidly approaching death as he was crushed.

Book 2 – 54: New Authority

Third Quadrant.

Asteroid Tethari.

 

“This is Guardian Tezla of the Central Authority. All ships in the vicinity of the Tethari asteroid are ordered to cease activity and vacate the area immediately.”

“Ah, Guardian, this is VendX Orbital Platform,” said a squeaky voice through Tezla’s comms. “We’re here to—”

“Shut your mouth, VendX,” said Tezla. “Did I ask a question? I did not. I gave you an instruction. You will leave orbit and remove yourself and all your associate craft, drones and probes to a distance of sixteen thousand klicks or more — that goes for the rest of you, also. If you do not immediately initiate your engines and start moving by the time I finish this sentence I will open fire, and trust me, I may only be one woman in a spacesuit but it’s a Central Authority suit with more firepower than all your measly little tubs put together. Tezla out.”

The spacesuit Tezla was in had shot her across the sixteen thousand kilometres of open space between the CAV Reconcile and the asteroid in a little under an hour, standard. She hadn’t insisted on the suit’s max speed of Mach 19.2 as the clone body she was in was still new and a little stiff. There was no point pushing it to its limits quite yet.

The suit — RX-340, designation Rex — had been a little difficult, wanting to follow all the guidelines and regulations that the Central Authority insisted on. That was the normal way of things. You got assigned a new unit and then you trained it to ignore everything it had been trained to pay close attention to. It was a balance — one that she made sure tilted in her favour.

“Are they moving?” said Tezla as they approached the asteroid.

“Six are leaving,” said Rex. “Three are holding position at one thousand klicks. One is slowly manoeuvring to face away from the asteroid but has yet to ignite main thrusters.”

“VendX?”

“Yes, Guardian.”

“Blow it up.”

“Sir?”

“We’re not going to go through this again, are we Rex?”

“No, sir. But I am required by Central Authority primary directives to inform you that there are fifteen lives aboard the VendX orbital. There is no way for me to bypass that function.”

“I understand,” said Tezla. “Warning acknowledged. Reduce volume on all future primary directive notifications.”

“I cannot mute directives.”

“I didn’t ask you to. Turn the volume down to point one and speed up playback to times ten. Now, open fire, eight mini-warheads, full spread.”

“Shots away,” said Rex.

Eight small balls of light, each no bigger than a child’s fist, left the suit, four from each shoulder turret. They glowed bright red as they raced towards the VendX orbital, a circular ship with several docking ports on its main ring and a centrally-mounted engine that took up most of the space within the structure.

It could take a number of smaller ships across the quadrant at phenomenal speeds and act as a base for them when they arrived at their location. Utilitarian, basic and cheaply built. All the major corporations had similar ships, usually with no weapons, no shields, and no QoL features. It should have enough escape pods for all crew, though. That was the law as laid down by the Central Authority.

“VendX orbital shields up,” said Rex.

“What the…” The warheads exploded as they struck the shield, leaving the orbital intact. Tezla checked the HUD inside her helmet. The VendX ship was a small blip on her screen. “Magnify orbital, full scan. I want to know exactly what they’ve got under the hood.”

“I’m being jammed,” said Rex, sounding surprised.

“Shut it down. All systems, including life support.”

“I am required—”

“Point one sound, ten times speed, let’s go.” There was a blip as the required warning was given. “Do it. Force them into escape pods.”

Tezla felt the suit shake as a blast of electronic death encased in light fired out of her chest.

The orbital seemed to flicker as a mirrored surface appeared around it.

This clearly wasn’t a regular VendX orbital transport. They had sent something a little more advanced. That would explain why all of VendX’s competitors had hung back. This ship was probably armed to the teeth and kitted out with a full array of defensive measure. Most likely its intention was to stall for as long as possible and then apologise for some kind of error with its central processor.

“Switch to hard light,” said Tezla. The beam of light smashed through the mirrored shield, breaking it into glittering fragments.

“Rex, give me full control of weapons array.”

“Manual control transferred,” said Rex.

“What, no list of directives?”

“I just gave them to you,” said Rex. Barely a squeak this time.

“Good. Show me the cross-section.”

An image of the orbital appeared on her screen. It was an outline of the ship’s structure, showing every compartment and every component. Nothing was hidden from her sensors.

“Look at that. Every modern convenience, every weapon imaginable and some I’d never think of. Armour-piercing rounds, warship-class.”

Fins opened on her back and arms came out, each holding a missile that was still being constructed by tiny drones.

“Central Authority Guardian, please do not fire. We are having technical difficulties. Please hold while we attempt to comply with instructions.”

“Goodbye, VendX. Hope they didn’t skimp on the escape pods. Fire missiles.”

The missiles were each over a metre long now. They blasted off their mounts and headed for the orbital. She saw the radiation field appear in her HUD as shields went up. The missiles went straight through it. The orbital exploded.

“Three escape pods detected,” said Rex. “Each contains five lives.”

As the debris cleared, three coffin-like vessels showed up on her screen. Five people in each would be a tight fit.

“Must have moved their asses at full speed. What’s the minimum setting for immediate evac to a safe zone?”

“Emergency level five or greater,” said Rex.

“Open a public channel. This is Guardian Tezla. I am designating this a disaster area, emergency level five. Deploy a beacon.”

The suit released a small blimp that flashed a light from each end, broadcasting the designation on all frequencies.

The three escape pods fired boosters and blasted off towards the planet. Like all escape pods, they automatically left a danger zone for the nearest safe port, which in this case was the planet Enaya. It would be a little rough entering the planet’s atmosphere in an escape pod, and the landing would cause a few bruises, some broken bones, but better than dying in a level five emergency.

“All ships are leaving the area,” said Rex.

“Nice. What was level five again?” said Tezla.

“Local star going nova.”

“Right. Well, they all go nova eventually.” Tezla turned the suit to face the asteroid. “Controls are yours. Take us down.”

The suit’s boosters fired and Tezla flew down to the surface. At about a hundred metres the jetpack detached and she fell the rest of the way.

“Auxiliary station, maintain stationary orbit over the site,” said Tezla. “Destroy any non-CA vessel that approaches. No warning.”

The jetpack blasted back up and hovered over them as Tezla landed softly in front of the Ollo base.

“Recommend drone-cloud deployment,” said Rex.

“Deploy.” A mist of tiny drones sprayed out of the suit and hung around her. “I want self-destruct sequence active. Detonate if systems are compromised.”

“Integrity breach?”

“One percent.” That should make sure she didn’t lose control of the drones. She had seen what Ubik could do with tronics, she didn’t intend to give him access to her drones. “Make that point five percent.”

“Located a Holover ship. Hidden bunker detected.”

“Send in a scouting party.”

Five drones left the group and flew off. Tezla looked at the partly open entrance to the base.

“Life signs?”

“None.”

She grabbed the bottom of the stuck gate and ripped it out of its fitting. The huge sheet of metal buckled and then sheared in half. She let the section in her hands fall to the ground.

“This body isn’t bad. Upgrade?”

“Nine percent increase in strength. I applied the additional force.”

“Excellent work, Rex.”

“Scout party reports an abandoned observation post. Also, several containers of unclassified nanodrones, Ollo brand.”

“Recall three scouts, detonate the other two.” Tezla entered the base as an explosion silently bloomed behind her.

Inside the base, there were bodies and three destroyed sentries. Data streamed across her HUD. She ignored it. There was a long tunnel leading to the main facility. She started walking. The drone-cloud spread out around her.

“Detecting signs of droid activity.”

“Up here? What kind?”

“Insanium class.”

Tezla stopped. “Are you sure?”

“Ninety-four point six percent.”

“Well, this should be interesting. I hope we’ve got enough—” She felt the ground move under her. “What was that? An earthquake?”

“I’m reading a new power source approximately three hundred metres below us.”

“What is it?”

“Unknown.”

“Unknown? You don’t recognise the signature?”

“There is no signature,” said Rex.

“Great. What about life signs?”

“None within range.”

“Do a sweep for organics.”

“Detecting four… correction, five organics. Directly below us.”

“Four or five?”

“Five. One is very weak.”

“Okay, that’s somewhere to start. Send the scouts ahead.”

Five drones detached and flew down the tunnel as Tezla followed, checking her options for fighting an Insanium class droid. It wasn’t that she didn’t have the arsenal to do the job, it was just that blowing up the whole asteroid probably wouldn’t go down well at her next performance review.

 

***

 

Third Quadrant.

Asteroid Tethari.

Antecessor Facility, Level Three.

 

Chukka placed her ear to the floor. The rumbling sound was distant but still there. What was it? The Insanium droid?

“Do you sense anything?” said Chukka. “Any movement.” She held her breath and listened.

“Lots,” whispered Bashir. “Not our droid, though.”

“It can’t have disappeared,” said Flott. “It was right in front of us a moment ago.”

“I know,” said Bashir. “Believe me, I know. It’s gone now.”

Chukka crawled forward on all fours and peered around the corner. At the other end of the long passage were at least six droids. They were lined up in some kind of formation. They seemed to be standing guard, blocking the way forward.

Chukka took a long breath and tried to think. They’d made it down to the third level, already an accomplishment, but their guide-cum-escort had vanished into thin air.

Following it into the Antecessor site had been a masterstroke. Whatever the connection between the droid and Ubik, it was strong enough to the monster through the level. They had encountered numerous droid sentries and the strange creature had destroyed them all, barely pausing to do so.

But now they were deep into the level with no way of knowing where to go next or where to find the exit leading down. And droids everywhere. These may not have been Insanum class but there were still more than enough to take care of the five of them.

“We’re not staying here,” said Weyla. “You can, if you want, but we’re going to push on.”

“Push on where?” said Chukka. “You have no idea where to go, and how are you going to get past them?” It was annoying but they were safer with the two Seneca women. If they left, things would be even dicier. “Just wait.”

“No,” said Weyla, who did most of the talking for the sisters. “It’s better this way. You won’t slow us down.”

Chukka ground her teeth together. The Seneca Corps were well known for their arrogance. They might have earned the right but it was still annoying. If her CQ had been high enough, Chukka might have joined the Corps herself. Every girl’s dream. But now she would never lower herself to such a demeaning role. Follow orders and believe you were part of something bigger than yourself. They were just servants and maids with no hope of ever making their own choices.

“Fine, we’ll go together. At least we can watch each other’s backs.” She couldn’t allow the group to get separated.

“Did you not hear what I said?” Weyla scowled.

“Let’s just go,” said Leyla.

“Wait,” said Bashir. “I sense something.”

“The droid?” said Chukka.

“No. Something else. There.” Bashir pointed behind them.

It took a moment for Chukka to see the five tiny drones hovering in the passage.

“Where the hell did they come from?” said Flott.

“Get down,” said Chukka, diving to the floor.

The drones shot past them down the passage towards the droids. The walls lit up with white streaks of light and lasers fired from one side of the passage to the other, forming a wall of light. The drones hit the wall and instantly disintegrated, but the lasers flashed and the wall went black. Those lasers would have hit them if they’d gone ahead as planned.

The droids at the far end had noticed the incursion and began approaching. The only option was to retreat. Quickly.

A blur flew by them, straight into the droids. There was a crash, followed by an electrical discharge of some kind. Then there was a single person in a red and white suit standing there in a cloud of mini-drones, surrounded by droid parts littering the floor.

The helmet went up and a bald head turned to look at them. “This is now a Central Authority matter. Get out.”

Chukka got up. This might be a Central Authority Guardian, but she was still human. And Chukka knew how to deal with people.

“We can’t. There’s an Insanium class droid on the loose. If we go back, we’re as good as dead.”

The Guardian looked at Chukka, and then at the rest of the group.

“You two, ex-Seneca?” They nodded. She looked back at Chukka. “VendX?”

“That’s right,” said Chukka. “Chukka. Majored in Public Relations.”

The Guardian smiled. “Good. Come with me, then. I’m sure we can help each other out.”

She didn’t wait for an answer and started walking like she knew where to go. The woman had been surprisingly easy to convince. Chukka knew she would have to deal with her at some point, but for now she would be an asset. Two Seneca and one CA. It was quite the team she was collecting. Not even Ubik would be expecting this.

Book 2 – 53: Seizure

Third Quadrant.

Asteroid Tethari.

Unknown Antecessor Location.

 

Figaro looked at the panel on his arm. The readings were scrambled and none of the controls were responding. The Head had managed to lock him out completely, not just from controlling the suit Nifell was in but all other functions, too.

He raised his gaze to look through the red barrier at Ubik and PT. They were only a few metres away but could do nothing to help. They didn’t appear to be very concerned. They were in deep conversation about something. Ubik seemed quite happy. PT seemed mildly annoyed.

It was hard to tell how Ubik really felt, his body language was as much a mystery now as when Figaro had first met him. He looked over at the shaft that took up most of the space they were in. The silver liquid was covering most of one wall now and a rumbling sound filtered down from above.

Ubik claimed this was part of an engine. That the whole asteroid was actually a ship, powered by a hitherto unknown form of propulsion, hidden in the rock and undetected until now.

Figaro wondered if his father had any inkling about it. Growing up with the man had led Figaro to believe anything that was knowable was known to him. That was the impression he gave and nothing suggested otherwise. But if he had missed this…

Nifell’s body was much easier to read. The man was tense and fragile. He was not in a good mental state at all, but his posture was one of great intensity, strong determination to complete a task no matter the cost.

The rumbling was getting louder.

The shaft they were standing in was clearly about to become operational and the effects on anyone exposed to whatever force passed through this giant tube were not going to be good. They were looking at him now. Ubik was pointing and mouthing something. Figaro was trained to lip read, but Ubik was making such exaggerated movements with his mouth that it was impossible to work out what he was saying.

PT also pointed, past Figaro. They wanted him to stop the Head. They didn’t indicate how but the obvious answer was to attack him. So why was he so reluctant to do so?

It was an odd sensation to suddenly find that you doubted yourself. He had been trained to the highest standards to deal with situations where his life was in danger. Like this one. Hesitation could be deadly. Second-guessing yourself, likewise.

But there was a phenomenon encountered in skilled jobs called resolve fluctuation. People who were trained to do a high-risk, high-skillset job found that when they entered the field without supervision for the first time, they lost confidence in everything they knew.

They knew what to do, knew the correct action to take, but they resisted their own mind.

Medics were the most common example. A newly qualified doctor dealing with a patient with no one to tell them if they were making the right decisions was very likely to delay and delay, and then panic and make the wrong decision. The fatalities that resulted were an accepted part of the medicinal journey.

Training, no matter how extensive, no matter how rigorous, did not compare to the real thing. Even if you came first in all your classes and exams, when you have to make choices in situ, the vast majority of people vacillated.

Other professions were equally susceptible, although not all had the same risk of mortality. Some did. Soldiers, pilots, environmental engineers — they all faced a similar moment of truth.

Figaro had been taught about the phenomenon and trained to deal with it. Ironically, he had been trained to deal with situations where training wasn’t enough. But it had never occurred to him that he would find himself baulking when the time came.

And the main reason that he was doubting himself was Ubik.

Not only did Ubik act first and remove the need to take the initiative yourself, the actions he took were almost always the exact thing Figaro had been taught never to do in any given situation.

It was all very well telling yourself he was a special case, that what did or didn’t work for him had no affect on what anyone else chose to do, but it was still unsettling to Figaro that there was this other way of solving problems that no one had ever told him about. Probably because they were as ignorant of its existence as he had been.

And so the easiest thing to do was stand back and not get in the way.

That’s what he was doing now. He was waiting for Ubik to take care of the Head, of this shaft, this asteroid. Even save his father. Why try to take the steering wheel when the person driving manoeuvred around obstacles so smoothly? Even when he crashed, he came out of the wreck with no bruises and a sandwich in each hand.

Time was limited and the asteroid was all alien technology Ubik had no way of charming into doing as he wished.

Figaro was the one on this side of the barrier. He was the only one who could come up with a solution. Not because he was the best person for the job, just because he was the only one with access to the problem.

But if he waited long enough, Ubik would find a way at the last minute, wouldn’t he? Some impossible move no one expected or believed was possible, even after they’d seen it with their own eyes.

Figaro turned around and looked at Nifell sliding his hands across what appeared to be a wall with some grooves dug into it. Head was controlling him, keeping him focused. His body was ready to collapse but the two of them were working in tandem. The wall filled with silver here at the same rate as its much larger mirror that made up one side of the shaft. He could see the connection but he had no idea what it meant or how it worked.

Or how to stop them.

He looked down at the useless control panel on his arm. If he couldn’t use the suit against the Head, he would have to be more direct.

But Figaro didn’t have a weapon — another of Ubik’s unintuitive ideas. He knew how resistant the suit was to physical attacks. If the Head had not only locked Figaro out but had also found a way to access the suits functional matrix, it would easily be able to withstand any damage Figaro was capable of inflicting. He couldn’t penetrate the material, couldn’t suffocate the occupant, couldn’t shut down any active processes.

His training told him he had options. Even if he was at a disadvantage, he still had access to knowledge the Head didn’t. What it didn’t tell him was how to use that knowledge.

The asteroid, the Antecessor technology, whatever the Head was, he couldn’t become an expert on any of that. But the suit, the nanodrones, the suit he was wearing, that was Ollo technology. Technology he had a deep, deep understanding of. His father had made these things. He had made them with Figaro in mind. Everything he made, he made with Figaro in mind.

That was something he had learned early on. No matter how his father had treated him growing up, no matter how brutal his lessons and his treatment, there was nothing his father did that didn’t first consider:

What would Figaro do with this if I wasn’t here?

What would this do to Figaro if misused by others?

Ramon Ollo wasn’t paranoid about his son, he was meticulous. Everything in their home, in their vast collection of vehicles, everything on their planet… had some sort of Figarotech implanted in it. There was no ship manufactured by Ollo technology that wasn’t accessible by Figaro, no matter who the current owner was. No Ollo device that would harm him. No Ollo instrument he couldn’t override.

Only, his father hadn’t told him exactly how to take control of each and every one of those thousands of Ollo products spread throughout the galaxy, both far and near. Very near in some cases.

He looked at the suit Nifell was in. Without direct control through the panel on his suit, how else could he gain access?

His father was a big believer in working things out for oneself. He had Figaro trained to the highest standards in all aspects of life, and then he sent him out into the wilderness, alone, to a far-off corner of the galaxy where there was no one else to rely on. And now here he was. Proving himself to be a worthy successor to the greatest mind alive. Or not.

“If you activate this mechanism, you’ll kill them,” said Figaro.

The Head appeared on the back of the bubble-helmet as Nifell continued to work. “They are superfluous to my needs.”

“And I’m not?” The answer was obvious — his value was as a hostage — but he wasn’t interested in the answer, only in finding a way to get access to the Head’s systems. It was able to operate the asteroid’s internal network, which meant so could Figaro. If he could figure out how.

“You will remain alive until you are no longer needed. There will be no discomfort in your death, as there will be no discomfort in theirs.”

Figaro looked over his shoulder. Ubik was grinning while PT shouted something at him. They were both assuming Figaro would take care of things. Their blind trust in him was both heartening and shaming.

Or maybe Ubik had this whole thing in hand and was waiting for the right moment to show off his superiority.

No, he couldn’t think like that. Even if Ubik did have a plan — some ridiculous idea that made no sense — Figaro had to stop allowing others to take the initiative. From now on, he would act to secure the goal he would set for himself. Others might have their own plans, that was fine. They might even succeed before he did. Such was life. But he wouldn’t be a bystander any longer.

And if he failed, he would suffer the consequences. When someone’s life was in danger, a surgeon acted. First time, thousandth time, it made no difference. The death of the patient was something you had to be willing to accept, even if the patient was yourself.

Figaro crouched down and lifted the flap just above Nifell’s right foot.

“I have overwritten all security protocols,” said the Head. “You will not be able to access any systems in this protective container.”

“We’ll see,” said Figaro. He didn’t expect to gain access but he hoped to force a reaction. If the Head tried to attack him while wearing an Ollo manufactured spacesuit, there was a good chance it would short the suit out.

But the Head did not consider Figaro enough of a threat to take any action. It ignored him completely. He would actually have to show he could affect the suit’s operation in order to provoke a reaction. If he could do that, he wouldn’t need to provoke the Head in the first place.

Figaro stood up. He needed another way to get a reaction. Or another person.

“Nifell, can you hear me? You have to stop helping this alien. It is putting your life in danger.”

There was no response, not even a glance.

“I’m ordering you as a member of the first family of Enaya.” A mild twitch, a tremor in the side of his face. “You owe it to my family, my father. Without him, Enaya would be no more than a worthless ball of mud.”

“It isn’t much more than that now,” said Nifell without turning his head away from the wall.

“That isn’t true,” said Figaro. “It is a safe and comfortable world for you and your kind.”

“My kind?” snapped Nifell, turning his head to glare at Figaro. “That’s what we are to you, cattle, livestock, comfortable in our pens, let out when you require menial labour and servicing.”

“It is all that you are capable of,” said Figaro. “But you can be more with my help.”

Nifell’s face grew red, even with the red light from the shield surrounding them and the pinkish tint of the helmet, his rage was incandescent.

“I don’t need your help.” The words were spat out one by one.

“You think your god will help you? It isn’t even real, just a program left behind by a dead alien race. Your kind created a god to hide behind, to blame for your inadequacies. Someone to save you because you can’t save yourselves. It’s a pathetic sham.”

Figaro wasn’t proud of what he was doing. He knew Nifell was already on the verge of a breakdown. He was intentionally pushing him closer to the edge because it would force a physical reaction.

“If my god is a sham,” said Nifell, “why is he here, about to initiate this weapon that will wipe out your kind. Yes, a weapon. Unlike any in the galaxy. Not made by Ramon Ollo. More powerful than anything he could imagine.”

Interesting information but not that surprising. It didn’t really matter if it was a weapon or a ship or both.

“You are a fool. You are in the position you deserve to be. Every one of you Enayans are nothing more than primitive serfs who—”

Nifell swung around, jerked out of place like a dislocated joint. He threw a punch. It wasn’t much of a threat. Figaro could have easily dodged it. He didn’t.

He let the suit’s gloved fist come straight at his face. He opened the visor to his helmet and said, “Figaro Carmen Ollo.” He didn’t know if that would make a difference but he wanted the suit to know who it was about to strike.

The fist snapped down to Nifell’s side and his body went taut. The bubble helmet disappeared, leaving Nifell’s head exposed, his face surprised to be in the open.

Figaro moved with precision and speed. He caught Nifell’s around the throat with his arm in a chokehold. Nifell was slightly taller than him, slightly more muscles mass. He was a seasoned soldier, at peak physical fitness for a man of his age, the years he had on Figaro putting him in his prime. He might not have been able to cope with the mental stress of being stuck on a rock for so many months, but his body was still in good shape.

Figaro had been trained to handle men twice his size.

He didn’t hesitate, didn’t wonder if he was doing the right thing. Muscle memory in a fight was the one unloseable thing training did give you. He didn’t have to think through his doubts to avoid getting hit. His teacher never pulled his punches as the many broken bones Figaro had suffered as a young boy proved. Ganesh’s idea of sparring had always been to give him a good beating. Not fun but an excellent motivator.

Nifell passed out from a mixture of lack of oxygen and pressure to the right pressure points. It was over in seconds. The Head hadn’t even made a sound. Until now.

“My gods need me,” said a voice from Nifell’s throat. “You will have to die. I apologise for the discomfort.”

Nifell’s mouth opened as though pushed apart from the inside as nanodrones came pouring out. They crawled over Nifell and climbed up Figaro’s arms.

As they reached Figaro’s face and his bare skin where they could easily eat through his flesh, they dropped off and fell to the floor, inert and unmoving.

There was a moment of silence. “They self-terminated,” said a confused warble. “What did you do?”

“Nothing,” said Figaro. “This suit, these drones, they were made by Ramon Ollo, my father. Nothing he makes will ever harm me. Not unless he thinks it will do me good.”

“Your father. He is your creator, your god. He protected you.”

“No, he isn’t my god. And the Antecessors aren’t your god. Gods are infallible. Parents are not.”

Nifell’s body jerked and shook. There were still some nanodrones left. They started to come out of Nifell’s mouth and fall to the ground. They were continuing to self-terminate without the need of a direct threat to Figaro.

“You’re going to die,” said Figaro. “I wish I could think of a way to save you but I don’t know how. I know you wouldn’t stop anyway. It’s how they made you, with a singular purpose. It wasn’t very kind of them.”

“Kind?” said the Head. The body stopped moving, the nanodrones stopped appearing.

The red shield came down. There was no more rumbling. The silver on the walls had stopped spreading.

“Well done. I knew you could do it,” said Ubik. “He kept saying, ‘We have to save him, he can’t do this alone,’ but I knew you just needed the right motivation, big enough stakes.”

The look on PT’s face was enough to tell Figaro how much of that to take seriously.

“What he needed was for you to stay out of his way,” said PT.

“Wrong,” said Ubik. “His problem is he’s too polite. Always letting others go first. He needs to be more assertive, like me.”

“No manners whatsoever?” said PT.

“Now you’re getting it,” said Ubik.

Figaro looked down at Nifell. “Ubik, did you intentionally push him to the brink of madness just in case we needed him to have a breakdown?”

“What a terrible thing to accuse someone of,” said Ubik. “Not a bad idea but a bit blunt force trauma for my tastes. I prefer a little more finesse. Tickle them when they’re off-balance, that’s more my style. Come on, we need to find a way down to the next level.”