Salvage Seven: Chapter 14

Back from the States. It was for work, so I was mostly sitting in the same room all day, but I did have some spectacular sandwiches.

Gideon and the others aren’t about to have such a good time, I’m afraid. They’ve been out of heart-stopping peril for just a little too long.

Prologue
Chapter 1, parts 1 and 2
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13

He came to where he had fallen, still in the little break-room – but when Gideon tried to stand he realised that he was tied to the plastic chair on which he sat, cable-ties strapping his wrists together, binding them to the seat-back. His pack and weapons were leaning against the threadbare sofa. He glanced down awkwardly, but he didn’t really need to. The subtle warmth of the AI matrix was gone.

“Looking for this?” asked the one voice he had been hoping would not. He looked up to see Donoghue, on the other side of the table. It had been cleared of detritus, though it was still mottled with months of coffee-rings. The only object on it was the half-fist of blue crystal, still softly glowing. The sergeant’s eyes reflected its light, just a little. They were flat and dark with anger.

“Yeah,” Gideon admitted, sighing deeply, knowing that there was no point in lying at this juncture. At least the AI was somewhere other than around his neck. Dire as his straits might be, that at least was a relief. A pulse of fear flashed freezing through him. “You didn’t – ”

“Touch it?” Donoghue interrupted. “No. From what Yaxley told me you seemed to think that was a bad idea. So nobody’s touched it. Not with skin, anyway.” There wasn’t a trace of trust in her voice, but Gideon would take what he could get.

“Sarge keeps me around for a reason,” came another voice. Gideon twisted in his chair, seeing Handel lying back on the old sofa. He raised his metal hand, wiggled its fingers. He didn’t offer a smile.

“You didn’t hear anything?”

“Nope.” The quartermaster shook his head.

Gideon sighed with relief.

“Good.” And he didn’t either, he realised; the voice of the stone was conspicuous by its absence from his mind. He was tied to a chair, about to face Donoghue’s wrath, probably about to be turned over to the Union authorities and tossed in a cell for years, but Gideon felt only relief. It wasn’t how he’d imagined his confession to Yaxley going – Yaxley, who was standing guard, arms folded and face once again unreadable, by the door – but now it was happening he knew it could have been much worse. It could still be in me. It might still. But at least someone competent was in the mix to deal with it, instead of just him.

“Care to explain?” Donoghue asked, dragging his attention back. Her lips were thin, her eyes narrow. Suddenly Gideon’s relief wasn’t quite so reassuring. Donoghue indicated the glowing stone.

“You lied to us,” she said. “Stole this and lied to us. Shitty thing to do to your squad with anything, Gideon. Something as valuable as this, could have made us all a bit happier. A lot happier.”

“I – ” Gideon began, but the sergeant was far from finished.

“We came here to find experimental tech,” Donoghue continued, “dangerous tech. Those were our orders. Recover what you can. For the war effort. For the Union.”

“You mean for the peace,” Gideon corrected without thinking, and Donoghue’s eyes narrowed to snake-slits.

“I know what I said,” she hissed. “Don’t be naïve, you useless prick. We all know why we’re up here. A find like this,” she indicated the stone, “impossible tech, we’d have been in the good books from now till Judgement Day. We might have gotten off this rock! But you kept it for yourself. You had to be the selfish bastard. You had to be the coward.” She shook her head. “Didn’t think I could get more disappointed in you, Gideon. I was wrong.”

Gideon stared at the sergeant, astonished at how badly she’d gotten his actions wrong. That’s not it at all! he wanted to protest. That’s not why I hid it! It’s an AI, it’s dangerous, it was in my head, it changed by thoughts! He wanted to explain it all, like he had to Yaxley – who, he noticed, wasn’t backing him up in the slightest – but he didn’t. He couldn’t. The stone wasn’t around his neck, the voice was gone from his head, and Donoghue’s accusations, though he knew them, rationally, to be false, had the ring of depressing truth about them. If it had been just been something valuable he’d found, if he could have used it to get out of Salvage, away from the war, would he have left the others behind? Yes. He probably would have, and the thought ashamed him. He tried to speak but his refutation of Donoghue’s words wouldn’t come. He looked at Yaxley, but the big man had his eyes fixed on the door; Handel was resolutely studying the inside of his own eyelids. The only one paying him any attention was the glowering Donoghue.

“I was scared,” he said finally, knowing it was a poor articulation but forcing himself on before Donoghue could dismiss him. “It was in my head, Sergeant, and I was terrified.” It was so liberating to admit it, a rush of utterly inappropriate euphoria bursting through him as a rush of words poured from his mouth, unending. “I didn’t know I’d taken it until I had. Once I had it I couldn’t get rid of it, I just couldn’t; it spoke to me and I had to listen, but that was before I knew what it was! I wasn’t trying to keep it, I never wanted it, never, Sarge – ”

“Alright!” Donoghue snapped, raising one hand. “Shut the fuck up, will you? You’re not making any sense.” She grimaced. “And I guess you deserve the chance to explain. But be quick. Extract should be here inside an hour. I need to know if you’re getting on the gunship on your own feet or in chains.” It wasn’t a threat, it was a statement. Gideon cringed, but took a deep breath. Ok. Explain.

He told her everything, holding nothing back. He told her what he had found in the Cradle, what had happened when he touched the pedestal. He told her about the night before, huddled in his blankets talking to the demon in his head. He told her what he’d figured out from the lack of tech, from Collins’ findings. He told her about the voice, about what it had said, known and not known. By the time he finished both Yaxley and Handel were staring at him, listening intently but saying nothing. He paid them no attention. It was Donoghue he had to convince, Donoghue who had to believe him – and she was sitting perfectly still, her face unreadable, her eyes flat and dark.

“…and then Yax shot me,” he finished lamely. Yaxley gave the smallest shrug of apology. Gideon was surprised to find that he didn’t begrudge the big man his actions. Someone else came in babbling about a voice in their head, I’d want them calmed down too. Handel’s bushy eyebrows were trying to tear themselves off his forehead. He was tapping at his PDA absently, without looking – recording? Corroborating with the security footage? Donoghue sat still for a moment, then leaned back in the flimsy plastic chair, breathing in deeply and then sighing.

“An AI.”

“Yeah.”

“In that thing.” She pointed at the crystal.

“Yep.”

“And in your head.”

“Yes.” Gideon frowned. It was still in his head, wasn’t it? He hadn’t heard a word from the voice since Yaxley had shocked him. Had the TASER jolted it out of his skull?

“It talking to you now?” Donoghue asked, echoing Gideon’s thoughts. Gideon hesitated.

“That’s a no, then,” Donoghue said, before he could, and there was suspicion in her eyes again. “You say you touched it to talk back to it?”

“Yes.”

Donoghue nodded at the softly glowing stone on the table.

“Go on, then.”

Gideon stared.

“What?”

“Talk to it,” Donoghue repeated. “If there’s a mind in that stone, I want to talk to it. And I’m not touching it. You already have. You’re in no more danger if you do it again.” Her voice was cold, utterly pragmatic, and Gideon knew in that moment that if he refused she’d force him – and if he, or the thing inside the stone turned out to be dangerous, she’d shoot him without a second’s hesitation. He glanced over at Yaxley, at Handel, but the big man’s arms were firmly folded, and though Handel offered a sympathetic grimace he said nothing, still tapping blindly at his PDA with his artificial hand. Gideon gritted his teeth.

“Alright. I’ll… speak for it, I guess.”

“Yes, you will,” Donoghue confirmed, her eyes like black ice. She stood, went behind Gideon and cut the cable-ties that held down one of his hands – but not the other. She sat back down, as Gideon flexed life back into his fingers, delaying the inevitable as long as possible. Then, at her glare, he reached out gingerly and took the glowing stone in his hand.

Alright, he thought. I’m back. We need to talk. Things… could be better. He could feel the stone brushing the edge of his mind, feel the vast space beyond in which the AI lived – its data matrix, its seemingly infinite capacity.

But that was all he could feel.

Hello? he called with his mind, feeling the thought echo strangely into the crystalline void. Where are you? But there was no reply, the echoing, ethereal voice utterly silent. He looked up at Donoghue, eyes wide with concern.

“It’s… not there.” Donoghue raised one eyebrow, and Gideon felt his heart sink yet further, knowing that she didn’t believe him, knowing that he probably wouldn’t have believed him either in her position. He tried anyway. “It’s not there! It was, but it’s not, I can’t feel it, it’s not – ”

“Save it,” Donoghue snapped. She stood, looming above him like a wrathful god. “I’m going,” she said, “to check on the fucking extract. Yax, Handel, with me.”

“You don’t want to guard him?” Handel asked, standing. His metal fingers were still tapping away at his touch-screen. Donoghue looked back at Gideon, and there was revulsion in her eyes.

“What’s he going to do? Run away?”

She turned and began to walk away. Yaxley followed, his face inscrutable. Handel stumped behind them, and he was still typing even as he offered another vaguely sympathetic grimace. Beneath the crushing despair that was engulfing him, Gideon felt something, just a tiny spark of curiosity.

“What’re you doing?” he asked Handel before the old man could look away. Handel frowned.

“What?”

“You’ve been busy,” Gideon said, nodding awkwardly at Handel’s PDA – on which he was still typing, not so much as glancing at the keys. Donoghue and Yaxley had paused in the doorway. Handel looked down at his hand, frowning. Donoghue scowled.

“Come on, Handel.” But Handel wasn’t listening. He was staring at his own hand like he’d never seen it before, his face pale, as the artificial fingers whirred away, typing, Gideon finally noticed, faster than any human hand he’d ever seen.

“That’s not me,” the quartermaster whispered. His eyes were wide, and Gideon recognised the fear, knew it all too well. “Sarge, that’s not me!” Donoghue walked over, irritation plain on her face.

“What do you – ”

“I’m not typing that!” Handel howled. “It’s not me!” And realisation dawned bright and clear and terrible over Gideon, as Donoghue tried to restrain the metal hand, yelping as the steel-plated fingers almost crushed her own, as he glimpsed the PDA screen and saw nothing but flowing code, endless letters and numbers scrolling past faster than he could read.

“You touched the stone, didn’t you?” he asked Handel, who looked up with wild, terrified eyes. “You held it in that hand.” The artificial hand, the engineering marvel, mimicking almost perfectly the movement of flesh and blood through complex algorithms and a series of high-capacity inbuilt processors, linked into a little control computer embedded in the wrist.

“Yeah?” Handel asked. Then his face blanched pure white. “Oh, shit.”

His metal hand tapped out one final sequence of code, and then froze. On the PDA screen, a bar filled rapidly, and was replaced by the message Upload Complete.

Then all the lights went out, just for a moment, and when they came back up they were a bloody red. There was a whine of static, and then the PA system came alive, and said: “Lockdown engaged.”