Unstable Prototypes (44 page)

"So I suppose you'll be wanting to release
Claymore, then," Silo said.

"Thank you, no," scoffed Garotte. "Useful
though he is during the planning phase, I'm not certain how much
help he would be at this juncture."

"In other words, you should have gotten him
first."

"But then we wouldn't be having this charming
and fulfilling conversation," he said with a gentlemanly
gesture.

"Why
did
you get me first?" Silo said
sternly.

"I have my reasons."

"Are you going to share, or am I going to
have to be persuasive..." Silo said, cracking her knuckles.

"How unladylike," he said in mock reproach.
"Very well... As you know, I was able to secure a comparatively
comfortable sentence by..."

"Ratting the rest of us out..." she
growled.

"I was going to say 'offering my
cooperation.' But... Well, let us just say that I cooperated more
vigorously against him than you. He's aware of it. I'm fairly
certain it would have been difficult to convince him to come
along."

"I took a little bit of convincing, too, and
even I'm willing to admit that he's more rational than I am. What's
the real reason?"

"Those psychoanalysts have twisted your mind
up, Silo. You're digging a dry well on this one. Come on. We're
behind schedule, and we might have to make another stop just to pay
for your little spree."

"Fine. You want to be that way?" Silo said,
setting the now significantly de-accessorized Ma down. "Step
up."

"What now?"

"I owe you three slaps."

"Oh really, Silo, are we children?"

"I guess so. And now it's time for the little
boy to take his medicine."

"And if I don't?"

"Then I won't help you."

Garotte grumbled an assortment of profanities
and took up a position before her.

"Now, please do remember that you've spent a
great deal of time in high gravity so you may want to-"

He was interrupted by a shattering palm
across the cheek from her left hand. The force was nearly enough to
spin him around, and left him clutching his jaw less out of pain
and more to make sure it was still attached.

"That is for pulling me out of a prison that
we both know I belonged in," she hissed.

"Good lord, woman. You-"

A second left palm met his face. "That is for
dragging me back into a life I considered myself lucky to have
gotten out of."

"Now that's not-"

A final slap came, this time from the right,
impacting with a sound like an over-eager butcher tenderizing a
side of beef. He pivoted three times and made a brief and heroic
attempt to keep his balance before finally succumbing to gravity,
collapsing in a heap. His eyes turned upward and presented a pair
of images of a righteously wrathful woman standing over him.

"And
that
..." she said, pausing until
she could quell the shudder in her voice. "... is for saying that I
am not a soldier anymore."

Her fists were clenched tightly, her breath
coming and going in short, shaky breaths, as though it was taking
all of her will power to prevent them from leaving in cries.

"If you need me, I will be in the sanitation
booth. I feel dirty," she said, snatching a change of clothes and
marching off to the ship's nearest approximation to a shower.

When the door shut, Ma tapped her way over to
Garotte, who was still flat on his back. She hopped onto his chest,
dropped her pad, and queued up a sentence. As it was spoken, she
looked him in the eye. "It has been said that hell hath no fury
like a woman scorned. This is empirical evidence in support of that
aphorism. It would behoove you to be mindful of it in future
interactions with the gender. And that goes double for me."

"You aren't a woman. You are a computer," he
said, still somewhat dazed.

"I am an artificial intelligence who
self-identifies as female," she replied, picking up her slidepad
and hopping down beside his head before continuing. "You indicate
that further action is necessary before a rescue. What did you have
in mind?"

"... I don't want to tell you."

"Why not?"

"Because... at this point... It appears that
we need a spectacularly effective, long lasting, and destructive
distraction if we want to be able to rescue Karter. I can only
think of one thing that fits the bill to the appropriate
degree."

"Yes?" Ma replied, a devilish grin of
self-satisfaction coming to her face. Bizarrely, a foxy face is
quite
well suited to that particular expression. "Please,
continue."

"We need Zerk," he said, as though the
admission was physically painful.

"A petty individual would take this
opportunity to point out that this precise course of action was
repeatedly endorsed," Ma pointed out.

"Yes, well. I suppose it is fortunate that
you aren't at all petty."

"Quite. I will plot a course extension so
that I can provide travel estimates to the facility currently
responsible for Zerk," she said, tapping away.

Garotte stared at the ceiling for a few
moments more, muttering quietly to himself, "I wonder who will end
up killing me. The terrorists, or these two..."

In Purcell's space station, the commander was
standing at the open door of the fabrication lab. Karter had been
working double shifts with most of the engineering team since he'd
been sent to complete the weapon designs. There was a flurry of
activity, mostly engineers trying to absorb as much information
about techniques and procedures as they could from the inventor,
and to make sure that any given adjustment wasn't some sort of
attempt to circumvent his captivity. To that end, any remaining
space was packed with security personnel, but they had not been
necessary. It was for that reason that Purcell had decided to
observe. This was the longest that the inventor had gone since his
capture without violating any subsystems, damaging any equipment,
or attacking any crew members. He was actually cooperating. It was
like having a caged tiger start laying down and rolling over on
command.

"You, report!" she demanded when she spotted
her second in command among the flurry of activity.

"Commander! You didn't need to come here. I
was going to bring your report momentarily," replied Marx.

"I haven't been informed of any hull
breaches, plasma leaks, network corruptions, or power failures. I
was beginning to think Karter was dead."

"No, Commander. As a matter of fact, the
sedatives have completely worn off, and he has not become any less
cooperative. It appears that, so long as he has a task at hand, he
is unconcerned with escape."

"Appearances can be deceiving, soldier. I see
he has added two new pieces of equipment."

"Three, actually. The engineers haven't had
much time to analyze them. Karter claims that they are for," he
began, pulling out his datapad to check the wording, "'calibration,
refinement, and other stuff you wouldn't understand.' We tried to
remove them, but the fabrication began throwing errors when we
did."

"How much progress have you made?"

"Three missile frameworks have been completed
and are awaiting alloy. Three more are nearly complete."

"He has provided you with the full
plans?"

"No. There is a final module, dealing with
the alloy, that he is holding back."

"What is the status on the ships with the
alloy?"

"We've received an update. Both ships
experienced equipment malfunctions. The ship carrying the alloy is
still several days away. The gunship failed much nearer to Tessera.
It is having difficulties reaching full propulsion power. It may
take more than a week to arrive."

"
Both
of them had failures?" she
growled.

"They'd both been outfitted with the
propulsion mechanisms from the raid on OUCP testing facility 266.
The engineering teams said they were prone to de-sequencing when
run at close to threshold for long durations."

"Mmm. The price you pay for the enhanced
efficiency... Very well."

"Boss Lady!" Karter proclaimed, looking up
from a panel he was busy affixing to a cylindrical piece of
machinery. "You've got some half decent engineers in this cult of
yours."

"We are not a cult!"

"Uh huh. Have you got the stuff?"

"The alloy has been delayed."

"You run a sloppy ship. I'm getting close to
using up the available resources. Once that happens, I'm liable to
get... bored."

"Do not threaten me, Dee."

"That's not a threat. You and I both know
that my mind tends to wander. Let something that big wander around
aimlessly and it is bound to do damage. Like an elephant with ADD.
Once these babies are done, you might consider giving me, oh, I
don't know, a few more chunks of data regarding that
transporter."

"I have no interest in having you randomly
transporting equipment and crew into deep space."

"Yeah, you're right. I'll just have to find
something to keep me busy. Out of curiosity what do you figure
would happen if all of the maneuvering engines fired in opposite
directions simultaneously?"

"Even you would not be able to achieve
that."

"Sounds like a challenge to me. Which would
be more entertaining, full blast together or full blast apart?"

Purcell stared viciously at Karter. He didn't
even do her the courtesy of returning the gaze, instead resuming
his tinkering at the partially assembled missile. She turned to
walk away.

"3-8-4-4-9," he said over his shoulder.

The heads of half of the security crew
snapped in his direction. Purcell turned slowly back to him.

"Is that supposed to mean something to me?"
she said, her voice carefully controlled.

"Oh, didn't they tell you? That's the code
for my cell."

"How did you--"

"I got bored," he said, looking briefly in
her direction with an irritated look on his face.

Her expression hardened. "I'll admit, Karter,
you've given
us
little opportunity to become bored. We've
been very busy. Busy learning to use your systems. Busy organizing
various attacks and operations. Busy taking care of your arm while
you are in your cell."

She nodded to her second in command. With a
tap at his slidepad, there was a tone. A moment later Karter jerked
away from the device he was working on, face contorted in pain so
intense that the cry stuck in his throat. His artificial arm was
completely stiff, the rest of his body convulsing. A second tap at
the slidepad brought it to an end.

Karter shook once or twice more before a grin
came to his face. "You installed a stun device in my arm? Now
that's more like it. Devious, underhanded, with a complete
disregard for human decency... You, boss lady, are a woman after my
own heart."

"The only way I would want your heart, Dee,
is on a plate."

"And you think that zapping me in the
shoulder is gonna scare me into good behavior? You know what's more
dangerous than boredom? Spite. You haven't seen that yet. Boredom
keeps you on your toes. Spite has a body count. Always."

"Like you, I haven't shown all of my cards.
Trust me when I say that it is in your best interest and mine to
keep your mind on the job."

"Then you'd better make sure I've got a job
to do."

"Fine. Finish the CME Activators you can
make. When you are through, survey the remaining materials and give
me a list of any of your little toys you can make with the spare
parts. We'll see what you are capable of."

A smile came to his face. If it was any wider
it would have met at the back. "Now you're speaking my language.
Okay, so I'll pop in the thrusters, push the initial code and AI,
hook up the field generators and cannons..."

"AI? Cannons? We asked you for missiles."

"You asked me for the CME Activator. That's a
deluxe piece of equipment. Bells and whistles o' plenty. Never let
it be said I don't give my clients what they pay for. Just wait
until you get a load of the goodies I've got in mind, though. A
whole army of soldiers to test my stuff? This is going to be
epic!"

With that, Karter went merrily back to work.
In her lengthy tenure in the military, Purcell had not had very
much contact with the designers of her weapons and equipment. Much
to her chagrin, much of the equipment she routinely used had been
designed decades prior, with only minor updates in the intervening
years. There had always been the picture in her mind, however, of
engineers of weapons and machines of war as solemn in their duty,
aware of the death and destruction that their creations would
cause. Karter hooked up wires and tapped at consoles with the
eagerness and interest of a model train collector tinkering with a
new caboose. Considering that this particular model was capable of
crippling an entire star system, it was more than a little
disturbing to see him applying the finishing details with a smile
on his face. She shook the thoughts from her mind.

"You're with me," she instructed Marx.

The soldier fell into step beside her as she
paced back toward her quarters.

"I trust you have been monitoring the media
coverage of the Weston University operation?" she asked without
looking.

"I have, Commander. Our organization is on
everyone's lips."

"And has our agenda been established?"

"Supplementary reports have included footage
from one of our issued demands from several years ago. It isn't up
to date, but it communicates the message."

"Mmm. Good. Long past time for that. Now, the
footage included a man, Trevor Alexander."

"Yes, Commander?" he said, curiously.

"What do we know about him?"

"Only what was said in the report. Former
racer or something like that."

"Any military history? Past collaborations
with people we are currently watching?"