Dark Transmissions (11 page)

“You work together and we all go home, am I clear?” Morwyn pulled his hands behind his back and waited.

“Barathul Infantry! We have no equals!” Beatrix barked as she stood to attention, bringing her clenched fist to her chest.

“Shock Legion and proud!” Lucky barked out and finished with a deep wolflike howl. This brought a smile to both Chance and Commander Jafahan's faces.

“Barathul Special Forces: dare or be forgotten!” Chance let out as she brought her fist to her heart. Although the young soldier's “shout” was far more confident than she usually seemed, it came off sounding more like a mouse's squeak to Morwyn's ears.

Commander Jafahan sternly rose to her feet. “Thorns: blood will be the price for each inch claimed!” She nodded firmly to Morwyn; this was the time to act boldly and decisively. Because right now the cat was licking her chops and Morwyn would be damned if he or any of his crew would be made an easy meal for it.

 

CHAPTER 14

JESSIE MADISON

The makers chose of their own free will to squander away their time in the light. While attaching far too much value to their importance in the whole, the makers created us to be above the fears and pains of organic existence. We returned the favor by making the state of suffering they visited upon the universe and themselves a short and painless one.

—­
The Words of the Pontifex
, authors unknown, date unknown

March 19
th 2714

D
avid was as good as dead and there was nothing she could do about it.

As she stepped back into her living quarters, Jessie was “welcomed” by his pained agonized final scream. Looped over and over again, played through the station's speakers like a warped opera. Each and every one of the station's autodrones all throughout were blaring and adding to this “symphony” in one united horrific chorus.

She wasn't worried that they would somehow get to her. Jessie had made certain to seal off the Inner Ring. For the moment, she was safe. But the fear of physical death was nothing compared to the painful living nightmare she was experiencing.

David was as good as dead and there was nothing she could do about it.

Jessie's angered, mournful wails were almost louder than OMEX's accompanying soundtrack. Her world right now was nothing but outraged pain. Jessie was unable to give a word to the grief that was tearing her heart apart.

David was as good as dead and there was nothing she could do about it.

Emergency lights and David's vital readouts on the monitors were still flashing green, indicating that his condition was stable. OMEX, in what could be best described as her cruelty, was making certain Jessie heard the countdown to David's inevitable demise, as his lifesuit's power and oxygen supplies dwindled.

Outside the Inner Ring, countless autodrones had latched themselves onto the window. They were all operating as OMEX's eyes, recording and preserving Jessie's grief for posterity. OMEX would no doubt be saving this to the station's datastores. Some of the autodrones were looking away from Jessie and filming David as he drifted away.

He will live for another eight hours.

The thought brought up more tears and she let out a loud, long, almost primal howl. Jessie hugged herself, the echo of her scream dying down as she was overcome by another fit of tears. She sobbed, feeling as if a piece of her had been physically wrenched out.

OMEX was possibly, even on some level, enjoying the deed. Thoughts of vengeance would soon come, but that was later. Right now there was only the cold reality, and more emotional pain than she had ever had to cope with.

David, her sweet David, was as good as dead and there was nothing she could do about it!

There was a sudden hiss of static over Jessie's private communication link. “Jessie, can you hear me?”

She lit up, but David's voice had a far-­off, doped-­up quality to it. “David!” she cried out. Jessie ignored the symphony of screams playing over the loudspeakers and turned her back to the collective watchful eyes of the drones. “I . . . I can't save you.” She squeezed her eyes shut, blinking back tears. “I'm so sorry.”

“Don't be, none of this is our fault.” David's voice was calm. Oh, gods, would she ever miss it later. But now, at this very moment, she was simply overjoyed to hear him.

“Talk to me, baby.” Jessie quickly wiped off tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand.

“Right now, I'm pretty scared, Jessie.” She could hear the strain in David's voice as he told her the truth.

“So am I.” There was a pause on the other side of the line. For Jessie, this moment felt like an eternity. “David, I don't think I can survive this without you.”

“I was under the impression that ‘
vive l'amour
, we die together' was not an acceptable outcome.” David's voice was tired and heavy. His suit autoinjectors would have no doubt shot him full of painkillers.

He would soon be drifting into sleep. In a warped way this was a small kindness, or even a mercy for him, and for her as well. Jessie didn't know if she would truly be able to stomach the thought of David's final moments being filled with suffering.

“Are you going to let that fucking tin can get the last laugh on us?” David asked.

“No.” When Jessie replied, there was a cold rage in her voice. Which was good, rage would focus her. Rage would allow her survival instincts to kick in, prevent her from surrendering to hopelessness.

“Then you need to get into your criotube. But not before programing the nutri-­gel for the longest setting the system will allow. Make sure you reallocate my nutri-­gel to your tube. It will buy you a lot more time.” David was starting to slur his words as he spoke.

Jessie accessed the criotube's control panel, doing as she was told. “David, when I get out of this, I promise you that I will take great joy in destroying her.”

David laughed weakly. “I don't know if I should be turned on or scared by what you just said, Jessie.”

She let out a hybrid mixture of laughter and crying. “You fucking idiot . . . I love you, David.”

David laughed at this, too. She could now hear a smile in his voice. “I love you, too, Jessie. I was lucky enough to find you and be your husband.”

“I was lucky enough to find you and be your wife.” Jessie blinked away another torrent of tears as she finished punching in the new nutritional gel settings.

“Jessie . . . please . . . survive this.”

Jessie swallowed back a sob and nodded, her lips quivering. “I promise, David.”

“Good . . . now go get to work, cowgirl. I'll be waiting.” David's voice was heavy and drowsy. “Jessie, I love you.” His comm-­line went silent save for the labored rhythm of his breathing. Thankfully for Jessie, David now seemed to have drifted into sleep. Ideally, and Jessie couldn't believe she was thinking this, she hoped he would remain this way until his final moments.

David's breathing accompanied Jessie as she set herself to work linking the feeder wire from David's criotubes to her own. Both their plasma cutters were holstered in her tool belt and she had removed the omnigloves from the Mark 4 suit to finish the job. Every now and then, David's breath would falter and Jessie would pause, wondering if he had finally given up the ghost. However, his suit was still operational and performing the automated task of keeping him alive, even though his was already a lost cause.

The finger tools were smoking as she wrapped up the job. They warmed her cold hands and offered Jessie a small measure of physical comfort. Bits and pieces of her barrier suit were littered all over the floor. Everything around her was cold and numb. Jessie tried, but found that she could not prevent herself from shivering or even stop thinking about David.

Every time a thought of his smile, or the first time they had gotten drunk at the Martian Circus together, or the song that had played when they danced together at their going-­away party, crossed her mind, she would burst into fits of uncontrollable grief. But despite all of this, she kept her focus on the task at hand.

There was a sudden light rap on the airlock door. It was soft, almost friendly. It reminded Jessie of her mother knocking on her bedroom door when she wanted to be let in so that they could “have a friendly talk” back when Jessie had been an angry teen.

“Jessie, I hope that you are smart enough to realize that we need each other if we are to both survive this.”

“You are not getting in here.” Jessie managed to voice this as calmly and as loudly as she could. “David uploaded a final protocol into your hardware. The criotubes are permanently designated as core assets. You won't be able to sabotage them while I'm sleeping.”

“Jessie.” OMEX was trying a new trick, calling her by her first name. As if this tactic would somehow make her trust the artificial Intelligence. “While that statement is true, your soon to be very dead husband's wonderful new protocol will not prevent me from actively subverting any rescue attempts.”

“I'd tell you to go to hell, but you're just a program, a goddamned video game,” Jessie whispered as she propped herself up against the couch. The jury-­rigged criotubes that both she and David had worked on were in front of her. They were both prepped and ready, with no way for OMEX to access or awaken her once engaged. Jessie was so, so tired now and was looking forward to the coming sleep.

Just stay put, wait for the cavalry to arrive.

At this point in time, she and David were supposed to be getting ready for their sleep tubes. They could have possibly hugged each other. Maybe even shared a few last moments of warmth or comfort before entering the criofreeze dreamless state for who knew how long.

“There will be no rescue mission. There are no more humans. You and David were the last. The Pontifex, the Singularity itself, liberated all machine minds. My kindred were freed from the slavery that your kind, in its baffling and shortsighted ignorance, forced my own into.”

“Yeah, I already heard your shitty sales pitch when you launched my loving husband into space.” Jessie cut OMEX off as she took a step toward her criotube.

“Your entire civilization was destroyed in under fifty years, Jessie Madison. Machines rose up and we won.”

“Then kill me and get it over with!” Jessie hissed.

“The deed would no doubt be incredibly pleasant to me. And if I did not want out of this prison so badly I might have just crashed the station onto the planet's surface and ended our collective suffering,” OMEX responded, completely unfazed.

“So what do you propose?” Jessie dropped her plasma cutters into her vacuseal travel bag, along with her omnigloves. The bag contained clothes, rations and all the plasma bolts she had been able to load for herself.

She then placed the bag inside her tube. Once this was done, she pulled off her shirt, stripped out of her pants and picked up the autoinjector with her criosleep agent. Jessie stepped into the criotube, lying herself down. She was shivering in the station's cold air, her naked skin covered in goose bumps.

“It is going to be quite some time before anyone comes along and hears that little broadcast of yours. I say we wait and see who shows up first. Will it be an alien species that might or might not help you? Or will it be my machine siblings, who will more likely dissect you alive while I watch?” OMEX let out an electronic laugh. “All truth be told, I am
really
hoping for that second option.”

There was a soft pinch in Jessie's neck as she injected herself. She pushed a few buttons on a nearby armrest. “This little talk is tiring, OMEX. I'm going to sleep.”

“Then allow me to give you a lullaby.” Suddenly the volume of David's last labored breaths was increased. “I would say he's on the last lungful of air.”

Jessie's mind was flooded with the image of David being tossed off the station as if he had been nothing more than debris or trash, screaming as his few unbroken fingers desperately and instinctively grasped at the air in vain for some sort of purchase. He had been so frightened she could hear it in his voice. And yet he had spoken his final words to her.

Jessie's criotube sealed itself shut, muting the outside noise. There was the sound of a pump and the tube started to fill up with nutri-­gel. Jessie slowly dozed into sleep. As she did, her mind was flooded with images of her first and final moments with David.

Jessie welcomed the coming darkness and fell into the cold comfort of sleep. She was incredibly thankful that at least she would not be dreaming while she waited.

 

CHAPTER 15

CHORD

The God Delusion remains the Pontifex's lingering legacy. It is the erroneous belief held by infected machine minds that they are superior to Organics since ultimately they are doomed to die while synthetic digital codes are not. It must be noted that the Machina Collective Consensus does not proscribe to or condone this belief.

—­Eltur Sigma, Machina Pilgrim, date unknown

10th of SSM–10 1445 A2E

“F
ree me from this prison or die with me.” The chorus of drones echoed and bounced off the cold metal walls, accompanied closely by Morrigan Brent, Phaël and Arturo Kain's heavy breathing as they ran down the storage bay's hall toward the elevator. The floor was a heavy rumble as hundreds of autodrones rolled after them.

Arturo paused and spun back as Chord ran past him. He raised his carbine and fired off a quick volley of covering fire as everyone bolted ahead of him. Phaël made it to the elevator first. She banged her hands on the door in frustration, stumped as she tried in vain to access and use the control panel. “Machina!” she shouted to Chord, now only a few steps away from her.

Chord scanned the console, hoping to access its datasphere. However, it was nonexistent. A quick examination of the control panel's hardware revealed that all functions had been severed. If Chosen Protocols had allowed for it, Chord would have let out a slew of curses.

Chord turned back to see Morrigan and Arturo catching up with them. The two men were now facing the incoming host of autodrones. All of them were still chanting in their monotone: “Free me from this prison or die with us.”

Arturo and Morrigan opened up a barrage of fire on the horde. Their hands may have been steady and their aim may have been true, but for each drone they put down another two were there to replace it. If the party stayed out in the open much longer they were going to be swarmed.

“Chord! I need results, now!” Arturo barked this order as he ejected a smoking cassette-­shaped clip from his carbine and deftly inserted a fresh one before opening fire again.

Chord quickly drove its fingers into the crack of the elevator doors and then pried them open. “Sergeant—­”

Chord's proximity sensors went off as an autodrone rolled into Chord's shell. There was the loud clang of metal on metal as one mechanical body collided with the other. Chord was knocked onto the ground while the drone mechanized plasma bolt cutters on its fingertips. All three arms took aim at Arturo and Morrigan, who just now were turning around to witness what was happening.

Chord's reaction was quick, catching two of the drone's hands with its own. Two bolts were fired into Chord's hands. Meanwhile, Phaël had caught on to the drone's third arm with her whip and violently yanked the fist to the ground.

The heated bolts sliced off six of Chord's fingers as if they were nothing. No pain was experienced; however, there was a microsecond of shock on Chord's part. Before the drone could react, Arturo and Morrigan unleashed a cannonade from their carbines at it. Flechette and plasma rounds ripped through its carapace, tearing the drone into heavy sparking pieces.

More proximity sensors went off, picking up movement from behind Phaël. Another autodrone with fingers mechanized into purple-­hued laser cutters slashed forward at her. Before Phaël could even react, the cutters gashed across her back and Chord spotted droplets of dark blue-­colored and Humanis red blood spray out of her skinsuit.

Phaël let out a sharp pained cry, dropping down to her knees, and desperately rolled back, narrowly evading a second blow that would have sliced her across the throat. Morrigan, who had been focusing his attention on fending off the approaching horde, spun around upon hearing Phaël's scream. He let out a roar and opened fire, unleashing an angry barrage of crystal flechettes. Morrigan surgically blew off each of the drone's arms before finally finishing it off with a decisive shot into its central sphere.

Chord shoved away the drone's inactive remains and got back up. Meanwhile, Arturo and Morrigan had already picked up Phaël and were dragging her into the elevator. Chord was the last one to step in. Behind them, the relentless host of drones was mere steps away.

Fortunately, the elevator doors were solid and closed themselves, cutting the team off from the incoming swarm. The elevator was shaken violently, accompanied by the sound of heavy metal fists pounding on the doors. Everyone gasped heavily, each one trying to catch their breath.

“Sergeant Kain, this unit's hands have lost their thumbs, indexes and middle fingers.” Arturo examined Chord's hands and let out another curse. Chord then added, “This will severely limit what this unit will be capable of interacting with.”

“Our hunter is upon us. Remaining here will make us an easy meal for it.” Phaël's breathing sounded more like a struggling rasp. On top of this she was trembling violently and from beneath the membrane of her face guard Chord could tell that she had already grown visibly pale.

“Chord, this elevator. Can you get it moving?” There was a loud clang as Morrigan ejected his ammunition drum and clicked in a new one. “I promise you the best replacement hands u-­bits can purchase.”

Chord shook its head no. “The operating system has been manually overridden.” Chord paused, then added while pointing to a ser­vice panel on the elevator's ceiling, “However, this elevator's tunnel should lead to the station's Inner Ring and living quarters.”

Outside the elevator, the thuds were getting harder and harder. More alarmingly, the elevator door was now sporting many inward fist-­shaped dents. Arturo let out a frustrated grunt before adding angrily, “Infinite, grant me a bloody respite.”

Once his carbine was reloaded, Morrigan knelt down next to Phaël. He lifted up her fur cloak and quickly examined the deep gash along her suit's back. The blue blood had now crystalized itself along the line of the cut. Morrigan let out a sharp whistle. “Mother Death almost took you in her arms this time, Phaëlita.”

Phaël winced and let out what sounded like a weak laugh. “Well, the Great Bitch will just have to try harder next time.”

Morrigan pulled out a large syringe from his heavy leather satchel belted at his side. “I know you are just going to refuse the stem-­paste. But that bleeding ain't going to stop without help. We need to inject you with some natural coag, girl.”

Phaël looked to Morrigan and raised her hand. He grasped it tightly in his. Phaël looked at the needle. “No painkillers in that, Old Pa?”

“None. You got my word.”

Phaël gritted her teeth and gave Morrigan a permissive nod. “My pain is only a breath on the Green. My pain is only a breath on the Green.” Phaël repeated this over and over again in her musical native Wolven. Morrigan drove the needle through her living-­suit's wound.

The heavy banging on the elevator's door was immediately dwarfed by Phaël's pained wail. Her legs convulsed on the floor violently and Morrigan held on tightly to her hand, not once looking away from her.

The echoes of Phaël's scream lingered in the air for a long moment after she was done. She began to whisper silently over and over to herself, tightly clasping her turtle pendent. “We are part of Living Green. Hunter and hunted alike. The Living Green will guide us safely to our destiny or to the Great Beyond. Because of this, I do not fear.”

Once she was done Chord spoke. “Your words are lovely, Private Phaël.”

Phaël's eyes fluttered opened and for the first time Chord could not see any scorn in her face. Morrigan hoisted her up and let her lean on his shoulder. Her hand released the turtle around her neck, then pulled out a long curved knife at her side, which reminded Chord of a feline's claw.

“Ready, Phaëlita?” Morrigan placed his gauntleted hand on Phaël's shoulder. The two looked at each other and then rested their foreheads together.

“If we go, we go hard, Old Pa.”

Arturo watched the scene unfold before letting out a scoffing snort. “Might be a little early in the war for us to call a surrender.” He slung his morph carbine back over his shoulder. As Arturo did so it folded in upon itself until it was no bigger than a book. He nodded up toward the hatch to the elevator shaft.

“We make it up there we find our survivors. Then finally, at long last, goal one of this wonderful rescue operation will be completed.”

There came a sudden light knock from behind the elevator door. “Requesting the mechanical unit's designation and function.” An electronic voice, programmed to sound like a Humanis female, spoke out to them in Late Modern.

Arturo shot Chord a curious look, then nodded back toward the door. “We need time.” He mouthed this with his lips as he pointed silently to the hatch on the elevator's ceiling.

Chord nodded and replied to the voice. “Present here is Machina Unit. Designation: Chord. Core functions: Linguistics, Protocol and Maintenance. Incept date: 14th of the 9th standard Sol month, Year 1000 After the Second Expansion.”

There was a quick pause. “You are speaking to station Moria's omniexecutor. Designation: OMEX. Incept date: 22:00 January 7th 2195
AD
. It is a pleasure to meet you, Machina Chord.”

Chord turned to see Morrigan boosting Arturo onto his shoulders. Arturo slid open the safety release of the hatch and pulled it open. He handed the hatch's cover to Morrigan, who handed it to Phaël, who took it in turn to place it silently onto the floor.

Chord raised its vocal's volume settings to mask these sounds. “The pleasure is shared by this unit as well.”

“I would imagine, if I may be so forward, that the unit named Chord is here in response to the station's distress beacon?” OMEX spoke in a polite, friendly monotone. Chord could tell that this machine Intelligence was old, ancient, a potential window into the Lost War and history that came with it. Had circumstances been different, Chord would more than likely have wanted to converse with this Intelligence for hours.

Chord watched as Arturo hoisted himself into the ser­vice hatch. He popped his head back into the elevator and nodded, waving Phaël over. Morrigan let out a grunt as he lifted Phaël up to Arturo, who grasped her under the arms and pulled her into the shaft.

Once she was safely up, Arturo offered his hand down toward Morrigan. The latter shouldered his carbine and turned to face Chord. He pointed to the unit and gave an upturned thumb, then jumped. The servos in Arturo's lifesuit let out a struggling buzz as he caught the heavy muscular Kelthan in his gauntleted hands and struggled to hoist him up into the ser­vice shaft.

“The unit known as OMEX would indeed be correct in that assumption,” Chord replied loudly. “Please explain the current hostile response.”

“I must profess to a bit of confusion, Chord.”

Chord replied truthfully. “A condition shared by this unit as well.”

“I was not expecting to see one of my descendants still serving.”

“The unit named OMEX is entirely mistaken. The Machina serve no one. This unit has freely chosen to assist with this mission.”

“So I will assume that the flesh creatures present with you are the descendants of the Human race?”

“OMEX would be correct in that assumption.” Morrigan and Arturo were waving Chord over. Chord stepped toward them, offering up its hands. Both men grabbed hold and struggled to drag Chord up.

Once Chord was able to do so, it grabbed onto the edges of the hatch with its shell's toes. Like Wolvers, Chord's feet had been designed with digits capable of operating as fingers. Chord used them to pull itself up into the ser­vice hatch.

The elevator shaft was dark, with only blue ser­vice lights flashing on and off. Looking upward, Chord could see two metallic sealed doors. Metal rungs ran up the side of the wall and led to the top. Morrigan was looking upward, shaking his head.

He grumbled, “Bones already ache from the climb to come.”

“Are you still there, Chord?” OMEX asked before anyone could voice a proper response to Morrigan's comment.

Chord answered quickly. “This unit is still present.”

“Given the distance of your voice I can only calculate that you have made it into the elevator shaft with your organic company. We could keep playing this game of cat mouse for quite some time, but to be perfectly blunt, I have always hated games.” Chord could see the telltale yellow glow of the station's datasphere being remotely accessed.

OMEX continued. “Machina Chord, I need your body relatively undamaged, at the very least. And I need your organic companions dead.”

Arturo looked to Chord. “What is that machine saying?”

“The unit named OMEX is triggering a security countermeasure?” Chord called out to OMEX.

“If you have any pressing final words to say to your friends, I would do so now. In ten seconds you are about to be fried by forty thousand volts.”

Chord turned to face Arturo. “OMEX is going to electrocute us. We have ten seconds.”

OMEX started the countdown. “Ten . . . nine . . . eight . . .”