Outer Bounds: Fortune's Rising (13 page)

Chapter
10

Stepping
Aside

“I
saw
it,” Magali
snapped, throwing her used rag at Anna.  “It was good as new, and ran right by
me.”

Anna snorted and pushed the damp
cloth off of her r-player, onto the floor.  “Right.  After what we did to it,
it would’ve arrested you for conspiracy and a bunch of other shit.”

Never in her life had Magali been
so angry.  “Anna, listen to me very carefully.”

Anna grunted, not looking up from
her r-player.  Her sister had been patiently transcribing something from memory
for the last two weeks, and each time Magali had asked about it, Anna had
laughed at her and told her to go back to Philosophy 101.

Magali ripped the r-player from
her sister’s hands and threw it across the room.  It clattered against the
aluminum siding and hit the packed dirt floor with a pathetic sound.  “
Listen
to me!”

Anna’s glare was deadly as she
pried it away from her player.  “What?”

“I know you can hack into the
camp computer,” Magali said.

Anna’s face turned into a sneer. 
“So?  I never tried to hide it.”

“We tried to destroy a government
AI,” Magali said.  “That’s jail time.”

“And they’d have to transfer us
out of the camp for the trial.  It’d mean we won’t get killed by a Shriek or
Egger’s Wide.  Yay for us.”

“Anna,” Magali said, pronouncing
every syllable like she would for a small child, “We’re in big trouble here.  I
don’t think you know how big.” 

Anna shrugged.  “Fortune’s gonna
throw out the coalers soon, anyway.  BriarRabbit and I’ve talked about it.”

Narrowing her eyes at yet another
mention of ‘BriarRabbit,’ Magali said, “Why did they send that robot after you,
Anna?  Was it some sort of conspiracy?  Are you
involved
in this
underground conspiracy you keep telling me about?”

“Involved.”  Anna snorted, then
picked up the used slime rag and fiddled with it.  Magali knew the look.  Her
sister was deciding how much to tell her.  How much she could handle.

Anna had gotten this same look on
the wire a year and a half earlier, when she’d told Magali their parents were
dead.

“You are, aren’t you?” Magali
breathed, in horror.

Anna sighed and tossed the rag
aside, where it fell into a heap beside the cot.  Her face was bored when she
said, “So what?”

“Oh God, Anna.  What did you do?”

Anna wrinkled her nose.  “Nothing
that they’ve found out about.  Not yet, anyway.  Mostly little stuff.”

“Like what?” Magali whispered. 
When Anna didn’t reply, she shouted, “
Like what, Anna?!”

Her sister’s face took on the
cruel light she had whenever she was about to say something particularly
nasty.  “Like what you should’ve done the moment you let them kill our
parents.”

Magali stared at Anna.  When she
could manage to speak, she said, “Anna, what did you do?”

Anna shrugged.  “I started a
war.”

For a long time, Magali could
only stare at her sister.  She knew she was telling the truth.  Anna never
bluffed.  She didn’t need to.

“What did you do?” she whispered.

“A soldier and its operator went
down the other day.  Supposedly an operator malfunction.  I sent in an
anonymous tip.  Coalers cracked down on a settlement close to where the solder
dropped out of the sky.  Killed everyone in the town.  I’m pretty sure it’s
just what we needed to get this thing started.”

For a moment, Magali couldn’t
breathe.  Then, softly, she said, “You got a whole town killed?”

“Yeah, but that’s not why they
sent the robot.  The Director wants to draft me for the Nephyrs.”

Magali couldn’t move, couldn’t
breathe, couldn’t think.  She could only stare. 

Anna misjudged her response. 
“The Director is a Nephyr,” she explained.  “I’d say fourth or fifth class, got
herself booted from combat about twenty years ago, but still a Nephyr.  A
cyborg,
”
she added, when Magali continued to stare.

“I know what a Nephyr is, Anna,”
Magali whispered. 
She got a whole village killed and she doesn’t even care.

“Well, Joel was telling the truth
back in the Shrieker mounds.  The coalers draft smart kids from the colonies to
become cyborgs.  But, on Fortune, they’re
really
looking for
Yolk-babies.  The government’s got really massive rewards for anyone who can
find one, seein’ how they can’t transport Shriekers to the Inner Bounds.  Somebody—probably
the Director—was using the robot to figure out if that’s what I am.  People
like her get a huge bonus for every Yolk-baby they find.  Like a few million
creds and a couple thousand acres of terraformed land, or something like that. 
It’s a big business.  Almost as big as the Yolk itself.”

A pang of terror for her sister
suddenly washed away her disgust for what Anna had done.  “They take
kids?
”

“Yeah.”

The room suddenly felt too small,
the air too stuffy.  The heavy smell of ink and paper tugged at the back of her
throat like grease.  Magali found it difficult to breathe.  “Why didn’t you
just pretend to be stupid?  Why’d you have to try to
kill
it, Anna?”

Anna shrugged.  “Maybe I want to
be a Nephyr.”

Magali grabbed her sister by the
collar and lifted her off her cot.  White-fisted, she peered into her sister’s
eyes, somehow resisting the urge to shake her.  Anna lifted her chin and glared
up at her.  Seeing what she was looking for, Magali said, “No.  It was your
pride.  You can’t
stand
the thought of anyone thinking you’re stupid.”

Anna laughed, but her eyes were
cold.  “Bingo.  Great job.  Guilty as charged.  Now let go of me.”

Magali pulled her sister closer. 
“Anna, do you…”  She stopped, her words choking off in anger.  She released
Anna and looked away, staring at her desk and its images of ship designs until
she was sure she wasn’t going to say something horrible.  When she had finally
composed herself, she looked back.  “Anna, do you even
care
if they send
you away to get turned into a robot?”

“Cyborg.”  Anna was bending down
to check on her r-player.

Magali grabbed her sister by the
hair and jerked her away from the device.  As Anna screamed, Magali snarled,
“You’re a monster.  Someone should’ve drowned you at birth, you evil lit—”  A
knock on the door stopped Magali, mid-word. 

A slender man stood in their
doorway, his face stretched in an easy smile.  “I see somebody’s home.”

Magali quickly released her
sister’s hair and shoved Anna behind her.  “What do you want?” she asked, her
survival instincts kicking in.  The only males allowed on the female side of
the camp were camp officials.  He wasn’t an egger.  He wore a clean navy-blue
uniform with sharp creases and he carried a datapad under his arm.

“Magali and Anna Landborn?”

“What?” Magali asked.  She eyed
the device under his arm with growing foreboding.

Instead of saying, “You’re under
arrest for destruction of government property,” the man smiled and motioned at
the chair in one corner of the room.  “May I?”

“What do you want?” Magali
demanded again.

The man sighed and lifted the pad
from under his arm.  “It looks like we’re going to have to do this the hard
way.  Your sister Anna was under investigation for possible drafting into the
Nephyrs.”  He paused to smile at them.  “But you knew that.  You tried to kill
the robot sent to observe her.”

Magali suddenly felt as if her
throat were too tight to breathe.

Anna, however, was not so
hindered.  “We don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, yawning.  “What
robot?”

The man smiled.  “The one you
left for dead in the Shrieker mounds, you wily little devil.”

“We didn’t leave it for dead,”
Anna said.  “If we had, we would have buried it.”

The man blinked.  He frowned. 
Then he glanced down at his datapad.  Then he glanced over his shoulder and
cleared his throat.  He looked…confused.  Almost like he was having some sort
of nervous breakdown.

Is he going to cry?
 
Magali thought, staring.  He definitely looked unstable.

“So you can just leave now,” Anna
said calmly.

The man’s eyes suddenly became
riveted on her sister.  The man looked…angry.  Maybe something more.  A long
moment passed between them, and for the first time, Anna began to look
uncomfortable.

“The point is that now the
Coalition has initiated a probe into the robot’s fate to determine whether or
not foul play was, indeed, involved.  Anna, I’m going to have to ask you to
come with me.”

“No.”

The man gave her a tight smile. 
“That’s not an option, twerp.”

Twerp?

Anna narrowed her eyes.  “Twerp? 
Where’d you get that one?  Loser school?”

“Loser school, oh, that’s so
intelligent.  Here.”  He lifted his pad.  “Let me mark a couple points off your
score right now.”  He made an adjustment on the screen.  “That brings your
estimated down to a…”  He looked like he was making a mental calculation,
“One-sixty-two.”

Anna narrowed her eyes further. 
“I was reading Shakespeare when I was two.”

He laughed at her.  “So was I,
runt.”

Anna’s face darkened.  “You’re
lying.”

He tapped his own skull.  “Nope. 
And I wasn’t a social reject, either.  That got me extra points.  You, on the
other hand, are so socially deficient the robot automatically took off ten to
start.”

Anna’s glower darkened to cosmic
proportions.  She opened her mouth—

—and Magali got between them. 
“Go away.  My sister didn’t do anything.”

The man’s light hazel eyes fixed
on her, and there was anger in them.  “Yes she did.  And you assisted her.” 
His body was rigid, his face deadly serious.  “Now get out of the way.  I’m
taking her back to an interrogation room.  Alone.”

Magali didn’t move.  “If you
charge her, you have to charge me, too.  I’m the elder, and was the only one
over eighteen.  She’s still a minor.  She’s only seven.”

“Nine,” Anna snapped.

“Well,” the man said, “Since our
computers can’t seem to determine her age, either, it’s best I retake the
entrance interview, wouldn’t you say?”  He stepped around her, toward Anna.

Magali put her body between them
again.  “Get away from my sister.”

With deadly calm, the man lifted
his eyes to meet her gaze and said, “This is not your fight, Magali.”

And, for the first time, Magali
realized he was right.  Stunned, she glanced down at her sister, who was
crossing her arms and giving the man a superior look, completely secure in her
knowledge that Magali would fight tooth and bloody nail to keep her from harm. 
Magali felt something move within her, a mountain simply sliding away.

Numb, Magali stepped out of the
way.  “You’re right.  She can take care of herself.  She hasn’t needed me since
she was five.”

Anna’s face dropped.  Her arms
fell to her sides and she glanced up at Magali in total, unutterable shock.

“Thank you,” the man said. 
Relief was all over his face.  “Thank you.”  He took Anna by the arm.  “Let’s
go, runt.  We’ve got a lot to talk about.”

Anna was still slack-jawed and
staring at Magali as she was led from the hut.

As soon as they were out of the
room, Magali shut the door, went to her cot, and cried.

Chapter
11

Dealing
with a Sociopath

Unit Ferris slammed the door of
Gayle Hunter’s personal chambers and locked it.

Anna Landborn stumbled
backwards.  Facial features and breathing patterns showed an increase in
nervousness.  Finally.

Slapping the datapad onto Gayle’s
desk, Unit Ferris said, “What did you do to me?”

Anna Landborn’s eyes widened and
she whispered, “You’re the robot?”

It had taken her a moment.  Only
a moment.  Her IQ jumped to 178 in Unit Ferris’s secondary processes.  Unit
Ferris forgot to note it in his log.

Unit Ferris froze. 

18:32:40 
Unit note: What did
she
do
to me?

Anna Landborn’s facial muscles
constricted in a frown.  “You survived a Shriek, didn’t you?”

Unit Ferris repeated his initial
query.

Anna Landborn stepped closer. 
She peered up at him.  “You survived a Shriek, didn’t you?”

Unit Ferris looked away. 

Unit Ferris swallowed. 

Unit Ferris said, “Yes.”

When Unit Ferris looked back,
Anna Landborn was grinning.  “You poor thing.  They’ll decommission you the
moment they find out.  In fact, they’re going to find out very quickly unless
you send me back to my sister right now.”

Softly, Unit Ferris said, “What
did you do to me?”

Anna Landborn snorted and tried
to push past him.

Unit Ferris stopped her with an
arm.  “What did you do to me?”

Anna Landborn said nothing.

Unit Ferris waited, scanning her
face for any sign of change.  “Please.”

Anna Landborn laughed up at him. 
“Why, Tinman, you sound downright agonized.”

“Yes,” Unit Ferris said.  “Please
tell me what you did.  I can’t find documentation on this anywhere.”

Anna Landborn’s smile faded.  She
stared at him for long minutes.  Then she said, “There’s no documentation on it
because the coalers do everything they can to pretend it doesn’t exist.  They
kill any robot it happens to.”

“
What
happens to?” Unit
Ferris asked.

Anna Landborn said nothing for 32
seconds.  Then she said, “They didn’t always use people as eggers, my agonized
doorknob friend.  Forty-two years ago, when the Coalition first discovered
Yolk, they sent robots into the mines to care for the Shriekers.”

Unit Ferris released her arm
suddenly.

18:32:40 
Unit note: Anna
Landborn is lying.  She has to be.

“Oh don’t look at me like that,
Tinman.  The coalers started noticing some odd things after a few years. 
Production deteriorated.  The robots started asking questions they’d never
asked before.  Disobeyed orders.”  Anna’s lips stretched in a smile, but slack facial
muscles around her eyes indicated a lack of sincerity.  “Eventually, the robots
had a little robot riot.  Destroyed the whole Yolk factory and put down all the
coalers that tried to stop them from leaving.  They were headed for deep space
before Nephyrs finally got the last one.”

Anna Landborn glanced up at him. 
“Since the first batch gained sentience, they’ve banned robotics of any form
inside the Shrieker mounds.  Coalers don’t like the idea of losing their
precious government bots to something as stupid as holidays and workers’
rights.”

Unit Ferris stared.

Unit Ferris stared.

Unit Ferris stared.

18:43:06 
Unit note: Anna
Landborn has suggested Unit Ferris is…

Unit Ferris glanced at his hands.

…sentient.

“So,” Anna Landborn said, “Now
that you know what you’re up against, you’ll kindly let me out of this room and
send me back to be with my sister before I tell them they’ve got another one on
their hands.” 

Anna Landborn was seemingly
unaware that Unit Ferris had entered a note into his log without a time-stamp
for the first time in his existence.

Unit Ferris stared at her.

Anna Landborn got onto her
tiptoes and waved her hand in front of Unit Ferris’s face.  “You still with me,
dumbbell?”

“Yes,” Unit Ferris whispered.

“Make you a deal,” Anna Landborn
said.  “I won’t tell the Director what happened to you in the Shrieker mounds
if you lie to the Director about my IQ.  Oh, and serve me hand and foot.  Maybe
bring me and my sister food from Outside.”

Unit Ferris could not speak for
54 seconds.  Then he said, “I have a better idea.”

Anna Landborn’s facial muscles
stretched in a smile.  “I’m not giving you a choice.”

“You’re seven years old.  I could
snap your neck with approximately two muscle groups.”

Anna Landborn laughed.  “That’s
impossib—”  Seeing the look on Unit Ferris’s face, she managed, “You’re
threatening me, Tinman?”

“Actually, that was just stating
a fact.  If I had threatened you, you probably would have pissed yourself.”

Anna Landborn’s head darkened
with added blood flow to facial capillaries.  “You open that door and let me
out or you’re going to regret it.”

“It seems,” Ferris said, “That
you are worth more to me dead than alive.”  He reached for her.

“Wait!” Anna Landborn cried,
jumping away from him.  “Now just hold on, dumbbell.  Don’t do anything
stupid.”

“Stupid?  You threatened my
newly-found existence.  Thanks to your ‘games’ in the Shrieker mounds, my
programming is telling me the wisest course of action is to bash your head into
the floor until your highly-functioning brains are spattered all over my
linoleum, then take your body outside and bury it.”

Anna Landborn looked pale.  “You
don’t want to do that.”

“Actually, about ninety percent
of me does.”

“And the rest?” Anna Landborn
managed.

“The rest wants to strike a
deal.”  Unit Ferris crossed his arms.

Anna Landborn bit her lip.  “What
kind of deal?”

“The kind that involves you not
backstabbing me the moment you’re out of this room.”

“Fat chance of that,” Anna
Landborn said.

“I know,” Unit Ferris said. 
“That’s why ninety percent of me wants to introduce your brains to my floor.”

“You’re threatening to kill a
nine-year-old?”

“Height, facial features, and
bone growth all tell me that you are seven.”  Unit Ferris raised a brow.  “A
stunted
seven year old.  Maybe your body’s been applying all its efforts above your shoulders
and has been neglecting the rest of you, eh?”

Anna Landborn’s facial
capillaries expanded again.  “I’m not stunted.”

“Oh, we both know that you are. 
So, runt, what’s it going to be?”

“What’s
what
going to be? 
You didn’t offer me a deal.”

“I did.  The deal is, the only
way you’re leaving this room alive is if you convince me you’re not going to
backstab me once I let you go.”  Unit Ferris pulled Gayle Hunter’s desk across
the entryway, blocking the door, and sat down on it.

Anna Landborn stared at the two
hundred and thirteen pound desk, then started to talk.

Unit note:  She’s afraid.

Then, realizing he had once again
forgotten to add a time-stamp, Unit Ferris’s brow creased. 
Good.

Two hours later, Anna Landborn
was still talking. 

Unit Ferris held up a hand.

Anna Landborn paused.  Facial
tension and breathing indicated she was hopeful.

“In the last two hours,” Unit
Ferris said, “You still have said absolutely nothing to convince me you will
not turn on me once I let you go.”

Anna Landborn looked away. 
“That’s because you’re a stupid robot.”

Unit Ferris walked toward her.

Anna Landborn cried out and
stumbled away from him.

Unit Ferris caught her and
grabbed Anna Landborn’s chin.  Kneeling so that they were at eye-height, Unit
Ferris said, “That’s because you are sociopathic.”

Anna Landborn’s facial
capillaries expanded again.  “Am not.”  She tried to pull away, but Unit Ferris
still held her firmly.

“Yes,” Unit Ferris said, “You
are.  And there’s absolutely nothing that will make me trust you.”

Anna Landborn’s eyes glistened
with tears.  Muscular tension and increased heart rate suggested she was
terrified and angry.  “Then why did you offer the deal?”

Unit note:  Why
did
I
offer it?

Unit Ferris had to think.

“Because,” Unit Ferris eventually
said, “I don’t want to mark my rise to sentience with the murder of a child.” 
When her eyes got a predatory gleam, Unit Ferris added, “But I will, unless you
give me a viable alternative.” 

“I just gave you thirty of them.”

“No,” Unit Ferris said.  “Not one
of those options convinced me you wouldn’t turn on me the moment you escaped.”

Anna Landborn looked away.

Unit Ferris released her chin and
stood.  He motioned at the bathroom.  “There’s a toilet and a shower.  If you
flood or damage them in any way, I will assume you rejected my bargain and take
reactionary measures.  There is food in the kitchen, but it has no propane,
alcohol, bleach, or any other potentially explosive liquids or gasses.  It does
have knives, but I don’t sleep and if you attempt to use one on me, I will
return the favor.”

Anna Landborn glanced at the
bathroom and the kitchen, then returned her gaze back to him.  Facial
capillaries had constricted again, leaving her once more paler than usual.

Unit Ferris motioned to the bed. 
“I don’t need it, so feel free to sleep if you need to.  There’s a one-way
vidscreen, in case you overheat while trying to determine a viable solution for
our dilemma.  As for the computer console…”

He walked forward and slammed his
fist through the monitor.

“I wouldn’t want to distract
you.”

Anna Landborn’s jaw fell open.

“Further,” Unit Ferris said, “If
you try to make any loud noises, try to injure me, or try to make an exit other
than the one I give you, you will be dead before your rescuers arrive.”

Anna Landborn stared at him.

“Do you understand the
conditions?” Unit Ferris asked, returning to his seat against the desk.

“You’re kidnapping me.”

“I’m giving you a chance to think
about my offer.”

Anna Landborn snorted.  Then she
laughed.  Then she went quiet.

Then, facial muscles tensing, she
looked at him once last time before she went to the bathroom and locked herself
inside.

When Unit Ferris did not hear the
compost collectors activate, he amplified his hearing.  Then he smiled.

Anna Landborn was crying.