The Girls From Alcyone (11 page)

The Kimura Corporation was impressed with the girls progress and had tripled their investment in Dr. Garrett's operation. A brand new annex for the Academy had been built higher up in the mountains and was three-times the size of the existing facility. Soon, the girls would move there, and a new group of students would take their place in their existing dormitory.

The girls had grown accustomed to their isolation on Alcyone—having so many people around felt quite strange. Stranger still were the looks they got from the cargo handlers, who had a tendency to stop and stare. The Marines exercised a bit more self-discipline, but Sigrid could still feel their eyes on them as she walked by, hand-in-hand with Suko. Having grown up in isolation with nothing to compare themselves to, the girls didn't realize they looked little like normal school girls. Years of harsh training had fashioned them into a lean and lethal bunch; all the girls carried themselves with a certain predatory grace. The modifications Dr. Garrett had provided had enhanced virtually every aspect of their biology, giving a healthy extra push where nature left off.

For years, Sigrid had fretted as she watched the other girls develop ahead of her. She'd been self-conscious about her own body, often wondering if she'd ever catch up. Her growth-spurt had kicked in late; and while she'd been disappointed when her height peaked at five-foot one—
and a half
, she insisted—at least the rest of her had filled out nicely. She was finally starting to feel like a young woman instead of the adolescent schoolgirl she'd felt like for so long.

One of the cargo-workers, a young man in his twenties, fell into step beside them.

"Hello, Sigrid," he said; he hadn't bothered to acknowledge Suko. "Where you headed?"

Sigrid greeted him with a polite smile. "They gave us the morning off. We're going up to watch the landings."

"Lucky you. I'd go, but we're pretty backed-up here. Too bad about the clouds though. You're not going to see much."

"Better than more of Rosa's exercises."

"Yeah—I've seen that stuff…" He glanced over his shoulder at the crew working behind him. "Look, I gotta get back before my supervisor has a fit. But I was wondering…maybe we could meet later—after my shift…?"

"Okay." Sigrid nodded and watched him trot off.

She turned to walk back toward the gates—and bumped straight into Suko. Suko tightened her grip on Sigrid's hand.

"
Ow…
"

"Who was that?" Suko asked, drily.

"That's, uh, Matthew—"

"Matthew." Suko seemed unimpressed. "I think he looks dodgy."

Sigrid felt oddly flustered. "No, he's…he's nice, actually."

"I didn't realize you were hanging out with the
workies
now."

"We weren't
hanging out
. We were just…" Confused, Sigrid looked at Suko. Suko's chest was rising and falling quickly and her jaw was slightly clenched. Sigrid felt the tightness of Suko's hand around her own and the intensity of her gaze.

Sigrid stepped closer, taking Suko's other hand. "Suko, he's just a boy—
he's
nobody
."

Suko's eyes softened and she opened her mouth, as if to say something, but they were interrupted by Leta who ran up to join them.

"What are you doing down
here?
You're going to miss the whole thing!"

She slipped between the two girls, linking both their arms in her own. She looked spectacular, as always. Her damp, red curls hung loosely over her shoulders and down her back,
sparkling with flecks of thawing snow. The light sleeveless shirt she wore clung to her, showing off her toned arms and strong shoulders.

A sudden
boom
overhead made all three girls look up.

"Come on!" Sigrid called, towing them along and increasing their pace to a run. The sound was the sonic boom of a shuttle entering the atmosphere high above. The three girls ran out through the Academy gates and up the slope to join the other girls who had gathered to watch the shuttles coming in. They got there just in time and clambered up onto a snowy ledge where they'd have an unobstructed view.

Sigrid raised her hands toward the heavy, overcast sky. "I can't see a thing!"

"You're not using your
head
," Suko said, snickering. She tapped Sigrid on her forehead.

Sigrid sighed and silently cursed herself. She activated her optical implant and scanned skyward; the heavy thermal signatures from the shuttle's massive thrusters were clear to see as it blasted down through the clouds. Scanning the electrical signatures provided an even more dazzling sight. The ground shook beneath them as the throaty roar of the re-entry boosters grew louder and louder. Sigrid quickly ramped down the frequency in her audio modules to avoid being overwhelmed by the noise.

They all cried out when the shuttle burst through the clouds, close above their heads at two-hundred feet. The skeletal craft comprised a tangled framework of thrusters connected by a long supporting structure. It looked surprisingly delicate. Sigrid wondered how it could possibly support the massive hundred-meter-long transport container it carried in its cradle.

The shuttle's sixteen thrusters flared brilliantly as it descended on the Academy grounds. The Cargo-Handlers hardly gave the thing a second glance as they continued with their duties; even though the leviathan craft looked as if it were about to crush everyone beneath it. With a loud, clanking thud of metal on metal, the shuttle deposited the container expertly on the growing stack in the middle of the compound. After pausing to disconnect its burden, the pilots maneuvered the craft swiftly to the side, hooking onto one of the empty containers. The thrusters flared and roared again as the shuttle climbed quickly back into the thick cover of the clouds. The whole operation had taken less than a minute.

The girls hooted and clapped in appreciation.

Over the next two hours, seven more shuttles arrived to deliver the remainder of the cargo from the freighter parked in orbit. Even more impressive, at least to Sigrid, was the busy fleet of smaller transports that emptied the containers and whisked off the supplies to their final destination in the new annex.

"I can't believe this is all for us," Suko said.

"And for the new girls, I suppose," Sigrid said.

It was odd to imagine that a new group of younger girls would soon be moving in to take their place, stranger still to think they would be leaving soon to move to the new annex. She'd have her own room there, in the much larger facility, something all the girls were looking forward to, but Sigrid still felt a certain anxiety about being uprooted.

And a darker anxiety was lurking even deeper within her. They were about to begin the final phase of their enhancements, and their time at the Academy would soon be over.

Soon, they would be leaving Alcyone.

CHAPTER NINE

Annex

From The Journal of Dr. Lisa Garrett

February 21, 2348

RE: Project Andraste

Dear Hitomi-san,

I've been spending much of my time at the new annex getting things prepared for the final phase of our work. It's hard to believe so much time has gone by, but I couldn't be more pleased with the results.

Our greatest challenge has been to keep an accurate chart of the girls' progress. We had hoped to see improvements, physically anyway, in the range of twenty-five to forty percent, but the evidence suggests something more in the realm of 135% greater than normal. We've created quite the batch of young Olympians here. Their endurance and ability to adapt to climactic extremes has been most impressive.

Tomorrow we'll bring the girls to the new facility where we'll begin the final phase of the their modifications. I'll finally be able to integrate the systems and initiate the final sequence. It's time to
hook it all up and turn it on
, so to speak. We've dubbed the procedure 'Activation.' It seems to sum it up fairly well.

The new Master Control Program has been tested and retested, and I'm satisfied that the subjects are ready to have it uploaded to their Primary Control Modules. If this works as we expect, all their modifications will coalesce into a fully-functioning Artificial Neural Network, allowing them to operate at maximum capacity.

We anticipate improvements in their ability to process sensory data by an order of magnitude as their own biological receptors integrate with the bionic Sensory Modules. I would imagine that this will be much
like the blind suddenly being given the gift of sight, except that this will involve all their senses at once. It should prove to be a somewhat profound experience for them, and we will record their transformation for complete analysis.

We've received the data-packet you've supplied us—the Tactical Operations Database, I believe you called it. Once the Control Program is activated, we'll upload this packet to the girls' PCMs for field testing.

I know what Dr. Wolsey would be saying right now, but I'm sure you'll agree that we're long past the fail-safe point. There's no turning, back.

All that remains is to turn it on.

Yours truly,

Lisa

* * *

Three
Kingfisher
transports took off from the compound carrying the thirty girls and their instructors. The heavy overcast skies hung as low and gloomy as Sigrid's spirits. The Academy was almost back to normal, finally freed from the clutter of giant containers and crews. The only visible change
was the temporary barracks that housed the Mercenary Force; the majority of the mercenaries would stay at the Academy to guard the new girls, while a platoon would accompany the senior girls to the 'Annex', as it had been aptly named.

They weren't going far; the Annex was only fifteen kilometers distant, but much of that was straight up. As the transports burst through the cloud bank, Sigrid caught her first glimpse of the new facility. The mountains here were a series of sheer, vertical cliffs; the Annex was literally carved directly into the side of the tallest peak. The Kimura engineers had spent the last few months blasting and tunneling to create the facility. Five stories of terraces and windows were visible from the exterior; Sigrid could see people moving about on several of them—staff members and workers who had gathered to watch the approach of the transports.

There was no visible landing platform though, and the transports climbed even higher, up and over to the far side of the hollowed-out mountain. They landed on a platform built atop the wide glacier at the base of the peak. The ice was smooth and as firm as concrete, and held the heavy structure easily.

The glacier shone brilliantly, reflecting the dazzling midday sunlight. As the girls exited the transports, their enhanced eyes adjusted easily to the blinding light. Lacking such modifications, the instructors had to wear dark goggles. They also wore heavy coats to protect them from the wind that ripped across the ice.

Sigrid gasped as she stood before the large portal the engineers had cut into the rock. Twenty-five meters high and more than a hundred wide, it was large enough to allow entrance and storage for the transports and trucks that would service the facility. Icy flecks of snow, whipped by the fierce, gusting winds, struck Sigrid's bare arms and stuck in her hair.

Suko placed Sigrid's discarded coat over her friends shoulders and dropped Sigrid's duffel at her feet. "I think you forgot something," she said, pointing at the bag.

Sigrid was still staring at the maw ahead of them; she felt as though it would swallow her.

"Come on—it'll be okay," Suko said, wrapping an arm around her. Sigrid picked up the duffel and let Suko lead her by the hand to their new home.

Inside, the hallways were all of polished stone, hollowed out from the mountain above them, with some sections constructed with shaped permacrete. The idea of living in a series of tunneled-out warrens had seemed depressing. Sigrid had imagined her new home to be cramped and claustrophobic, but the high corridors and spacious common areas—with large windows and terraces—filled her with a sense of awe. She'd never seen a place like it.

Their guide led them up two levels to the living area where they'd be quartered. Each girl was presented with her own room, something most of them had never had. Only the richest families, most of whom lived in Earth's cordoned-off enclaves, could dream of having rooms to themselves.

Sigrid dumped her duffel on her bunk and looked at her new home. The walls were of the same grey, polished stone as the hallways outside, but the room wasn't drab at all. The rock had a sparkle to it that caught and reflected the light from the overhead lamps. Her bed was larger than the one she'd had in the dormitory, and she had her own desk. There were no closets, but a small armoire sat in the corner, along with a number of hooks for hanging jackets and clothes.

"Looks just like my room," Suko quipped.

Sigrid jumped; she hadn't heard her friend come in. Suko put her arms around Sigrid's waist, resting her chin on her shoulder.

"Could be worse," Sigrid reasoned. She was starting to think the Annex might not be so bad.

"I have a surprise for you." Suko put her lips next to Sigrid's ear and whispered, "There's a swimming pool."

* * *

Sigrid sat alone in her room, a little overwhelmed by how quiet it was. Nine years of being surrounded by more than thirty girls had not prepared her for the emptiness of the sudden solitude she was experiencing. There had been no work for the girls that day. They'd spent their time exploring every inch of the Annex, though they'd all been assured that tomorrow would be all work. If she didn't get to sleep soon, she'd pay for it in spades in the morning.

Sigrid undressed. She tossed her shirt and bra in the laundry and folded her pants neatly on a hanger before she climbed into bed. Normally, sleep came as soon as her head touched the pillow. Rosa and his staff always did a good job of making sure the girls were exhausted. Sigrid tossed and turned for a further ten minutes before casting her blanket off and staring wide-eyed at the stone ceiling.