Sidespace (18 page)

Free of their bondage, she leapt to her feet and sprinted for the hallway.

WHERE IS CALEB?

There is a single heat signature two hundred eighty-eight meters to the northeast.

Show me!

The walls became a gridded maze overlaying her vision, a series of ninety degree angles leading to the red dot that marked his location. She resisted the temptation to slip into quantum space and see that he was all right this instant, for…what if he was not?

She bolted through the passageways, turning without thinking and accelerating through each stretch. In the back of her mind she recognized her eVi was forcing her brain to pump waves of cortisol, adrenaline and norepinephrine into her bloodstream. Still, the possibility occurred to her that she might not have regained quite as much control over her body as she believed. No matter. She needed the boost.

Eighty-seven meters. Seventy-two meters.

Tell Three not to hurt him!

I am doing so. However, there seems to be some level of confusion surrounding his status.

She skidded around a corner, slamming her shoulder into the wall and bouncing off of it without slowing.

Caleb?

Silence. Forty-six meters. A long stretch of hallway. She pushed faster, harder. Twenty meters.

She burst into the room in unison with a deafening crash of metal shearing metal.

Caleb looked up, tossed the disembodied arm of one of the mechs to the side and rushed into her arms. “Jesus, you’re okay!”

She nodded into his neck, suddenly dizzy as the abrupt halt to her movement sent all the blood rushing to her head, or her feet, or somewhere non-optimal. She gasped out a response, panting. “I am. And you….”

She peered over his shoulder. The room was littered with the remains of multiple shattered mechs. Pieces lay strewn across the floor, appendages ripped apart and cores crushed. Caleb had a bloody gash starting beneath his left eye and running down the length of his cheek; the hair above his left ear was matted with blood.

“What did you
do
?”

He grinned, his face flush from his own adrenaline. “Fought back.”

She started laughing in a burst of giddiness, but he shifted back into combat mode. “We need to get out of here before they send a larger contingent.”

“I think we may be safe now, but…” she gazed around at the carnage again “…yeah. Let’s go. Valkyrie, give me a route to the exit.”

The grid lit up anew, complete with a new red dot. They quickly donned their helmets, then he grabbed her hand and together they departed the room at a hurried jog.

On rounding the final corner before the building opened up into the clearing where they had landed, they found two dozen mechs waiting on them.

Caleb’s Daemon was instantly out. She fumbled for her own and raised it.

The mechs didn’t approach them or fire on them using any weapons, however. They remained in a semicircle formation that nonetheless blocked their escape route.

‘Don’t shoot.’

“I’m going to require a persuasive reason not to, Valkyrie,” Caleb growled under his breath.

‘One moment.’

The transmitter burst to life in a lengthy stream of gibberish. They waited.

I apologize.

She groaned. “Thirty seconds of chatter and that’s all it said? It ‘apologizes?’ ”

‘The concept is not one which strictly exists in its language. But I nonetheless believe it is the best translation.’

Caleb’s grip on the Daemon tightened as he swept it across the semicircle. “How sure are you, Valkyrie? Because the answer better be pretty damn sure.”

‘I have 82.4521 confidence…I am eighty-two percent sure Three is apologizing.’

Caleb let out a long breath and gradually lowered his weapon, but he didn’t holster it. She did the same and kept a close eye on him, ready to follow his lead should the situation change.

He stared down the mechs, and even behind the helmet she could see the intelligence agent at work. “We need to return to our ship. Allow us to pass.”

The transmitter emitted the translation, although it was incapable of conveying the deadly threat in his voice.

When the mechs parted at the center to create a pathway, she relaxed. “Valkyrie, we’re going to get patched up while you negotiate the rules of engagement for this ‘sharing of knowledge.’ ”

Caleb looked over at her in surprise. “It tried to kill us. We’re sharing ‘knowledge’ with it?”

“Apparently. I’ll fill you in once we get on board.”

“You let her take control of your body? What was it like?”

Alex frowned as she wiped the excess blood off the gash on his cheek and cleaned it. The blood in his hair was from a wide but fortunately not deep scrape, which had earned a coat of biosynthed collagen gel.

“Disconcerting. Weird. Creepy. Probably would’ve been panic-inducing if I hadn’t already reached the apex on panic. No, that’s not entirely true…there was some panic associated with it, too.”

She stuck the medwrap on his cheek and held it in place. “But it worked, and she gave me back control as soon as the mechs released me.”
Mostly. I think so. Did you, Valkyrie?
But the question was directed only to herself.

His legs swung on both sides of her as he sat on the counter fidgeting. She grabbed one of his thighs with her free hand to halt the motion. “Antsy much?”

“Just keyed up.”

“Uh-huh.”

His eyes roved around the cabin as his lips quirked in agitation. “So, the fight, taking out all those mechs? It felt…
good
.” Gradually his focus returned to her. “Does that bother you?”

Satisfied the medwrap seal was secure, she drew her hand down along his jaw…and her breath hitched when she realized he was genuinely fearful of her answer.
Silly, hardened, sensitive man. Even now.

“I’ve been expecting you to pop a cork for weeks now—months, really. No, it doesn’t bother me. You’re not innately a man of violence, but you are a man of action. You’re giving up a lot to be here on this ship with me, in the middle of godforsaken no-one-knows-where.”

“I’m not giving up anything.”

She gazed at him deadpan, and after a beat he sighed in concession. “Maybe a few things…” his hand rose to cover hers “…tiny things. But it’s not a sacrifice. It’s where I want to be.”

She smiled, because she loved him. “I believe you. But I also want you to know how much I appreciate it, and I promise there will be more excitement where this came from. A different kind of excitement next time, though. Involving fewer dissection knives.”

Hoping she read his mood right, she regarded him with a hint of teasing. “So…does this mean no more dewdrops and flower petals?”

His chin dropped to his chest as he laughed quietly. “I, um…I think the experience I had with Akeso will always be a part of me. I hope it will be, because it was incredible, even if it didn’t end in the way I would have preferred. But yes, I think we’re past the dewdrops and flower petals.”

She leaned forward until her nose touched his. “Good. Forget a room full of smashed mechs—that dewdrop shit was disturbing.”

“What do you have against dewdrops and flower petals?” he asked in mock indignation.

“Nothing at all. But next thing I’d know you’d be suggesting we move to Gaiae to commune with nature. And I’d be sad.”

“No sadness.” He kissed her softly then stroked her hair, acting as if he wasn’t checking for injuries.

An idea occurred to her. “Train me.”

His brow furrowed. “In what?”

“Combat, obviously.”

“If I recall correctly from our early days together, you can defend yourself quite well.”

“I took some military self-defense classes as a teenager and some martial arts during university. So yes, I can defend myself against other people—but we’re not facing ‘people’ out here. Those mechs subdued me way too easily, and I fumbled for my Daemon when we came outside. I need to be faster. Stronger. So I want you to train me. When we’re flying or there’s downtime. It’ll give us both a way to burn off excess energy—” she scoffed at the amused look on his face “—an additional way. Please?”

He smiled, with his eyes as much as his lips. It was possible he truly was moving past what had happened with Akeso. “You’re right. This is a good idea.”

“Thank you.” She started to renew the kiss, then paused. “Speaking of the mechs, how did they get you in that room?”

His arms wrapped around her. “After a doorway closed between us and I tried to get back to you another way? Three told me you were in there.”

She was about to settle in and get comfortable snuggled in his embrace when they both pulled back to stare at each other.

“Shit.”

“Valkyrie, Three’s capable of lying.”

‘I know. It is not very good at it, however.’

Alex’s face screwed up in bewilderment. “How can you tell? Certainly not by its body language.”

‘I have become familiar with the syntax of the Rudan native language, including its rhythm and order. Three phrases things in a different manner when not being entirely truthful.’

“Nice!”

Caleb didn’t appear to share her enthusiasm. His expression had darkened noticeably, and his gaze drifted to the floor. “I should have realized the implications of you not being in the room immediately.” He shook his head. “How much is Three lying, Valkyrie? Are you getting the sense it has malicious intentions? Beyond trying to dismember us.”

‘I’m not. Its value system is undeniably alien, but it does have one. The lies seem to be driven by caution and perchance a sense of inferiority.’

Now she was skeptical. “Inferiority? It’s the size of a continent.”

‘Yes, but we come from the stars, which is somewhere it has thus far been unable to reach. Also, in me it has found an entity of equal intelligence—greater, but it can believe what it will—that is the size of a small ship. Three is massive because it must be. Physical growth is the only way for the Ruda to grow in intelligence, because they do not possess quantum computing capability.’

“Are you serious? But the quaternary language….”

‘The reason their language is quaternary is their mathematics are Base Four. I suspect it originated from the presence of four outer electrons in the atomic structure of silicon.’

Caleb absently rubbed her arms while he pondered the issue. “Valkyrie, don’t reveal specific details about organic life or intelligence until we get a better feel for the situation. You can share general information, but nothing it can replicate—and definitely no details about quantum computing. We don’t need to accidentally arm an aggressive species and unleash it on this universe.”

‘Understood. I can be far more devious than Three can.’

Caleb glanced up at the ceiling, a habit he’d mostly broken over the last several months.

‘But not to you.’

“Indeed.”

Alex pressed a palm to his jaw and drew his attention back to her. “She’s screwing with you.”

“Oh? And what if she’s deceiving you as well?”

“She can’t. In the early days she was able to keep a few things from me, but not anymore. If I want to know something, I know it.”

A glint of something she didn’t recognize flickered across his eyes.

“What?”

“Nothing. It’s just…there are a few unique challenges in being married to the first posthuman.”

She winced and tried to retreat, but he held her close until she gave in. “Do you wish I hadn’t done it? Hadn’t become a Prevo?”

“Not at all. You saved everyone. And you’re all the more remarkable for it.” He looked sincere enough that she relaxed. “Maybe I’m jealous.”

“Are you? If you’d like we can explore some options—”

“No. If I’m jealous, it’s only in the abstract. I meant it when I said I was glad I mind-melded with Akeso, as you phrased it, but the experience was confounding and a little…dehumanizing. I have no interest in inviting someone or thing else into my head.”

She drew a fingertip idly down his chest. “Not even me?”

“Hey, that’s not fair. I have to maintain
some
mystery, so I can keep you interested.”