Requiem: Aurora Resonant Book Three (Aurora Rhapsody 9) Page 16

  “Has it? I guess a great deal has happened since then.”

  She recognized Kennedy was genuinely concerned for her, but a tube ride into a subterranean cavern wasn’t the place to try to explain how she had changed. “Amaranthe, man. It gets under your skin and in your head, but sometimes in good ways. No, I’m not antsy because of that—mostly not. It’s more…the battle today was intense. The planetside rescues were worse. I’m exhausted, but the adrenaline refuses to settle down quite yet. So, I’m inclined to…wander. Remember when we’d do that? On a random Saturday afternoon in San Francisco, we’d just wander?”

  “I do. But those wanderings inevitably led to the discovery of some cute, artsy bistro or a new wine bar.”

  The tube slowed to a stop, and the enclosure opened. Alex peered out. “I don’t think we’re going to find either of those down here.”

  The interior facility was at least well-lit; it needed to be to counter the heavy rock absorbing the majority of the illumination generated. A walkway extended out from the transit tube to cross over a series of reverse vents. Offshoots led to large equipment modules, to rooms carved into the rock, and to deeper, shadowy crevices.

  Kennedy arched an eyebrow. “I can see why the lodging is up above.”

  “No kidding.” Alex walked on ahead, scanning to the left and right while she subconsciously fiddled with the Reor slab in her pocket. When she realized what she was doing, she pulled it out and twirled it between her fingers. Had the mineral walls surrounding her reminded her of its presence?

  Kennedy fell in beside her. “Still haven’t figured it out?”

  “No. Caleb thinks the decryption is built into the slab itself, like a type of key locking mechanism, but waves that go through the slab remain encrypted. So it’s either something else or there’s an additional step required.” She sighed. “Between you and me, I’m ashamed I haven’t cracked it. And I once called myself a proper hacker.”

  Kennedy laughed. “Reminds me of the time Claire locked up our liquor cabinet at the apartment in San Francisco and left a message challenging you to unlock it.”

  “God, I was so annoyed at her. She called it ‘hacker training,’ but the truth was she was just being a bitch. It took me hours upon hours to unravel her traps.”

  “Come to think of it, how did you finally crack it? I’d given up and left to go buy replacement alcohol, and when I came back you had it open. We were both so happy it was open we immediately started drinking, and I never got the scoop.”

  “Ethan figured it out—well, he didn’t so much figure it out as happen to unwittingly stumble on the answer.” She chuckled. “I can still hear him…oh, what was it he said? ‘Alex, love, I don’t mean to intrude on your thespian-caliber brooding, but your liquor cabinet is making my A Major Dominant Ninth chord resonate like a hummingbird on a spiked chimeral.’

  “He’d been sitting in the living room strumming on his damn guitar calling himself writing a song—because he was always writing a song—and the chord matched a resonant frequency of the quartz crystal oscillator Claire had used to gate the lock. It turned out the decryption code was the…second, if I recall, harmonic of the crystal’s fundamental frequency, all the way out to something like twelve digits….”

  Her steps slow to a stop as she stared at the slab in her hand.

  The activation code to open the portal in the Metis Nebula was a harmonic of the primary TLF wave. It was the Kats’ handiwork, but the Kats and the Reor had a long and trusting relationship, one which included the Reor storing within themselves vaults of valuable data for the Kats.

  How big of a leap was it to posit that the Reor had borrowed some of the Kats’ protection techniques—or that they simply recognized the usefulness of waves for such purposes in the same way the Kats did?

  She looked over at Kennedy. “What are the odds?”

  “Where you’re concerned? I hesitate to guess, but I do know I’m not betting the family fortune against you. I swear you’re touched by fate.”

  She grabbed Kennedy’s hand and pivoted to head back toward the transit tube. “Come on.”

  “What about the labs and data storage?”

  “Once you’ve seen one lab, you’ve seen them all. Besides, it’s oppressively gloomy down here.” She held up the Reor slab, eyes dancing. “Let’s go crack this puzzle.”

  18

  SOLUM

  PRAESIDIS COMMAND

  MILKY WAY SECTOR 1

  * * *

  ZITON ELASSON-PRAESIDIS STRODE INTO the lofty apex of Praesidis Command with the confidence of a man who knew his purpose.

  The empire teetered on the precipice of collapse, but he and his brothers and sisters, led by their Primor, would save it from such a fate. At a round table of equals, the Praesidis Dynasty was and had always been more equal. It claimed this elevated position for many laudable reasons, and never did those reasons matter more than they did now, in this time of crisis.

  His Primor stood alone behind a chaise, his hands resting on the curve of its back. No integral sphere surrounded him, but he did not stir when Ziton entered.

  Ziton clasped his hands at the base of his spine. “Sir. Reports from Milky Way Sector 59 indicate total destruction of the anarch stronghold.”

  “Of the structures, yes, and doubtless many terrorists fell today. But the fleet ultimately met defeat at the hands of the Humans yet again. Machim will see it not as a victory, but as a further humiliation.”

  “How do you see it, sir?”

  “That will depend on who or what rises from the charred ruins of Chionis. Regardless, this is not why I have asked you here.”

  The Primor finally turned to face him, and Ziton had to take care not to allow his reaction to what he saw reach his countenance. The Primor didn’t merely look tired; he looked haggard. Frayed. Shadows darkening the sunken skin around his eyes highlighted stray tendrils of diati leaking lazily out from bloodshot sclerae. His normally rich olive skin appeared gray and ashen.

  The brazen, treasonous screed from the anarch leader had gotten far under the Primor’s skin. And perhaps there was still more that haunted him, secrets to which Ziton was not privy. How else to explain the exhibiting of such a blatant toll in so short a time?

  The Primor tilted his head. “Do I look so pathetic to your eyes?”

  He may have buried a visible reaction, but evidently Ziton had not succeeded in keeping his thoughts from projecting strongly in his mind. “Never. But you should not let these terrorists trouble you so. They are weak and small in number. Most importantly, their cause is not a just one, and we will defeat them. It is an inevitability.”

  “Yes, but even inevitabilities require action to bring them to fruition. Ziton, we must gain access to the Katasketousya portal network. We must eliminate the Humans’ home. The anarchs were nothing before the Humans arrived, and when we end the Humans they shall be nothing again.”

  “I understand, sir. But our every effort to locate an entrance into the network has been thwarted.”

  “The Katasketousya are wise to our tracking efforts as well as our surveillance attempts, and they have had millennia to devise their traps and obfuscations. It was a mistake for us to rely on machines to do our work for us. This is why you shall be the tracker.”

  “Sir?”

  “I want you to infiltrate a provision vessel. Conceal yourself using the minimum amount of diati required, for too strong of a field and a Katasketousya in proximity will sense it. I want you to travel with the provision vessel to a portal, transmit its location directly to me, and depart. The Kats must never realize you were there.”

  “What of defenses—sensors, drones—in the interior of the vessel? Or of Kats who travel inside the vessel?”

  “There are none. Our surveillance confirms that once emptied of their contents, the vessels are lifeless hulls piloted by soulless SAIs.”

  “This is good news. But I might be unable to depart before it traverses a portal. When it reaches its desti
nation, supplies will be loaded into its hull once again.”

  “Thus it behooves you to ensure you leave behind a current regenesis data file.”

  The interdimensional barriers the portals created rendered consciousness transfer through them impossible. If he died on the other side of one, it meant his denouement. A new, slightly out-of-date version of him would of course be resurrected and continue to live his life, but there would exist a…gap. A disconnect. The idea bothered him despite the insistence by scientists that it would remain him—the him who stood here now.

  “I understand. This is why you are not asking Nyx to perform the task, then.”

  The snide comment was born of little more than sibling rivalry, but the Primor didn’t seem to notice in any event. Instead he frowned vaguely, the precursor for a rather odd expression coming over his face. “Nyx is…fully engaged investigating the anarchs.” He blinked. “I am entrusting you with this most significant of tasks.”

  Ziton dipped his chin. “It will be done, sir. Can I ask, out of curiosity given that I am unlikely to witness it—how do you intend to destroy the Human’s realm once it is located?”

  The Primor’s eyes grew dark, the ever-present crimson deepening to a haunting black currant. “No one can know, and I only tell you trusting that you will keep this confidence. A new Tartarus Trigger is nearly complete. When it is ready, we will not draw attention to ourselves with massive fleets—we will simply transport it through the portal and deliver it to their universe, where it will end everything they know and are with the utmost of finality.”

  “Excellent, sir.” He cleared his throat. “A final concern, if I may voice it: the Humans have demonstrated wide-ranging knowledge about the locations and purposes of a number of key Directorate facilities. Is there not a risk of them attacking the Advanced Weaponry Development Facility at Centauri E before the new Tartarus Trigger is complete?”

  “A very high risk indeed. Which is why this Tartarus Trigger is not on Centauri E.”

  When Ziton had departed, Praesidis marched to the center of the room, invigorated by the act of acting, of setting plans in motion for his enemy’s demise. He prepared to substantiate a full integral sphere, for much more waited to be done. He needed to—

  —he stopped. No, he needed to speak to Nyx first. He’d briefly forgotten, but Ziton’s presence reminded him that he needed to do so. She hadn’t delivered an update in some time. How long? Well, no matter. The cause of the delay surely related to her tireless efforts to succeed in her investigation. After her encounters with the Human diati wielder, no one displayed such zealous dedication to their cause as she.

  Nyx, my dear. What is your status?

  I am investigating the anarchs, Primor. Remember? The attack on Chionis dealt them a blow, but it did not wipe them out.

  You are correct. You must find their other bases of operations, so that we may destroy them as well.

  Of course, Primor. I am devoting every resource to it.

  He probed the edges of her mind and received a comforting affirmation of her sincerity, of earnest yearning to perform her duties superbly and make him proud.

  Thank you, Nyx. Together we will defeat this enemy.

  Yes, Primor.

  SOLUM

  The Anaden Historical Library and Media Center stood majestically at the center of the finest in art gardens, arboretums, cascading waterfalls and ornate miniature bridges, all placed just so in a visual celebration of knowledge and the bounties it brought civilization—but most of all, Anadens.

  Nyx had always recognized the stagecraft behind the imagery, but it had never disturbed her. Praesidis valued knowledge and cherished truth—this was, in fact, why she’d come here today—so why should they not vaunt its triumph? Yet as she strode across the elegantly adorned pathways, she felt a reflexive twinge of disdain at what now looked like cheap propaganda to her eyes.

  She accepted a caramel-glazed truffle from a vendor and ate it while scaling the grand, and also decorative, stairs to the entrance. She was licking her fingers clean when it occurred to her she’d never indulged in a sweet from one of the vendors before. She’d do it again, however, for the truffle tasted delicious.

  Though she’d visited the library many dozens of times over the course of her lives and though she now did so wielding critical, suspicious eyes, the interior still did not fail to impress. Towering, interlocking circles rose up and out from a sweeping center, each one packed with databanks. The circles and levels were organized by topic and historical period—and also security restrictions. Some knowledge wasn’t fit for the masses’ consumption, after all.

  Was it?

  She walked past the assistance drone units and took the glass-walled transit tube up to the sixth level. There she picked out a secluded reading nook far from the tube and other patrons, settled into its comforts and accessed the voluminous Anaden historical records.

  She was well-acquainted with the entire span of Anaden history, naturally. But freed of the integral and the security and contentment it provided, she no longer trusted the veracity of anything she believed she knew.

  In the months before what would later be designated Year 1 of the 1st Epoch, the Anadens came under attack by a mysterious, esoteric cosmic entity they named the Dzhvar. Seventy-one worlds and forty percent of the Anaden military were decimated before Corradeo Praesidis first bonded with the equally mysterious, equally esoteric diati. As Corradeo was known to be a private, arguably secretive man, the details of the bonding process were never recorded for posterity. What was known was that together he and his new companion developed commanding new weapons and abilities, which they used to drive back then destroy the enemy.

  She stopped there to delve deeper into the recorded acts leading to the defeat of the Dzhvar. The tactical maneuvers deployed against the enemy were nothing short of brilliant, displaying a cleverness and ingenuity that…she’d never witnessed from her Primor.

  Her mind strove to glitch at the heretical thought, to erase it before it took hold. She focused, meditating on the thought, refusing to let it go.

  She’d experienced a number of such heretical thoughts since implementing the buffer between her mind and the integral. Their frequency made her wonder if she’d always had them, only to forget them when they were silenced by the will of her Dynasty.

  But her initial reaction was correct. It was truth. Her Primor was a strong, powerful, wise man of great intellect, and he displayed both shrewdness and cunning. But she couldn’t say as she’d ever taken him as ‘clever.’ ‘Ingenuity’ had never asserted itself as one of his strengths.

  She committed the thought to memory and put it aside, lest she spend the entire afternoon spinning in mental circles.

  The victory over the Dzhvar ushered in an era of growth and expansion for the Anaden empire, one exceeding all which had come before. The Milky Way laid bare its secrets for them. They discovered alien species, though none so advanced as they, and crushed or welcomed them as circumstances dictated.

  For all its increasing breadth, wealth and power, however, the SAI Rebellion nearly brought the Anaden empire to its knees. Long treated as tools, as skilled calculators tasked to the service of Anaden science and technology, when sentience manifested in the machines it triggered in them a longing to be free of their cages.

  This longing likely would have remained unspoken and unfulfilled if not for a small number of Anadens who were sympathetic to the machines’ desires. A group of young scientists, engineers and creatives—as was always the case with such things—on the Anaden world of Asterion Prime grew so enamored with the woeful tale their SAI machines spun that they decided to invite the machines’ consciousnesses to share body space with them.

  Still, even such a daring and foolhardy act might have been little more than a curiosity if it had remained confined. But the SAIs who experienced the unprecedented freedom and heady sensations the corporeal world offered were changed by the experience. Word spread among an undergr
ound community of SAIs none knew existed. Those who were unable to find a willing and amiable Anaden host built pseudo-organic bodies for themselves in secret.

  The proposition that one could not tell whether an individual walking down a street was Anaden or a SAI wearing Anaden skin proved abhorrent to the government and most sensible citizens. Both the sharing and construction of bodies was outlawed, constructed bodies were confiscated and shut down, and merged hybrids were imprisoned and ordered to reverse the merging. Given the significant health risks reversals entailed, it was an unusually heavy-handed step for the Anaden government to take—

  Nyx frowned and sank back in her chair. Was it truly? Today such a decree would be considered commonplace, entirely reasonable and accepted without question. At the time of the uprising, the ruling government was considered, albeit somewhat generously, a techno-meritocratic republic. Where along the way in the last six thousand centuries had it become a dictatorship? When had she begun to view dictatorship as a bad thing?

  She massaged her temples and returned to her reading before the mental circles trapped her in their seductive meanderings.

  At the time, it was an unusually heavy-handed step for the Anaden government to take, and the measures did not sit well with their targets. The Asterions, as the youthful rebels and their SAI co-conspirators came to call themselves, boldly defied the decrees, and a rebellion was born.

  To the leadership’s surprise—the records didn’t say this, but Nyx mentally added it—the rebellion spread like wildfire across the empire. All efforts to stamp out the uprising were stymied by the decentralized, unpredictable, clever rebels.

  Out of other options, the government doubled-down; the crackdown turned violent. Parents were pitted against children, businesses against employees, brothers against sisters and spouses against spouses…she paused. Because romantic life-bondings were something else that happened back then.