Requiem: Aurora Resonant Book Three (Aurora Rhapsody 9) Read online

  He sat beside Miriam and listened to her describe the way these meetings typically proceeded as well as what needed to be covered this morning. He knew all this, or at least had internalized the gist of it before leaving behind his virtual existence, but he liked hearing her talk. Talk to him, even if her tone was subdued and reserved on account of the setting.

  While he listened, his eyes identified faces and matched them with the records stored in his uniquely hybrid mind—a physical, human brain made of neurons, synapses and glial cells, holding memories and information in the normal way but also a vast storehouse of data in quantum form. Well, perhaps not entirely unique; it couldn’t be so different from how a Prevo’s mind operated, though he didn’t have an Artificial sharing the space.

  A tall man bearing Mediterranean features and SF-style BDUs entered the meeting room. Field Marshal Nolan Bastian. No prior personal history. He returned his attention to Miriam.

  The meeting hadn’t yet begun, but his wife’s stance was comfortably formal, her shoulders and chin level, her countenance guarded—aware of the audience even as she spoke with him. A stark contrast to the night before, but it was a mien he knew well.

  While he could put on airs when he must, for the most part he had always simply presented himself as who he was, regardless of the situation or company he found himself in. But Miriam had consistently maintained two personas, the public and the private. A vague…sense, formed from the sum total of transferred facts he’d brought with him into this world, told him that in his absence the private persona had faded and the public one hardened. If the shift had begun to reverse course of late, it was due to a kaleidoscope of events but above all the marked improvement in her relationship with Alex.

  He forced himself not to dwell on the state of the relationship until recently. It was his fault, and the ache in his chest over it didn’t need the excuse of dwelling to materialize, but he shouldn’t encourage it. And they had reconciled on their own, without him. So it was all fine now.

  Almost as if she’d known he was thinking of her, Alex walked in then, Caleb off her left shoulder. While everyone else had thus far been trying to ignore the oddity in the room, her gaze instantly fell on him, brightened by a vibrant smile that washed away sorrow and regret alike.

  She strode across the long room to reach him, leaning down to hug him and whisper in his ear. “I’m glad last night went well.”

  He nodded as she drew back, the only response he could or should give. ‘Well’ was a poor descriptor, but no single word could capture the joy and the pain, the ecstasy and the terror, the soothing comfort and the chilling fissures which had punctuated the hours of last night.

  He shook Caleb’s hand in greeting when it was offered. He didn’t doubt his son-in-law’s gesture was sincere, but he also recognized it was intended to send a message to their audience. The more people present who accepted him without question, the easier it would be for the rest to do so. He wished he didn’t need the assist, but right now he’d take it.

  Agitated murmurs at the door weren’t drowned out by Alex and Caleb talking to Miriam as they sat down. His gaze casually swept in the direction of the doorway. Earth Alliance Brigadier Malcolm Jenner. AEGIS Ambassador Mia Requelme. Jenner would have seen historical visuals adorning the walls of Miriam’s offices and Alex’s home. He would know David’s face, which was why he now wore a rather confused expression. Ambassador Requelme—Mia, for she was a friend to his family—placed a hand on Jenner’s arm and spoke quietly to him, stopping him from voicing aloud the obvious question.

  Behind them, a striking woman with a mane of golden curls walked in. Kennedy Rossi. Immediately her hand came to her mouth to stifle a gasp. Her eyes shot to Alex, delight breaking across her face.

  David dipped his chin in acknowledgment at the woman as a myriad of professional and personal details bubbled up into awareness. He’d never spoken to her during his time in Vii’s care, but he was certainly aware of her, and she of him. Most importantly for current circumstances, she was an ally.

  The woman hurried over to sit next to Alex, and they promptly began whispering to one another, just like the schoolgirl friends they had once been. He pushed aside another pang of bittersweet regret; it was only the twentieth or so he’d experienced this morning. He would have enjoyed seeing them as they’d been then, but he’d take seeing them as they were now.

  Beside him, Miriam’s demeanor changed subtly. It was time. He wanted to squeeze her hand under the table—no one would see—but he didn’t presume. Not in public, not quite yet. Instead he met her gaze for a fraction of a second and tried to convey to her how he understood.

  A touch of her fingertip to the virtual control panel overlaid on the table’s surface, and the door closed. “I believe everyone is here, so let’s begin. We have a number of important matters to cover, but first we have an unusual one to cover. As is apparent to everyone present, we have a guest this morning. Let me start by….”

  She stopped and let her gaze fall to the table. When she spoke again, the rigid, formal tenor of her voice had softened a bit. “My daughter has done many extraordinary things in her life, and an extraordinary number of them in the last two years. If you thought the invention of the Caeles Prism was the latest of these, however, you would be mistaken. I’ve spent the last twenty minutes preparing, but now I find I don’t have the proper words. Alex, will you explain to everyone what you’ve done?”

  Alex bit her lower lip as her eyes narrowed. Miriam hadn’t forewarned her this was to be her responsibility. “Thanks, Mom. I’ll be happy to, but since I didn’t spend any time preparing, I’ll cut to the chase—everyone, meet David Solovy. Yes, that David Solovy. I brought my father back to life.”

  The murmurs rippling down the table in response to the audacious declaration were…surprisingly muted.

  Alex seemed surprised, too. She considered the table suspiciously. “How many people here didn’t already know this?”

  Bastian. Jenner. Brigadier Ashonye. Rear Admiral Escarra. Brigadier Belosca. Mia Requelme’s hand wavered half in the air. “You told me not to look, so I didn’t look. But your emotions were really loud in the Noesis yesterday.”

  Commander Lekkas gestured dismissively toward Alex. “You didn’t tell me not to look.”

  Devon Reynolds offered a mild shrug. “Nor me. Still, I’ve been crazy busy, so I almost missed it. But like Mia said, you were loud yesterday.”

  Alex rubbed at her jaw. “Okay, next item on the Prevo Invention To-Do List: a way to shut out the Noesis, for when one is trying to keep a secret. Anyway! For those of you who weren’t aware of the situation, or only have bits and pieces, here’s the short version: before the final battle of the Metigen War, for strategic reasons Valkyrie uploaded my father’s neural imprint into her quantum architecture. Unexpectedly, the natural synergies between it and my own mind resulted in the inception of something more robust than one expects from a neural imprint a quarter-century old.

  “Valkyrie’s fork, Vii, used the neurological paradigms she and Dr. Abigail Canivon had developed to enhance the construct and transform it into a full consciousness, then into a fully realized being. A mind, as real and complete as any Artificial’s. I convinced the anarchs to adapt their regenesis technology to work with human biology and to transfer the consciousness into a body cloned from my father’s DNA. Presto!” She motioned at him, her cheeks flushed.

  “If Admiral Rychen were here, I believe he would say, ‘This is the damnedest thing I’ve seen all day, but it is early,’ ” Ashonye said before frowning at Alex. “Is he Anaden?”

  David chuckled and leaned forward. “It’s all right, Brigadier, you can talk to me directly. I didn’t want to cause a scene straight off, but I do speak.”

  “Apologies…sir. Commander? What do we call you? I meant no offense.”

  “None taken. I expected a far more colorful if not contentious reaction from the room, but I suppose all of you have gotten used to the unusual latel
y. We’ll get to the messy title formalities in a minute. To answer your first question, no, I am not Anaden.”

  “But if the Anadens built you using their own technology…?”

  “Think of it like this: you hire a builder to construct a custom home for you. You tell them what style you want, how many stories, bedrooms, and so on. You pick out the exterior material, the flooring, the window design and the kitchen fixtures, among a thousand other details. When the house is completed, it’s yours, built to your specifications. All the builder did was use their trained skills to fit the pieces together in such a way as to ensure the house doesn’t fall down when whacked by a brisk wind.”

  Alex chuckled. “Damn, what a great explanation. I have a suggestion. You do the rest of the talking.”

  “As you wish, milaya.” The endearment had slipped out unintentionally, but the room seemed to settle in its wake.

  He did the same. “Next obvious question: am I an Artificial in a physical body? Also no, though I’ll concede that one’s a little fuzzier at the margins. But while an Artificial’s neural net resembles a human brain in some respects, it’s not constructed to mimic the way our brains function. They may end up at a similar place, but Artificials are programmed from the ground up to complement their synthetic nature. Me? This all started with a neural imprint—a mapping of the function of my completely human mind. Everything since then has merely been fiddling with the drapes.”

  They appeared to accept the explanation easily enough—or elected not to quibble over details—leaving no reason not to jump straight to the proverbial heart of the matter. “Which begs the real question, the one hovering on the tip of every tongue but no one dares ask: am I David Solovy?”

  His chin dropped to his chest, and dammit but he would not look at Miriam. “It doesn’t matter if I tell you that I am, for you will each insist on deciding for yourself. I only know this: I intend to be the best incarnation of myself that I’m capable of being.”

  Dammit, he looked at her. But her expression, if still guarded, bordered on affectionate in the split-second before her attention shifted to the table. “Brigadier Ashonye, you asked what you should call him. At present, he is not serving as active duty military. The steps required to have someone declared no longer deceased, let alone reinstated? Well, they haven’t been invented, and we do not have the time or bandwidth to invent them right now.

  “As of today he can be considered a consulting member of the AEGIS Council, similar to Ms. Rossi. If anyone wishes to address him as ‘Commander,’ they are welcome to do so, for if retired military officers never lose their final rank, neither should he. I, however…plan to call him David.”

  A slice of fear fell away to lighten his burdened soul. When they were in private, he wanted to tell her how much the public declaration meant.

  Field Marshal Bastian cleared his throat. “I only have one question: does this mean we’re all living forever now?”

  5

  AFS STALWART II

  MILKY WAY SECTOR 17

  * * *

  DAVID PROPPED AGAINST A PALLET of food crates in the hangar bay and waited. Outside, the convoy from the other side of the portal—from home—lost its structure as cargo vessels peeled off toward various ships to dock and make their deliveries. Beyond the cargo vessels a mini-fleet settled in to await integration with the existing AEGIS forces.

  One hell of an operation, what Miriam had built. He’d always appreciated her skills, her intelligence and her analytical mind, but now he was in awe of the dividends her sheer determination could pay. He needed to tell her that, too. He’d been unjustly hard on her this morning. In his enthusiasm he’d strayed into overbearing and bossy behavior without the facts to back him up, when he needed to lavish credit where credit was more than due.

  The transport that had accompanied the convoy maneuvered into the Stalwart II’s hangar bay, and he shifted his thoughts to the imminent reunion. Staging an ambush definitely wasn’t fair to his friend, but he was seeking an unguarded reaction, one which hadn’t been prepared and steeled in advance. He wanted a gut response from the most level-headed, guileless man he had ever known.

  Security procedures stalled the disembarking, but he bade his time. Plenty of overwrought, egoistic thoughts were queued up to occupy his mind during any lull. Still, he was running out of ways to dismiss the worst of them by the time the large airlock finally opened and the passengers began filing out.

  Richard emerged talking to a blond man in civilian clothes—William Sutton, Jr., husband, architect, Federation spy, SENTRI Deputy Director—and didn’t initially spot him. Presumably familiar with the workings of the Stalwart II, Richard and his husband ignored the staff sergeant answering questions from passengers and headed straight for the lift. As they did, Richard’s gaze idly ran across the hangar bay, passed over David—and jerked in reverse. He froze where he stood.

  David pushed off the pallet to stride toward him. Halfway there, Richard finally unfroze and started walking toward him as well. Slowly, and shaking his head.

  David did neither, instead going straight up to Richard and grabbing him in a bear hug. “Richard Navick. It is damn good to see you.”

  Richard huffed a breath and took a step back. “I didn’t believe it. Even after everything Alex has done, I didn’t believe it.”

  “Believe it now?”

  “Here you stand, so how can I not? But I…” he shook his head, eyes closing briefly “…I have no idea what to say.”

  “I do. Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  These words he’d prepared in advance. “For being there for Miri and Alex, far above and beyond any extent I could ever have asked. For being such an incredible friend to Miri, for being like a father to Alex, for treating them like family. I will forever be in your debt.”

  Richard’s cheeks reddened, and he looked away. His voice took on a wistful tone. “I never expected you to find out….” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, they are family to me. They always were. And they’ve been there for me, too. It wasn’t all selflessness on my part.”

  “Eighty percent selflessness?”

  “Sixty-five percent at most.” Richard’s countenance shifted from resoluteness to exasperation—and for just a moment a quarter century hadn’t passed.

  “All right, if you say so.” David raised an eyebrow while staring pointedly over Richard’s shoulder. “Speaking of family, your husband’s doing an excellent job of not loitering, but you should probably introduce me.”

  “Something else I never expected I’d be doing.” Richard cleared his throat. “Listen, there are a few things you ought to learn about Will before—”

  “You mean how he was a Senecan spy for fifteen years? I don’t know if you heard, but Alex is married to a Senecan black ops agent whose father tricked us into starting the 1st Crux War. Suffice it to say that I’ve had to leave grudges back in the mausoleum.” He paused. “No, not ‘had to.’ I’ve chosen to. Besides, Will also helped bring a swift end to the 2nd Crux War, which helped Miri win the Metigen one, which ultimately led to you and I standing here together right now. I owe him thanks, not acrimony.”

  Richard stared at him oddly. Evaluating, absorbing, ramping up to analyzing. “I’m glad to hear it. I’m sorry, I was told you knew everything. It’s just hard to wrap my head around.”

  “Well, I don’t know everything. I know…history, the great events that happened while I was absent. But unless there was some record of an incident or Alex knew of it, everyone’s secrets are safe. At least up until the Prevos were created—I’m aware of more of what’s happened since then, though the knowledge is still spotty and uneven.” I was alive and not alive, aware and unaware, flitting in and out of existence….

  “Because…wait. You’re not a Prevo, are you? It’s fine if you are of course, I merely….” His friend shrugged helplessly. There weren’t many points of reference to fit this scenario.

  “No. I mean, I can’t access their No
esis, and Vii isn’t in my head. Any longer. Hell if I know. Can I go meet Will now? All this introspection is killing me.”

  “Really? You had to go with ‘killing me’?”

  An uneasy silence hung in the air for a second—then David started chuckling. He threw an arm around Richard’s shoulders. “My old friend, regrettable word choices are the least of my minefields.”

  The door to Miriam’s office was open, but Richard knocked on the frame nonetheless.

  She held up a finger while she wrapped up a comm. When she disconnected, she motioned to one of the chairs opposite her desk. “I had to employ some rather extreme measures in order to get you over here, but I finally succeeded.”

  “Extreme is one way to put it—but you’re in good spirits. I’m glad.”

  “You were worried about my reaction?”

  He shrugged. “There were factors. And how is Alex?”

  “Other than ecstatic at having performed another miracle and fulfilled her own greatest wish? Contrite about having kept it a secret from me, but mostly relieved on all counts, I think.”

  “You’re still speaking to her, then.”

  She blinked and pursed her lips. “I couldn’t have behaved so badly in the past that everyone who knows me assumes I would excommunicate my daughter for keeping her plans from me.”

  He stared at her deadpan until her shoulders sagged. “Right. Apparently I did. But I’m not going to run off one family member just when I’ve gotten the other one back.” An odd expression flitted across her face. “I’m…conflicted about the fact she hid this from me, but more so about why she felt she needed to. It would be hypocritical of me to be angry at her for doing so when I’m not convinced she was wrong to do it. But you—you knew and kept it from me as well?”