Cyber Dreams - 6.46 Parasite Cleanse
Zwapping clicks sounded from inside the room, and the plasteel wall puckered as new holes appeared near Juliet’s head. She’d already ducked back so the soldiers didn’t have a line of sight, but it still felt too close for comfort. She was reasonably sure the electro-guns the soldiers on the ark ship were using couldn’t punch through her helmet’s hard armor, but she didn’t want to put it to the test. “Not with a direct hit, anyway,” she murmured, rubbing her fingers against the many long, deep grooves that had already scored the top and side of her helmet.
She grabbed a concussion grenade, primed it for a two-second fuse since Angel wouldn’t be observing this one, and tossed it around the corner. As soon as her vision flickered—her helmet compensating for the flash—she dove around the corner and sprayed the center of the room with her SMG, adjusting her aim as Angel highlighted her enemies, all hunkered down behind a row of hard plasteel chairs. The rounds, designed to keep the insides of the Blossom in one piece, weren’t terribly effective against the soldiers’ armor, but if she hit them enough times in the face, they made a nice distraction—all she needed to close the distance and finish things with her monoblade.
As the last of the four soldiers fell, his torso sliding away from his legs, Juliet ducked back behind a reception desk and looked around the room that had been labeled CLINIC & LABS. Some of the furniture was out of place, knocked aside or broken in the scuffle, but other than that, and the scattered body parts of her four enemies, the room was sterile, white, and unused-looking. A single door stood in the far wall, presumably leading to the area where she might find her sister.
She wanted to think Athena was right, but it seemed like a long shot. The ship was enormous, and there were a million places a person could be stashed away. Still, Athena had a lot of computing power and data feeding her prediction, so Juliet tried to maintain hope. “Speaking of hope,” she muttered, looking at her ammo counter, which indicated only three rounds left in her SMG. She sighed and disconnected the SMG’s sling, tossing it onto the floor. She didn’t want to carry it around with only three bullets. “Down to me, my pistol, and my sword.”
“You’re also down to one concussion grenade, Juliet.”
“I’m aware. Hopefully, Apollyon’s done throwing goons at us.” Juliet knew more weapons were available to her; she was staring at three or four operational electro-SMGs, but she didn’t want to mess with them—not until she needed to. Apollyon’s troops had stopped swarming her route through the ship a while back, and she was, honestly, hopeful that he was low on combat-oriented personnel.
Angel snarked, “You could ask him.”
Juliet snorted, but it was true; Apollyon had been taunting—attempting to distract—Juliet over the PA the entire time she’d been fighting her way through the ship. While she knelt there, scanning the room, ensuring the four soldiers she’d killed were really dead, the far door slid open with a near-silent woosh, and a familiar voice said, “Hey, uh, Juliet. Don’t shoot, all right?” It was Jensen—she’d given up trying to think of him by his real name.
Juliet looked down at herself—at the gouges in her armor where she’d been shot, at the damp spots in the joints where more than one bullet had skidded off plates and punched through the polymer layers. None had penetrated deeply, thanks to her subdermal armor, and her nanites had already stopped her bleeding, but every wound had hurt. Every wound had added to her exhaustion and harried mentality. She didn’t have time for more mind games. “Jensen, I don’t want to kill you, but I’m not stopping here to let you try to brainwash or gaslight or whatever you have in mind.”
She poked her head over the desk, putting her confidence in her helmet once again. Jensen stood in the doorway, still wearing the same augmented combat armor he’d worn back on the Prophet, but his hands were empty. Juliet ducked down, and Jensen called again, “Hey, seriously, can we talk?” He sounded like his old self, so Juliet closed her eyes and briefly reached out with her psychic sense. Just as when she’d seen it on the Prophet, Jensen’s mind was subdued, one side much brighter than the other. She stared at it, never having been so close to one of those minds with the opportunity to really examine it.
“Juliet?” Jensen asked, and she saw his mind, that wild network of tangled threads and stars, pulse faintly.
“Just a minute. Thinking.” She didn’t look away, watching and waiting for him to respond.
“Can I give you more to think about? Nobody else has to die, Juliet. Let’s put an end to this.” The pulsing threads in that bright portion of his mind seemed to trail away toward the darkened area, and as she watched, she realized the dark half of his mind wasn’t entirely devoid of light. The threads were just so dim beside the other half that they were hard to see. Watching him closely as he spoke, she was sure she saw a tiny trickle of light shoot through that shadowed section.
“I’ll talk to you, Jensen, but first, take that chip out of your head.” She stood up, staring at him through her matte-black visor. “I understand Apollyon wants you to stall me. He’s listening even now, and he’s probably telling you what to say. I don’t have time for it. Just get out of my way.”
“Listen to yourself. First, you demand that I take this chip out, as though that would change me, and then you tell me to step aside. Do you not care at all? If I’m controlled by this chip, shouldn’t you try to save me? Save Walker, I mean?”
“I mean it, Walker; I don’t have time for this. Take the chip out or get out of my way.” Juliet stepped around the desk and lifted her monoblade, the sparkling red, holographic edge glittering in her peripheral vision.
“So bloodthirsty, Juliet,” Apollyon said, his smooth, buttery voice breaking into their conversation, perfectly timed to get a twinge of irritation out of Juliet. “So dismissive of human life, but then, you’re above humanity now, aren’t you? Kindred spirits, aren’t we? You should appreciate your old friend even more, in that case. He’s not unlike you—merged, mind and body, with one of my children.”
“We’re nothing alike,” Juliet growled, inwardly cursing at herself for letting Apollyon get to her.
“Oh, come now!” The AI chuckled. “Two tough, disciplined mercenaries, two of my children sharing their minds. It seems . . .”
Juliet lost track of his words as Angel cut in, “Tell him not to call me his daughter! That monster is not my father, Juliet!”
“You’re not winning any points with that kind of talk, Apollyon.” She turned to Jensen. “You sure got quiet. What’s the matter? Can’t talk while your master speaks?”
“Hey, babe, you know I’m the kind of guy who gets a job done, not the kind to stand around jawing about it.” He cocked an eyebrow and grinned wryly, and Juliet felt a shiver of disgust run down her spine. He sounded like Jensen; he even had the mannerisms down, but Jensen only spoke that way when he was joking around, mocking a macho guy at a bar, or, back in the day, making fun of one of the sergeants at Grave. As the thought crossed her mind, though, she wondered: was the AI driving Jensen making a mistake, or was Jensen trying to tell her something? Was he mocking Apollyon?
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“Walker, it’s time to put an end to this situation. Take her alive if you can, but I need you to remove the bomb from her person.”
“Roger, boss,” Jensen sighed, snapping a lazy salute. He shrugged at Juliet, then reached both hands behind his back. When he pulled them forth, he clutched sparking, sizzling plasma knives in each fist.
“I feel like I’ve seen this movie before,” Juliet sighed.
“But last time, we didn’t dance, did we?” He grinned again, stalking forward. Juliet was tall, but Jensen had her by six inches on a bad day. His arms were longer, his legs were longer, and Juliet knew he was probably at least a match for her speed. More than that, he moved like a predator. Juliet had been told she had a fighter’s gait, that she carried herself differently these days, but Jensen was like a leopard stalking a gazelle as he circled to the side, moving around the pile of dead soldiers.
“I know you’re in there, Jensen,” Juliet said, lifting her monoblade. She began to circle in the opposite direction. Even though he was taller and had longer arms, she had the reach with her sword. However, those plasma knives could slice through or, with even brief contact, damage the metal’s integrity, ruining the monomolecular edge. “You wanna know how?”
“How?” Jensen asked, but at the same time, he lunged, gliding over a row of plasteel chairs like they weren’t there. He was inside her guard, jabbing with his right-hand blade before Juliet even registered that he’d moved. Still, with Angel’s help and a boost to her reflexes, she managed to recoil, avoiding the stab, and feint with her sword, forcing Jensen to sidestep and forego another slash. He lunged several more times, but she was ready—primed and boosted—and Juliet drove him back with several feints and a low slash that he didn’t see coming until the blade nearly had his left leg off at the knee.
He had to scramble to avoid the blow, and when he backed up against another row of chairs, he moved like magic, hop-climbing over them to give himself a little breathing room. As he circled, Juliet said, “I can see your mind, Jensen. I can see the AI in control, but I can see you’re still there. I can see your thoughts, subdued and pushed down, probably used by this joker, this fake-ass poser. Look at that loser using your reflexes, your moves, your hard work. Don’t let him, Jensen!”
As she spoke, Juliet saw something in Jensen’s eyes—a squint, a grimace—brief but there. Unable to look away with her eyes, Juliet tried, with everything she had, to reach out with her other senses to see Jensen’s mind even though her eyes were open. As he leered and glided toward her again, Juliet saw a shimmer of light on his forehead. Then, like an image rapidly being drawn, she saw thousands—millions—of little lights and threads appear, floating around Jensen’s head.
“Juliet!” Angel screamed, and Juliet had the distinct impression that it wasn’t the first time. Like a mule kick, Jensen drove his plasma blade right into her stomach. Juliet gasped as the pain—too brilliant, too intense, too white-hot to feel for more than a second—lanced through her.
“Did you see that?” Jensen snarled. “How about this one?” Juliet caught a flicker of his other knife angling toward her side in her peripheral vision. She instinctively swept her left hand out to block the blow, but, just before her wrist painfully smashed into his, she felt a lancing pain in her hand.
“Get off!” she screamed, and, falling back, she brought her monoblade down in an arcing slash between herself and Jensen. He dodged back, narrowly avoiding the blow, and Juliet turned her fall into a back roll, springing to her feet. She felt at her stomach, where the plasma blade had punched through her gut. The armor was already sealing itself up, but something was wrong with her hand. She held it up, her eyes going wide as she saw her gloves rapidly sealing over the stumps of her pinky and ring finger.
“Heh,” Jensen said, the sound more like a cough than a laugh. “If it makes you feel better, you got a piece of me, too.” Juliet looked away from her hand, irritated by how distracted she’d been again, and saw that Jensen was leaning against a white plasteel chair, and it was smeared with blood. Looking more closely, she saw that she’d sheered a section of his powered armor away from his knee, and there was a massive, raw, oozing wound where his kneecap should be. Bone and bloody flesh glistened in the artificial light.
She almost retched at the sight and quickly looked up at Jensen’s face and her strange view of his mind galaxy—was that the name she was going with? Juliet shook off the stray thought. “That looks bad.” She watched the dim portion of his mind and was certain more and more of the threads were coming to life over there, brightening as she watched.
“It’s painful and annoying, but luckily, this armor is quite supportive, and this body is sturdy.” Jensen grimaced, but his tone carried a heavy dose of snark. He straightened up, squeezed his fists, and the plasma blades flickered back to life. When he stepped away from the chair, his leg held him up.
Juliet grinned, circling. “You’re slipping. ‘This body?’ What even are you? Do you feel emotions like Angel, or are you just a synthetic mind, something fake and emotionally stupid? Something that steals the life experiences of its host?” Jensen dove at her, and Juliet was ready. Just as she’d done a hundred times with Tanaka, she danced, feinting with her sword, avoiding touching those lightning-fast knives, and waiting for a pattern to form, waiting for an opening to present itself to her or Angel, who was also watching intently. Of that, Juliet was sure.
When Jensen backed off, his face red, his sweat flowing, his breathing raw and ragged, Juliet knew she would win. Despite her gut wound, her heart and lungs felt fine. She wasn’t leaking cups of blood all over the clinic. “Hey,” she asked as they circled. “Why are you still bleeding? Did I cut an artery? Nanites can’t handle it while you run around like an idiot, trying to fight?”
“I, uh, could use a few minutes if you’re offering.” As he replied, Juliet watched his mind and saw the dull threads trying to flow out of the dimmed portion of his mind into the brighter, AI-occupied area. Acting on instinct, Juliet reached out, just as she might do to pull a thread to hear someone’s thoughts, but this time, she gave a handful of those dull, listless threads a push, nudging them into the brighter area of Jensen’s mind.
“Lu-Lucky?” For the first time since he’d visited her on the Prophet, promising to break her out, Juliet saw Jensen behind those icy blue eyes. “What’s happen—” His words broke off as he screamed and grabbed his head, falling to his knees. He screamed again and collapsed to the side as his ruined knee hit the ground.
Juliet wasn’t stupid; she’d fallen for too many ruses to run to him, but she watched the war being waged in her psychic view of Jensen’s mind. It was lit up like a fireworks show. The part that had been dim was pulsing with wild lights, and the other part, the part she was sure the AI occupied, pulsed in counterpoint, almost like they were battling for dominance.
Seeing that the conflict was genuine, Juliet exploded into motion. Angel recognized her need for urgency and fired her speed boost, and she tore across the room, leaping a row of bolted-down chairs, sliding on her knees, and coming to rest beside the downed operator—her one-time lover. With precision born of hundreds of hours of gun and sword drills, cybernetic fingers, and an AI-assisted reflex boost, she reached out and snatched the PAI chip from Jensen’s data port while he writhed, his head pressed between his hands.
The chip slipped out of the slot almost effortlessly, but Juliet pulled carefully, extracting a long, thick bundle of wet, glistening synth-nerve fibers. As soon as the chip came out, Jensen stopped writhing, and his eyes fell closed as he slumped to the deck. Juliet continued to pull; the fibers stretched nearly twenty centimeters before the first came loose, and by the time she’d drawn out the whole bundle, some were almost a meter long. Juliet threw the disgusting wad of synthetic nerves to the side. It slapped against the plasteel wall like wet noodles, sliding to the decking.
“Well, that wasn’t very considerate, Juliet,” Apollyon grumbled. “I hope you didn’t damage poor Walker’s mind. Don’t be concerned about the Angel persona; I downloaded a copy.”
Juliet ignored him and closed her eyes to better focus with her other perception, and, just as she’d hoped, Jensen’s mind galaxy looked almost normal; it was a proper sphere again, with lights flickering amid lazily drifting strands of thought. She opened her eyes and subvocalized, “He’s going to be okay, I think, Angel!”
“That’s wonderful news! That alleviates a great worry I had about your sister.” After a brief pause, she added, “You should gather your fingers.”
“Yeah. Right.” Juliet stood shakily and scooped up her forlorn digits, tucking them into the pouch behind her chest plate. As she looked down at herself, at the scorched, scarred-over puncture mark on her stomach armor, she realized she was still numb there. She’d never been stabbed by a plasma blade before. Had she? “Angel, am I, uh, gonna die from that wound or anything?”
“You may if you don’t receive surgery to repair your severed intestines within a few days. Your nanites can deal with infection and, as long as you don’t eat—”
“That’s enough detail. I’ll deal with it later—hopefully.”
“Tell me, Juliet. How many good people will you slay?” Apollyon asked as she dragged Jensen’s unconscious form out of the walkway toward the door he’d come through. “You realize you just destroyed a unique, symbiotic lifeform, yes? Despite me saving the persona and its memories, the bond it built with—”
Juliet snorted. “I just removed a parasite. Quit badgering me, Apollyon. Would you? I’m just sick of it.” She kicked the door open, perhaps a bit too violently, with her armored cybernetic leg—it split down the middle and slammed into the corridor wall so violently that the top hinge ripped out of the wall. Juliet stalked through the opening, one hand hooked on the top collar of Jensen’s armor, dragging him along with her. In her other hand, she held her monoblade ready. She glanced at her mini-map and saw she just had a short walk ahead, a turn to her left, and then she should be looking at the cells where Athena hoped her sister would be held.
“Juliet. You can’t possibly believe that I’ll turn myself over? That we’ll return this ship to its berth? I’m ready to jump. If you agree to be peaceful, I will allow you to leave.”
“I’m about ready to set this nuke, Apollyon. I’m at the end of my road as far as patience with you goes.” Juliet searched ahead with her psychic senses and didn’t feel anything at the T-junction, so she moved ahead and turned left. Sure enough, a dozen identical heavy plasteel doors lined the corridor. She reached out again with her other senses, looking for minds, and she only saw one in the entire corridor—a plain, unoppressed human mind. Staring at those beautiful lights and weaving, dancing thought threads, she silently wondered, “Are you my sister?”
She let Jensen slump to the ground, propped him against the wall, and moved toward the second door on the left where she’d seen the mind. She only took a few steps before a voice, smooth and confident and very familiar, spoke up from behind her, “Hey, Sis.”
