“But you can’t win,” said Filch.
“They got more boats, bigger guns, and a bunch of crazy blond assassins,” said Jolo. “But I’d rather die fighting than be you. Your death will be slow. Some cold ass rock with barely enough to eat. Always a BG bot nearby to cut you down if you get any ideas. Yeah, you can have all that you want.” By then Jolo had sat down again and for the first time he felt calm. His direction was clear. He’d finally seen what he didn’t want to become. He took the flask from Barth and drained it, tossed it back to Filch. This time it landed on the desk.
Filch stood up and pressed a button on his console. “I’m going to save you,” said Filcher. “You’ll thank me later.” The security detail came in and grabbed Jolo and Barthelme. Two of the shiny armored marines jerked Jolo up off the ground roughly and Jolo started to yell at them but realized he couldn’t speak. He shot a glance at Barth and the old engineer looked tired. Jolo stared into the old man’s bright blue eyes. We’re going to get out of here, thought Jolo. And then we’re going to fight.
Silana, Part II
Duval
9 days left
The synthetic humanoid called Silana sat on the smooth concrete floor of the cell and checked the transponder logs. Every 1.7 seconds an encoded signal tried to reach the BG cruiser in orbit above Duval. But all connection attempts had failed. Merthon had held her captive for exactly 13 days and the log file in her mind was up to 660,709 entries. Each one the same: SIFSURBG 138.387.114.297 conn fail [soft connection reset. Attempting recon…]
She scanned through the half a million entries a thousand lines at a time, searching for a moment where a connection locked, then timed out. She was underground, surrounded by concrete and there were signal interceptors scanning her transponder, trying to steal any messages that might get through. If she were topside this wouldn’t be an issue. But down here was different. Down here the signal couldn’t reach the cruiser.
There. She stopped at line 439,924. SIFSURBG 138.387.114.297 conn success 17:39:24. But then four seconds later, before any data could be transmitted, the connection was gone again. What happened in that four second window? She replayed the video of those four seconds and she was lying on the floor of the cell, sedated, and the door was open.
She sat down again. All she had to do was get a signal up and they’d come for the target. Just one little human, she thought. He had been a captain once, and then he’d been modified by the creator, but still seemed a waste of time. Retrieving the creator would be a bonus. The Emperor would be pleased with her, with all of the Silanas. If only she could get the message beacon out.
She placed her hands on the cold, smooth wall, sent a small pulse out through the layers of concrete, rock and dirt and waited. An image appeared in her mind, an interpretation of the waves reflected back through her fingers: concrete composed of shale, sand and pebbles a good twenty centimeters thick with steel reinforcement rods crisscrossed throughout, finally giving way to clay, calcium carbonate and a heavy dose of iron-oxide compounds which made the soil look red. She continued to probe. Was there a crack along the wall, a weak spot she could use?
Time was running out. Her power cell was at 32% and sending pulse charges through rock would drain her and then she’d automatically kick into sleep mode and only the creator would know she wasn’t dead. She sent one last pulse into the wall near the hinges of the thick steel door, and there, alongside the hinge, was a hairline crack in the concrete. It wasn’t much but it was something.
She leaned back against the wall and looked up, the med bot hovered quietly in the corner. If she attacked the little bot would stun her with an energy blast and force her to restart, which took about 3.42 seconds, giving the creator just enough time to shoot a pathogen dart into her system, then wait an hour, then zap her again and then take a sample, then start the process over. There was no logic. Why would the creator perform tests? The Vellosian made us, he knows how to kill us. None of these experiments would kill a Silana or a Jaylen, who were nearly identical physically yet with different programming. He was searching for something. Probing. What was he looking for?
She stared for a moment at the round medbot, hovering in the corner almost silent. She ran a pattern recognition scan on the shape and size and found a match instantly. Fed issue, Starwell Medi-bot, made on Carnus in the core worlds. She pulled the data file from her long-term memory. The bot had the usual specs: alacyte shell, super fine glass optics, surgical grade components, though it was too small to move a humanoid patient. This one was used for surgical procedures, mainly. Probably stolen from a Fed ship. Humans hurt each other, kill each other, steal from one another. She looked down at the stump of her arm. Even the creator. And a sensation came over her at that moment and she wondered if it was sadness. She wasn’t programmed for sadness. They are all animals. But not us. She wanted to connect again to the network, to hear the other Silanas. We are one.
And there,
