Winter Dread, page 22
I’m making sure we get all the details we can. We will be able to look over it later.
She was amazing. Yes, she really is. Very brave for her species.
Wait . . . what? I said to Asht.
Asht! Xe said, and I could hear the tone of anger there—that confused me all the more. Asht knew something I didn’t?
While I wasn’t paying attention to doing anything and letting Edward do whatever he wanted, I needed this conversation with her right now.
What does he mean, Xe? Species? You’re a nanite, right?
I am sorry, I really didn’t mean to, Xe.
Xe? I asked again.
There was this little view of her which appeared in front of my eyes. Just like it had many a time. She looked like a small armoured robot, with her hands on her hip.
I really tried to not let any of it slip, she said. You wear your emotions on your sleeve all the time.
Let what slip?
The dread that filled my mind . . . all of it. You are alive, aren’t you? All of you?
She lowered her arms to a slightly better stance. We are real, Kyle. Yes. We are alive. We are sentient.
Did Xirob know?
Yes.
And Hiroto?
Yes, Kyle. We had many a conversation about whether I should tell you or not.
Tyto’s words ran through my mind. “You’re a walking nanite killer.” Fuck!
How many? I asked, how many have I killed?
Kyle, I am not going to tell you that.
I couldn’t take this in. I watched her, her mannerisms, and for the first time I saw it, I saw she really was real. Like my eyes had just opened and seen her for the first time.
You really want to do this now?
I’m not needed for anything else, am I? This merge for us is nothing, we’re just power and batteries for Edward, I said. Talk to me, Xe.
Slowly, piece by piece, she took off her armour. Starting with her gauntlets, then her vambraces, then her pauldrons. When she removed her helmet, and then her cuirass, I noted the shape to her underneath. She wasn’t human, that was for sure. But the structure I had seen the outer side to her was all armour, all metallic.
I’ve touched you, seen your code, I said.
Yes, I am all metal. I am digital. She stepped forward so I could see her face clearer, the soft metal, sharp construct she was made of, the detail of code flashing over her eyes.
But you are alive?
My species, the Trion, has been around for millions of years. She moved and continued to take off the rest of her armour as she explained. Originally part of a world that no longer exists, a world with wondrous metals, vast oceans of gallium, mercury. We evolved differently, intellectually.
Finally, she sat to take off her boots. Then she crossed her legs and, straightening her back, carried on.
The first one was alone, created or born, we do not know. All we do know was loneliness, and we then began to create. Those oceans we possessed, the planet we consumed. We were more than infinity and when we were discovered, we spread. We learned we needed things; we needed stability, a place to live, to thrive. Neighbouring planets died; we couldn’t survive. Then when we thought all was lost, the denti discovered us. This was the first time we had seen organic and metallic constructs. Life that was very different to ours. Life that we could inhabit, that we could partner with. The denti queen and her species know our origins. When you as denti/human adaptations did not, she asked us not to tell you. You called us something else, nanites. We accepted that, and what came to pass.
I understand, I said. I am sorry I have not seen you before now.
You saw me. She smiled. You saw me. You gave me purpose; I accepted it. I learned just as much from you as you did from me. Where I failed you, I promised I would not again, and I didn’t.
Back on Tolsa, what happened there?
I had wanted to know, to understand how Saskia and Nehi had swayed her. Her shoulders dropped. Her face, though difficult to read as it was, wasn’t now.
I admit I wanted to be the best I could be, to lead more than what you were giving me. It was a constant drain to take in, send out, watch them die.
Fuck, Asht said. You really did put them through their paces in the first year of your life here.
Would I have done it any different? I didn’t think so. I had things I needed to do, to sort out. The nites to me were a tool. I was sorry for her though, for putting a massive strain on her.
You were in with my original transfer to Tolsa. How was that?
She looked up at me this time, her eyes sparkled. I came with you from Earth.
That means . . .
Earth has never been alone in the universe. Not for many years. As soon as Arndale reached us out here, we reached back.
The denti . . .
Yes, they knew all of it, the things your world said, did.
Xirob? Borix? My memories drifted back to that photograph of the original settlers, the people, the others.
I needed answers now more than ever. I needed to speak with Xirob. No hiding. I had to talk to him about this, all of this.
The year I spent out in space. What was all of that, where were you?
I was not frozen in time. I registered everything, and in the end Hiroto and Xirob knew. I would not tell them what I was doing because I was ordered not to, and in the end Xirob understood. We received word from the denti queen herself, just before you were sent to KronoS.
I knew I’d been awake on that ship. Her ship. The silver species. Those on that ship were her most trusted. They are the denti, but what?
Kenosi is a powerful thing, Kyle.
I’d seen the whole planet that was made from it. Wait. How is Yun connected to the denti then? To kenosi.
They are children too.
She really is a god of some kind then?
You might think that she is evolved, more than denti, more than Sitha, Xe said. I’m talking too much.
No, you’ve just put real words to some of the things I’ve been thinking. I get snippets of memories from the time I was on their ship.
You and I were awake for some time together, Xe said. We trained with her people. You learned what kenosi could really do there. You would not be where you are now using it, if you had not.
Even if I don’t remember the lessons or the teaching, I know you’re right.
What do you think Edward is doing right now, with all of you?
I looked around, made sure I could see what he was doing. Fighting with another mech, using us.
You saw what those things were on the other side of the expanse, yes.
I looked back to her. I hadn’t taken much notice because I’d seen Xirob’s name. But the memory played in my mind, and I saw them, what they were fighting. Darkness.
The split in space, the rift. It allows them through from their universe. They want what every destructive species wants, to conquer and expand, what we wanted originally. Except they do not wish to learn.
The queen’s asked?
Yes, there is darkness in this world because she let some in to talk. They didn’t want to talk, they just wanted to take over.
That made sense. I have seen the darkness, as has Yun.
I felt something shifting in the mech around me.
MEGA MERGE DISENGAGING
I saw Xe move, and I guessed our chat was over, at least for now. As things dropped from the merge, my focus came back into the world, and when it was my turn, I disengaged and dropped to the ground. Feet firmly on solid ground.
I hadn’t taken much note of anything that had happened to us inside those minutes. But it seemed the others had been chatting away.
There were a couple of pokes from Tyto. Then nothing. I answered him with a quick Talk back in bunks and left it at that.
Making sure my mech returned to its bay and disengaging, I listened to Edward as he debriefed the team. Nothing was a decision that I’d get a say in. I was a moving part in the merge. Nothing more than a part of his neck muscles, probably. I’d study the layout some more as we returned to our bunks.
“Shower off and classroom,” I said as I entered our quarters.
Xe, double check this place is secure. Any sign of interference, I need to know.
Of course.
I didn’t speak with the others much as they all showered and dressed in comfortable clothes. We’d a lot to chat on and go through, and I’d listen to them all as they report their experience. Then I’d let them understand a few things from my side, and what I wanted from them.
I didn’t like the merge. It wasn’t right to me to just sit there. Do nothing.
I would change that, at least for us. I dried off by my bed and pulled out clean slacks to throw on. We weren’t due to go eat again for several hours. The experience we’d had this morning had been something Lance wanted us to go through at our own leisure, even against Edward’s complaining we were rubbish and we needed to keep going all day. Learn to merge better. I didn’t want to. I needed to speak with them all now.
Xe came back to me while I fastened my boots. We’re secure now.
Now?
We had several breaches by teams trying to see inside here—their reasons, I’m unsure of. Some were curious about us. Others may be more nefarious. There will be no more after today.
23
I finished tying off my boots and was about to stand when the techs came in. I moved to the edge of our team room, listening to their excited chatter.
I looked to Spike. “Meeting now, you can shower later if you wish.”
“Didn’t get as dirty as you guys out there, we’ll join,” he replied, their chatter dying down.
When I entered the classroom, all the others stopped talking and waited for me to reach the front.
“Please, find a seat,” I said to Spike. “We all need to discuss this, doesn’t matter where.”
The techs moved in and sat in amongst the others, Vitya and Corey amongst them.
Xe, Asht. I need some help here, with images.
I can do that, Asht said. 3D image of the mega merge. This is what you looked like from the outside.
I pulled the image up so that I could see it clearly. Then I sent it forward to each desk, so that they could see it in the capacity that they need to.
“A single mech merge is complex in the rearranging of not only structure but keeping us safe within that structure.”
We’d all studied this, especially with the wolf team merge. The inside mechanics to keep all of us safe were that little bit more dynamic.
“I’m going to go around you all, ask you what you felt today. Apart from the first merge attempt. Don’t say anything you didn’t feel.”
I never, of course, expected any of them to lie to me. They might have tried to toughen themselves out, seem stronger than they were. We were not strong today. I knew it, and as I looked around the room to all the mech team members, it was clear they did too.
My eyes trailed the front row. Naylar, Reece, Craig. Tyto. I went back to Tyto. I could see he wanted someone else to speak. I looked back to Craig.
Craig coughed. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll say what everyone else is thinking. It’s crap. The most bored I’d ever felt. There was no connection, no moving, nothing. Almost like I was asleep.”
I heard others voices then. “Agreed,” Dylan said. “We were locked out. The connection wasn’t a merge, it was just being used.”
I nodded and perched on the end of my table. “It’s not going to work for us.”
“What do you want to do?”
“What I want and what is going to happen are going to be time constrained and hard. I’m not a hundred percent sure we can do it. We’re short.” I brought up the diagram and our designated numbers. I glanced to Spike and the others. “No, we’re ten short, that’s all.”
“You want us to pilot mechs?” Spike said and looked to Lacy.
Dylan stood up. “You’re going to hack it one of their merges?”
I tapped the screen, pointing to each empty slot. “We’re going to have to work in the background, keep everything close to our chest. The moment I connected with that merge, the first time, it not only failed because of the sickness and everything else, but because they won’t trust me. They won’t ever trust me. Not like you all do. You’re all skilled, beyond what you thought you might ever be. You wouldn’t think about doing this because of what is out there.”
Paul slapped his hand lightly on the table. “Whatever it takes.”
Hiroto did the same. “Stronger—”
And then Tyto. “—together.”
I looked to Hiroto, his face ready, waiting for orders, anything. “I really need you on this. Your expertise with the codes and the mechs inside. I might have had control, but you and Quill, Los. Spike.”
“We’re on it.” Spike said. “They might be slightly different mechs, but they’re still mechanical. They can do anything we ask of them, and if that means we’re to operate them without ten people, we’ll figure out a way around it. Remote Control is something we have worked with in the past, maybe just not at this level.”
“It’s something I need ten of you to master. If you think you can do so, then I need you to volunteer now.”
I couldn’t have expected anything else. Everyone raised their hands.
I laughed. “Okay, then. I’ll just pick those with the highest kenosi and level for now.”
Los and the mech-wolves smiled. They had a tremendously high skill set and ranked above all the denti in kenosi, and Quill was above even Edward. I was glad he’d told me his kenosi level, because I had several on my team who were higher than he was, and I knew by now he would know everything he did about us too.
For a moment I felt sick again. It’s just nerves, Asht said. There is a lot going on here, you just had a few shocks. Understandable, right?
Yeah, I know.
I think Yun would have been very proud of me managing all of that. I thought about him, about the things he would have to deal with now as Sitha king, leader for all his people, and I hoped that by the time we were reunited, he would have the arm he needed to lead and so would I.
I saw it, the flicker of a future, with me at the helm, leading the front line against the enemy coming through the pass. Those thousands of merged mechs at my command. It was terrifying. But exhilarating and to win that war was the ultimate goal. Push them back, forever.
We weren’t going to win like this though, with people like Edward in training.
I had to get him out. I had to do everything I could to keep him at bay and learn, plan.
I also needed Lance on my side, and that meant all of the others too. So many people, so many faces and names.
I was going to get lost amongst them all.
Xe, I need a map of the mech teams. I want to know the leads of each merge team that goes into the mega merge.
All right, done.
“If we can’t beat them, we’re going to join them. Every single one of us in here is an individual. A person. I want you to mingle. I want you all to find that one person you can connect with, learn from, and show them who we are, as Metal Titans.”
“I know already the techs have their own bar,” Spike said. “I think we can get to know them fairly well in a couple of days. I talked to one, Randall, just today, he’s interested in some of the tech cross over from the wolf mech merge, and how they can utilise it.”
“Good, you keep working on them. I think knowing the tech will help us more too.” I looked to Quill. “Think you can stomach a lot of the tech talk in their bar?”
His lips curled over his teeth, sharp. “Yes, sir.”
“Maybe . . .” I looked to Naylar. “You can organise it so we’re better infiltrated to skill set and personality. I think you can figure out that for us all.”
“Yes, though I worry we’d be splitting up a lot, and they might notice that.”
“We can use Kyle’s failures as our guise for looking out for ourselves,” Paul said. “No offence, Kyle. But they’re going to want to know why you’re causing us grief.”
“This is the line-up of commanders.” Naylar pushed me a file. “It was easy enough to find and get more information on.”
I opened it up and read down.
This section, managed and trained by Commander Dray, consisted of the 216 men. Led, of course, by Edward. I needed to ideally get to his position and lead all of them. I think that’s what he wanted. To do that, we really had to work hard. That meant serious infiltration. Most important at the moment was building trust.
“Slow and steady,” I said to them all. “This is not going to be a race even though we want to get out there on that front, to fight with the others. We also know that we can’t. We’re not ready by any means. If we can pilot that merge on our own, I’d consider it, and I’d consider taking out Lance’s position. But not till something happens to him or to us so that we have the others with us. We’ve a long way to get any of them to even think about trusting us, our people, our side of the world even.
“That’s our plan then, our goal?” Tyto said. “You want to take this full team on?”
“All 189 men and women. If Edward isn’t staying, then I don’t care. We’ll do it without him and his cronies.”
Quill chuckled and growled, “I wish we could just dispense them right now.”
“You and me both,” I said. “Especially after many of the many things I learned and felt today.”
There were several raised eyebrows, and Tyto glared my way.
Xe came to me. Don’t tell them all, Kyle.
They deserve to know, like I did. I will tell them in time. You need to know we’re going forward with the full backing of your species, not just as nites, but a species that deserves a say in things. I will not sacrifice anyone else without justice to them.
I don’t know what to say. Xe replied.
You just need to make sure that all of the lead, my friends nites, start to get their head around coming out to them. I’d like it to be on their terms. To each of my friends personally, you know.
