Sword of Minerva (The Guild Wars Book 10) by Mark Wandrey (great books for teens TXT) 📕

“Sure.” Rick instinctively knew how to pop the little hatch on his right shoulder. It clicked open, exposing a series of connections. Sato took a device from his bag and snapped it into one of the ports. “Why not just access it wirelessly?”

“An extra level of security. There’s no way to wirelessly access any of your armor’s systems, not even by you. I’ve always felt it was a vulnerability for CASPers. Too ‘user friendly’ makes you enemy friendly.”

Rick waited as Sato accessed the Æsir’s systems. To his surprise, a prompt appeared in his mind. “Deep System Access Requested—Yes or No?” He indicated yes, and the suit’s diagnostic routine ran for Sato and him to both see. There were a lot of errors, not the least of which was the sea of red from his right leg.

He watched for a time as Sato poked around in the suit’s systems, addressing items that would repair themselves, and either increasing the priority or decreasing it. Rick couldn’t see what the end game was until the nagging ‘pain’ he’d been feeling from his severed leg suddenly stopped.

“How’d you do that?”

“You probably shouldn’t know how,” Sato replied. “Turning off your feelings of pain could lead to making a bad thing worse.”

“I guess I can see that. I thought I was fully integrated into the armor.”

“You are, sort of. It’s best to avoid direct control of the armor.”

“Why?”

“Your pinplants handle much of the command interpretation from your mind to the suit. A direct interface could possibly cause some neural damage.”

“That doesn’t encourage me,” Rick replied.

“Which is why you have the pinplant interface.”

“Okay, but why turn the pain systems off now?”

“Because I need to evaluate how bad your leg is.” Sato got on his knees in front of where Rick sat and leaned close to the severed leg. “You made a real mess out of my Æsir.”

“I thought I was the Æsir?”

“You are kind of one and the same now, I guess.” He looked up at Rick. “But you are still a Human.”

“Am I?”

Sato tapped Rick in the center of the chest with a tool. It made a clink, clink sound. “Inside there.” Another tap on the head. Ting, ting. “And here. I didn’t touch anything that’s distinctly you. I’m sure you’ve looked down below by now?”

“Yeah, and thanks for that. It might seem like a small thing…wait, that didn’t sound right.”

Sato laughed and shook his head as he began disconnecting leads and removing linkages. Rick marveled at the speed and assurance of the scientist’s movements. Manipulating technology seemed almost instinctive to him. Of course, since Sato had designed the Æsir, it only made sense he’d know his way around it.

“How long did it take you to design it?” Rick asked.

“That Æsir?” Rick nodded. “I’ve had the design rattling around my head for years.” He looked up at Rick again. “You know, there’s another reason I rescued you from Nemo.”

“Besides needing a bodyguard?”

“Yeah.” Sato paused for a moment. “We have something in common. I don’t remember anything of my life before meeting Nemo.”

Rick grunted. “I thought it was something like that.” Sato looked surprised. “You know where to go, but not why you want to go there. The woman on the train in South America. And the way you’ve been zoning out sometimes. At first I thought you were just doing some kind of trance. Only you don’t seem to be able to control it.”

“No, I can’t. You see, I suffered an injury, too. Someone from Azure found me on a ship in their system. A shuttle, adrift near the stargate. They rescued me and brought me back to their scientific station. Nemo was put in charge of trying to fix my brain damage.”

“What caused it?”

“They were never sure. It was caused through my old pinplants. I invented a new type of pinplant shortly before I built the first Æsir, back on Prime Base. I didn’t have all the plans clear in my head until the pinplants were installed. Turns out I didn’t invent them either. Dakkar said, as Nemo, he’d helped remove the remnants of my old pinplants.” Sato tapped the side of his head. “They were identical to this design. Once they were in, I began remembering things.”

“They’re reconnecting old memories?”

“Or reconstructing them,” Sato suggested. “Either way, you see, we’re both on a journey.”

“Glad to know we’re in this together,” Rick said, smiling in his armor.

“Oh, we are. You keep me alive, I’ll keep putting you back together, and we’ll see where this takes us.”

“Sounds reasonable. What about Dakkar?”

Sato gave a little laugh. “I’m not sure about him yet. He’s only a month or so old, and already he’s different than Nemo. I only saw a budding once, on Azure. It was early in my stay, and it was a kinda big thing with the Wrogul. I wasn’t invited like some of the researchers; I met the bud afterward. One of Nemo’s…siblings? It’s confusing, because they all come from one.” Sato looked back toward the bathroom. “You know, we’re all the same.”

“How do you mean?”

“Apparently the first Wrogul was found on a ship with all its memories wiped. They’ve never found out what happened. Dakkar shares all the memories of that first one, and each one in the direct line between the first and it, but no others who budded sideways further up the family tree. Maybe Nemo sent Dakkar to have its own voyage of discovery.”

“We’re a great team,” Rick said. “None of us fully remember shit.”

Sato laughed out loud this time. “So it would seem. But you know what? I’m a little concerned about what Dakkar might learn.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. There’s just something about this one I haven’t felt about the others? I