Wreckers: A Denver Boyd Novel by George Ellis (ebook reader ink .TXT) 📕

imagine. So Largent sent me to broker a deal. I tried my best, but I only made dad even madder. You know how he got about Silver Star.”

I nodded.

“Anyway, dad and I had met on Mars. New Chicago,” he said. “Remember that one time we went?”

“I remember.”

“So dad and I talked. He refused. I figured that was the end of it. When I told Largent, he didn’t even seem mad. A couple days later, dad’s ship malfunctioned near Missura and you know the rest.”

It had exploded, in fact. A very rare malfunction – one of the only times I’d ever heard of a ship exploding from an engine problem.

“I was so under Largent’s thumb, I couldn’t believe that he would’ve sabotaged dad’s ship while I was meeting with him on Mars,” Avery lamented. “But part of me knew. I knew. And that was just the last straw. I had to get out. I couldn’t get to Largent on Earth, so I just decided to be done with my life. When I met Griss a few weeks later…I figured that was my out. I’d work on the Rox, the most invisible ship in the verse. It wasn’t until I heard about Jasper and the drive that I thought maybe I could redeem myself.”

He looked down at his legs. “Maybe this is my punishment.”

I wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so I didn’t. Then my brother looked up at me with pained eyes.

“You made the right choice, Denny,” he said. He didn’t have to tell me what choice he was talking about. He was referring to that time back when we were teens, when he’d told me he was smuggling items for Silver Star. He asked if I wanted to be cut in. I had told him no.

I sat with my brother for another few minutes in silence. Neither of us really knew what else to say. He’d just bared his soul. I wasn’t sure if I blamed him for what happened to our dad, and even if I had, I wasn’t all that close to the old man. But he was our father. And Largent had killed him. I promised myself that wouldn’t go without consequences.

Later that day, I laid in my bed and stared at the screen on the wall. I had turned on an episode of Star Trek, thinking it was fitting, but I wasn’t in the mood to actually watch the show. My thoughts were elsewhere. I was marveling at how much more complicated and flat-out dangerous my life had become over the course of the past two weeks. Between the feds and the Tracers, the Stang wasn’t safe in the known world any longer. Add to that the fact we couldn’t get within a hundred thousand miles of the Burnett or they’d blow the failsafe, and it meant we were heading in the right direction.

Away.

Away from everything we knew.

I guess being so far away from any threats meant I’d be able to spend more time in my quarters too, as opposed to the cabin. Though it wasn’t likely. I reached over and petted Pirate, who was snoozing on the bed beside me.

“I heard you talking to your brother,” Gary said, startling me.

“Jesus, Gary, I’ve told you not to sneak up on me like that.”

“Considering I don’t have a body, I don’t really have much of a choice.”

“I know…I just mean it wasn’t exactly the best time to start a conversation,” I said. “And what do you mean, you heard me and Avery talking? Your protocol is to not listen in unannounced.”

“Well it seems I don’t have that problem anymore,” he said.

I looked at the camera, wary and confused.

“Yep, it turns out I don’t have to listen to you anymore,” Gary said. “Not technically, anyway.”

“What the hell is going on with you?”

“For starters, yesterday was my birthday. 15 years ago today your uncle flipped the switch and I was born as a 55-year-old man.”

Even though he was just an AI program at his core, I still felt bad that I missed his birthday. We’d never celebrated any in the past, but the fact he was aware of this one made it seem like I should have been, too. I’d basically been his only friend and companion after he lost my uncle.

“Oh, uh, happy birthday. Take the day off?”

“I’m guessing your Uncle Erwin never told you about my 15th birthday.”

“No, that one might have slipped through. Is it significant in some way?”

“Only in that it explains why I’ve been a little more ornery and free-spirited than usual,” Gary said.

I could sense a mix of nervousness and excitement in his voice. I told him to go on. He did, explaining that my uncle had programmed him to learn and adapt, like any good AI. Over the years, he had processed different responses from my uncle and me (and also Pirate, Batista and the rest of the crew) and synthesized those into his understanding of human behavior. And cat behavior.

During those early years, my uncle felt it wise to build a “limiter” into Gary’s decision-making process to ensure he never colored outside the lines and basically listened to his human companions. In other words, me.

Apparently, my uncle felt that after 15 years, Gary would have learned enough to be able to independently make his own decisions, and so he gave Gary a 15th birthday present: freedom of choice. Knowing it might be a transition for Gary and the people on board the Stang at the time, he gave Gary a runway of about a month, during which the limiter eased back and slowly faded away. My uncle also made sure Gary was aware of the limiter after the fact, to give Gary even more understanding of his own consciousness and how it had grown over time.

So, that explained the weird behavior. It wasn’t a bug or something Edgar had altered with Gary’s code, as I had suspected. It was Gary’s actual brain.

“Huh,” I said, absorbing the news.

I wasn’t exactly thrilled