Nexus by Robert Boyczuk (best large ebook reader txt) 📕

Static filled the screen.

Liis felt dizzy. Vaguely, she was aware of Sav and Josua, of the unshaded brightness of the lamp clipped to the conduit overhead, of the tiny clicks and hums her suit made in the silence. Someone was talking rapidly, urgently. Josua.

“The catalog,” he said. “Can you access the interment records?”

“Yeah,” Sav answered. “I think so.”

Bewildered, Liis looked at Josua. “Why-” she began, then stopped abruptly. She stared at Josua, afraid she understood.

“Last name Tira, first name Shiranda,” Josua said loudly. “Find her.”

A woman’s name.

Sav looked at Josua for a moment. “Are you sure-”

“Find her!”

Sav turned back to the port.

That’s who he’s been looking for.

Sav murmured first one command, then another.

There’s someone he loves here, Liis thought. Someone who was waiting in stasis for him to return. Her stomach churned, and the darkness seemed to hurtle towards her, blotting out vision, cutting off any possibility of hope.

“Got it. Sublevel fourteen. Station 39. Aisle 30. Cradle 3.”

Josua looked at Sav blankly.

“Three levels below. Fourth door on the right after the elevators.”

“Is she…”

Liis caught her breath, picturing the woman’s cell dark, lifeless, immediately regretting the thought. Then imagining it again…

“Can’t tell,” Sav said. “All the arrays are running on their own AIs now, like the woman in the recording said. No central control. The only thing that’s going into each room is the power feed from the solar array. Nothing’s coming out. Can’t even tell if the AI is up.”

Josua spun abruptly on his heel and jogged down the tunnel as well as he could in his bulky suit, almost tripping over the skid they had moved. He disappeared around the corner.

For a moment the three stood there, motionless. Then Liis pushed herself to her feet and followed.

“Liis! Wait!”

She ignored Sav. Brushing past Hebuiza, she moved down the corridor to the dropshaft and swung onto the ladder; she clambered down. Three levels. Hadn’t that been what Sav told Josua? She descended, then swept her lamp down the corridor on the third level below. A set of footprints lead to an open door. Liis leapt from the ladder, pounded down the corridor and through the doorway. The chamber was just like all the others, the round humps of stasis cells dotting the floor. And like all the others, only a few had the faint glow that betrayed the presence of life.

Josua was striding along the front of the array; his comm link was open and Liis could hear him counting the aisles aloud as he went, his pace quickening, his voice rising the further he went. The woman was in row thirty, Sav had said. At twenty-six, Josua stopped. The remaining aisles were completely dark.

“Josua….”

He staggered up four more rows, turned into the aisle and walking up a few steps. The light from his helmet illuminated the grimy exterior of the stasis cell in the third position. It threw into silhouette a skeletal profile.

“Come on, Josua. Let’s get out of here.”

Josua turned and was caught in Liis’ helmet light. He blinked. “No.” He looked oddly detached, but his voice was steady. Calm.

“We should go back to the others. There’s nothing we can do here.”

Josua cut his comm link, then turned his back on her and walked over to the far wall. He stopped in front of the AI panel. Like all the others, the screen was dark, the indicators dead. “YOU!” he shouted through his externals, slamming his fist against the screen. “WAKE UP!”

The panel flashed to life, a large question mark in its centre, the small number 39 beneath.

“Yes?” The voice crackled cheerfully through Liis’ helmet, piped in from her pickups. “Is there something I can do for you?”

“Well…well I’ll be damned,” Sav’s words sounded through Liis’ headset. He stepped up beside her, huffing between words, out of breath. “No wonder I couldn’t find any jacks. They’re voice activated.”

“There is something you can do for me,” Josua said, addressing the AI. “Tell me why you killed her.”

Liis took a step towards him but Sav grabbed her by the elbow and held her firmly.

“I’m sorry,” the AI answered Josua, its tone the epitome of reasonableness. “But I don’t understand the question. I require additional information.”

“Aisle 20. Cradle 3. Tira, Shiranda. Did you kill her?”

“The cryosuspension environment in Aisle 20, Row 3 was discontinued, if that is your question.”

“Why?”

“That unit, along with several others, was selected because of power losses from the central grid. A load reduction was required. Or all the units would have deteriorated and been lost.”

“Why select her?” Josua gestured to the remaining lights in the array. “Why not one of others?”

“Terminations were assigned using a pseudo-random lottery. I assure you it was completely fair. If you are displeased by the choice I made then I am certain the co-ordinator of the facility would be happy to speak to you. Also, it may comfort you to know that I anticipate an increase in power levels shortly, and full service may soon be restored.”

“Full service?” Josua laughed, a cold, bitter thing. “You goddamn, fucking machine.”

“I’m not a machine. I’m a registered, semi-autonomous artificial intelligence node.” The characters SAIN-14-39 appeared on the screen.

“Machine, do you feel pain?” Josua asked.

“No. And I told you, I’m not a machine. I’m a registered SAIN.”

“Too bad,” Josua said sadly. Raising his arm, he pointed the laser toward the heart of the panel. Liis watched as he pushed the slider to maximum power.

“If you require further assistance-”

Josua jerked the trigger. A thread of light split the darkness; the screen shattered, exploding outwards. Josua was spun around and went down on one knee. The chest of his suit had been lacerated by shards from the screen, the white material criss-crossed by thin dark lines that looked liked claw marks. One tattered shred of material hung down past his waist. Behind him a thick column of smoke poured from the panel and dragged along the ceiling; small, bright fires flickered back there, throwing the room into a confusion of darting shadows.

Liis froze, watched in horror as Josua somehow regained his feet; he stumbled back to the stasis cell. He stood there, swaying, his head hung.

Liis jerked herself free from Sav’s grip and took a step towards him.

“Josua?”

He looked up. His eyes were wild; they glimmered in the light from her lamp. Liis could now see that his visor had been breached: a large triangular-shaped piece of material was missing, and blood glittered redly on his cheek.

“Please.” She extended her hands. Before she knew what she was saying, the words tumbled out of her mouth: “I love you.”

Josua lowered his head again. Liis’ externals picked up a low, feral moan. Then he raised the cutting laser, placing its snout against the side of his helmet. His finger rested on the trigger.

“No!” Liis screamed, but her shout was choked off as she was struck in the small of the back and knocked to the side. Sav flew by, firing his laser. A ruby thread of light cut the gloom and scored the far wall above and behind Josua; then it sliced neatly across the back of Josua’s wrist. The material of his gauntlet flared where the coherent light touched.

Josua screeched; his arm flew out, and his laser swung wildly from its black cable. Lurching forward, he collapsed face down onto the dome, his wrist still glittering with a bracelet of orange where Sav’s laser had etched a line. His body twitched once, then slid from the crown of the dome to the floor, a smear of blood marking its progress. He lay still.

Liis stared at him, the silence crackling around her like a fire.

Sav hurried over and crouched next to Josua. Gently, he levered the other man’s shoulder up and rolled him onto his back. His lamp lit Josua’s face; it was flushed, and a sheen of perspiration coated his forehead.

“He’s alive,” Sav said, looking up. The fingers of his gloves already had bright red stains on them where he had touched Josua.

Liis nodded numbly, but didn’t move.

Sav broke the seal at the base of Josua’s helmet and slipped it off. The left half of Josua’s face was white. On his right cheek the flesh was puckered around a bloody, finger-length gash. From the wound a narrow fragment of the screen protruded. Blood had flowed down his cheek and onto his throat, and from there disappeared into the collar of the suit.

Sav edged around to Josua’s side and drew a small knife from a pocket on his thigh. Liis flinched when it snicked open. Sav began sawing away at the material of Josua’s suit where it was criss-crossed with cuts, exposing his bloodied chest. When he finished, he dropped the knife on the floor and detached a sample sack from his waist. He bunched it up and dabbed away the blood on Josua’s chest, revealing a pattern of thin, parallel, razor-like cuts that welled with blood the moment he stopped staunching them. The flow was small and slow.

Sav looked at her. “Come here.”

Liis walked, stiff-legged, to where Josua lay.

“Support his neck.”

She knelt down, took Josua’s head in her lap. He’s alive, she thought, watching the almost imperceptible motion of his chest, rising and falling. Just under his rib cage, tiny bubbles rose on a patch of blood, then popped.

“I don’t think it’s too bad,” Sav said. “Doesn’t look like any major arteries were severed. This,” he said, placing his finger over the ragged gash where Liis had noticed the small bubbles forming, “is the only one I’m worried about.” The blood here flowed more freely and was bright red. Sav folded the sample bag into a small square and placed it over the wound. Grasping Liis’ right wrist, he put her hand on the bag. “Just keep a steady pressure. You remember the drill, don’t you?”

Liis nodded numbly; she pressed down on the makeshift compress.

Sav jerked the cable for the laser from Josua’s wrist jack and threw the tool to the side. It clattered in the darkness. Picking up Josua’s limp arm, Sav tore the seals off his gauntlet. Liis could see the small wires blackened and severed, trailing out of the line Sav’s laser had incised. He had cut its power and control circuitry cleanly, preventing Josua from using it on himself. Sav slipped the glove off; the skin on the back of Josua’s wrist was burnt in a straight line that looked like it had been painted on.

“Lucky,” Sav said, examining his hand. “I guessed at a setting. Could have done a lot more damage-or not enough.” Placing Josua’s hand on the floor, he rolled back on his haunches. “He’s a fool,” he said, shaking his head awkwardly in his helmet.

Beneath her fingers, Liis felt Josua labouring to draw in a breath. A tiny cloud of vapour formed in the chilled air above his lips with each exhalation. Small drops of blood clung to the hair of his chest like perverse, glittering beads. She looked up and saw that Sav was studying her.

“I’m going back to the dropship for the medical kit,” he said. He stood and looked around. “Hebuiza didn’t follow us. Can’t say that I’m surprised.” The disgust was plain in his