CHAPTER THIRTEEN THE WEAPON IN MY HAND
ROWAN
The relay chamber was human. That made it uglier. Three old Preybridge emitters had been driven into the deep-root wall, then abandoned when the project collapsed. Their power cells were dead.
The mineral lattice around them was not. Blue residue pulsed through the stone every time the forest shifted. The system had become part of the terrain.
"That's our source," I said.
Shaarr crouched near the nearest relay.
"Dead machine."
"Dead power source."
"Difference?"
"The roots are carrying what it taught them."
His damaged eye faced the equipment. I hated the sentence after I said it. The forest had learned our violence. Wonderful legacy.
I connected an external reader. The relay responded. A security key flashed. Then my implant vibrated beneath my skin. I froze.
Shaarr noticed.
"What?"
"It recognized me."
His posture changed.
"Why?"
"Preybridge authentication."
I opened the archive. Most logs were corrupted. Command fragments. Personnel records.
Telemetry. Then a familiar unit code appeared.
RVALE-07
My mouth went dry. No. Not now. Of course now.
The system opened automatically using the old neural credential. I should have closed it. Instead, I loaded the session. Date.
Time. Western ridge attack. Remote motor override. My armor.
Every detail I remembered badly now existed without smoke. Right arm control: ninety-six percent. Resistance detected. Corrective restraint increased. Target acquisition.
My stomach turned. Shaarr came closer.
"What is it?"
"Field record."
"Yours?"
"Yes."
The visual reconstruction loaded. Pale Hunt-Born armor appeared. Four eyes. Shaarr.
There was no ambiguity this time. No trauma blur. No maybe. My own targeting system locked beneath his left lateral eye. The weapon fired.
Impact. Shaarr did not move. I did. A small sound escaped me.
He heard it.
"Continue."
I wanted to refuse. He deserved better. The recording advanced. My neural resistance spiked immediately after the first shot. The armor increased restraint. Second discharge.
Shaarr's shoulder. A third shot began charging. Then an external strike destroyed the relay. Control dropped.
My weapon fell from my hand. The reconstructed image caught me staring at my own fingers. Shaarr spoke behind me.
"I remember you."
I turned.
"What?"
"After the control stopped."
My chest tightened.
"You saw me."
"Yes."
"I thought you were afraid of me."
"I was."
His face closed. I shook my head.
"Not of you."
The chamber hummed around us.
"I was afraid my arm would move again."
Shaarr looked back at the recording.
"You fought the command."
"The log says so."
"I did not need the log."
That almost broke me. I closed the projection. Then reopened it. Saved everything.
Shaarr noticed.
"Why?"
"Evidence."
"Against the project."
"Yes."
"Against the humans who controlled you."
"Yes."
"And against you."
I did not answer. His voice hardened.
"Rowan."
"My hand fired."
"Your hand was occupied territory."
The phrase hit somewhere deep. I looked at him.
"The injury is still on your face."
"Yes."
"That doesn't disappear because someone else forced the trigger."
"No."
"So stop trying to make me innocent."
"I am not."
His claws scraped the stone.
"I am telling you where responsibility belongs."
The distinction hurt. Because I understood it. Because I had been refusing it.
"I knew the burn pattern before we came west."
"Yes."
"I suspected that was you."
"Yes."
"I told myself memory wasn't proof."
"Partly true."
I swallowed.
"The other part was that I thought you'd remove me from the mission."
His expression changed. Not shock. Something colder. There it was.
The wound I had made deliberately.
"You believed I might decide differently if I knew."
"Yes."
"So you prevented the decision."
"I thought the mission mattered more."
"To whom?"
"Everyone."
"No."
His voice dropped.
"To you."
I flinched. Shaarr stepped closer.
"You wanted to fix what happened."
"Yes."
"You wanted the chance."
"Yes."
"And you decided my knowledge threatened that chance."
There was nowhere left to hide.
"Yes."
Silence. The old relay clicked behind us. A machine that had once moved my body against me. And here I stood having done a cleaner version of the same thing to him. No force.
No weapon. Just information withheld until the decision I wanted became easier. My stomach turned.
"I'm sorry."
Shaarr looked at the old targeting record.
"The weapon was not your choice."
I closed my eyes.
"The silence was."
"Yes."
That was the sentence. No excuse survived it.