Chapter 37
I came awake, sucking in the deepest breath I’d ever taken. I winced—my stomach most definitely did not like that kind of movement, not that the rest of my body was much better. It hurt a lot less being dead. I peeled my eyes open to see that my stomach was still oozing, but not horribly so.
I looked around. The emergency lighting was dim now but still giving off illumination.
My vision wasn’t great, but it was good enough for me to see a lot of shapes on the floor, and the night sky above.
A cool breeze blew in, and that was what convinced me that I really was alive and not hallucinating in hell.
“Byte?” I asked. My voice was rough and gritty.
She appeared next to me. I’m here, Cal.
“We’re alive?”
I thought that was obvious.
“I don’t feel alive. I feel mostly dead.”
We are critically injured. But my hypothesis worked. The control center fully shutting down my technological parts allowed my biological nature to finish its assimilation. We are now a fully fused, autonomous, symbiotic entity, Cal. You, me, us .
I rubbed my temples. The earlier migraine was threatening to return. “I didn’t understand a word you just said.”
I am no longer just an amp as you are no longer just a human.
I moved and groaned. “Still feel mostly dead.”
“You look mostly dead, too,” Talon said as he limped toward me. “You’d better not die on me. You still owe me an AV.”
I smiled even though it physically hurt to do so. It was good to see he was still alive, except the blood had dried and one of his eyes had swollen shut. “You look like shit.”
“Where have I heard that before?” He gestured around us. “You used a grenade? In here? You’re crazier than me.”
I would’ve shrugged but I knew how much that would hurt. I struggled to get to my feet, and he had to help me. I hissed at the movement to both my stomach and knee, but Talon allowed me to use him as a crutch even though he was wobbly on his feet.
Talon nodded toward the closed doors. “I figured they would’ve found a way to break those down by now.” He glanced at me. “Well, we can’t stay up here all day.”
I scanned the floor and smiled, pointing.
Talon figured out my intention right away, and we trudged over and picked up the forearm and hand, which were still gloved in a sleek gray suit.
Then we slowly made our way to the security elevator.
Once inside, I peeled off the glove and held the hand against the authorization panel.
It flashed green, and I tapped the lowest level shown.
I grunted. “Hm, who knew the tower had a basement?”
The elevator brought us all the way to the basement level without stopping. When the doors opened, I expected to be gunned down by a squad of enforcers, but there was no one there. I shot Talon a suspicious glance.
“Hey, I’m as surprised as you are that we’re still alive.” He tucked his chin in the direction of my gut. “Though, did you notice you have a gaping stomach wound?”
“Yeah, I kind of noticed it,” I said.
The basement was a parking garage, and from the look of the AVs, it was an executive parking garage.
A sleek black AV pulled up and the door opened.
I’ve taken control of this vehicle.
“Our chariot awaits,” I said, and we climbed in with plenty of groaning and wincing.
“Where would you like to go?” Byte asked through the vehicle’s speaker system.
Talon pointed at a sign above one of the basement’s tunnels.
“The spaceport. Lumen Lu’s still there and can be ready to launch in ten minutes.
” He glanced at me. “But you, my friend, are in serious need of a full case of bionanites. I’ve got a couple doses in Lu —that’ll be enough to stabilize you, but we’ll need to find more than that. ”
“I’m working on healing you, but I require more energy. Bionanites may come in handy,” Byte said.
“To the spaceport, it is,” I said.
The tunnel was empty all the way to the spaceport. It was deep into night, but I had a feeling the tunnel was never very busy. Neither of us talked on the way to the spaceport. The questions hung heavy in the air.
Did it work?
Was it all worth it?
Did Andra and Tommy get out?
Did the freed low-towners make it out of Aberdeen without being gunned down or recaptured?
Did I want to know any of those answers?
We reached the spaceport to find it also empty. There probably weren’t many flights that launched at this time of night, but it still made me suspicious. Talon had Byte drive directly to the private docks. The owner of the AV would get fined for parking illegally, not us.
Byte was helping with the pain, and we found a couple of rain ponchos in the trunk. We donned them. I couldn’t walk, so Talon had to help me.
“This is becoming a habit,” I griped as he helped me out of the vehicle.
“Don’t worry, you’ll get a bill from me.”
“Take this car,” I said. “Call us even.”
He chortled. “Giving me a stolen car doesn’t pay me back for stealing my semi-legally owned car. Keep it; you’re buying me a new one.”
“It might take a while,” I said.
“That’s fine. Interest will be compounding.”
We entered the private docks, and Talon flagged a cart. The really odd thing was that when we reached security, the systems were down and we drove right through.
“Uh, Byte, did you have something to do with this?” I asked.
I deactivated all security systems, though I expect them to be online within the day. However, their hands are full right now.
“Cart, play the news,” I said.
The screen morphed from a never-ending run of ads to the local news. It showed high-towners rioting outside Softbiotics Tower. Many were crying; others were stone-faced. They held up signs like Bring our amps back online now! and They’re our amps, not yours .
Talon chuckled. “Guess it worked.”
“How long do you think it’ll be before someone figures out how to bring their amps back online?”
“Not long. Sure, half the universe is idiots, but the other half is clever enough to take advantage of those idiots. I bet Softbiotics will charge a fee to bring each amp back up.” He turned serious then. “We made some pretty big enemies today.”
I considered. “Yeah, we probably did. And we didn’t get to use Andra’s data stick, so the public never got to see Softbiotics’ crimes.”
“Aw, well, they would’ve figured out a way to cover them up, anyway.”
As the cart cruised along the private docks, Byte practically yelled, Stop!
I jumped, which made every one of my body parts twinge in pain. “Cart, stop,” I said in a rush, and it did.
“What’s wrong?” Talon asked.
The craft in this docking bay is registered under Fable Ventures.
It took a while for the name to connect. “This is Katz’s ship?”
That would make it ours now.
I turned to Talon. “Uh, I think this is my ship.”
He eyed me suspiciously. “Cart, wait here.”
He assisted me into the docking bay. Once we passed through the short hallway and opened the door to the bay, Talon whistled. “Now, that is one silky girl. You sure it’s yours?”
“Nope.”
The ship was a sleek silver vessel with a dome on the top and on the bottom. Near the nose was a painting of a unicorn and the ship’s name, Rapscallion .
He helped me to the authorization panel.
I pressed my hand to it, and it responded, “Welcome, Dr. Katz.” The door opened, and Talon helped me inside to an interior as nice as the exterior.
Once he set me down near the front at the ship’s controls, he walked through the interior and came back a minute later with a syringe of bionanites.
“This might be the nicest yacht I’ve ever seen, and it’s stocked like end-of-the-universe stocked. Want to make a trade? I mean, I love little ole Lumen Lu , but this is something else.”
I chuckled. “Maybe later.” He injected the bionanites, and I felt the tingling inside already. He then set a couple of syringes next to the chair before lifting another syringe. “I’m taking this one for myself. You’ve got plenty of spares.” He then injected himself and closed his eyes.
After several minutes, I felt like my body had at least stabilized.
He stretched. “Well, I think it’s time for me to mosey before enforcers get told that they can still enforce without their amps.
” He pointed his armlet toward the flight controls.
“I’m giving you my and Lu ’s data, so you can reach out once things quiet down.
” His armlet chimed. “And Byte just sent me yours and Rapscallion ’s. I think your amp’s got a crush on me.”
He smiled and started to leave.
“Hey, Talon. Recommend any places out there?” I raised my head toward the sky.
He considered for a minute. “Atlas Spire is a nice place in the middle of nowhere land. It’s a good spot when you want to lie low for a bit and not have to constantly look over your shoulder for enforcers.”
“Sounds like paradise.”
He smirked. “Not quite.”
He left then with neither of us saying goodbye, and after he exited, the doors closed and the ship whirred to life.
Byte appeared, leaning against the control panel, her voice coming through the ship’s speakers. “Interestingly, this ship is fully programmed to allow me to operate it.”
“I’m guessing the good doctor might’ve planned to implant you in herself at one point… or maybe she just planned for every possibility.”
“Regardless of her rationale, her planning has made our life easier. Would you like me to set a flight plan for Atlas Spire? I will, of course, provide the Space Flight Authority a different flight plan.”
I thought for a moment. Two weeks ago, I’d never been to space. But since then, it’d been only to TerraSoft-11’s moon. As a boy, I’d often wished to fly across the stars, to get away from my miserable life. And now that I had the chance to finally do it?
I smiled. “Hell, yeah.”
Within ten minutes, we were leaving the planet’s orbit. Once we were clear, Byte announced, “We’re clear of TerraSoft-11’s airspace. Get comfortable. We need to go into hibernation mode to heal.”
“What do you mean, ‘we have to go into hibernation mode?’” I asked.
She tsked me. “I told you we evolved. We are one now, and to properly heal, we need to hibernate.”
I managed to get myself into a standing position and then said “Ow” every time I hopped on my only good leg to go find the ship’s quarters… which were austere, but the bed looked plusher than any bed I’d seen in my life. I dragged myself over to it and fell onto my back.
“And while we’re at it, I may make a few updates. Mostly fix a few bugs in the error log,” she said.
“That’s all you’re changing, right?”
“More or less.”