Chapter 2
TWO
The human who had been selected was highlighted with a soft white outline, making her easy to spot amongst the rest of the dross.
I let out a soft sigh of relief when I saw the one selected wasn't Lyssa.
I bent to pick the selected dross up, slinging her over my shoulder as I eyed Lyssa, who still lay on the ground at my feet, healthy muscle carved into every inch of her frame.
These humans had no claws, teeth, or defensive capabilities, but she was pushing her body to the limit, using the mass-building machines with a vengeance that had marked her as high-quality dross, slated for later use once the processing method had been refined.
Her neural pathways would be well primed for determination and task achievement.
My gaze lingered for a moment on the short blue hair framing her face, the edges of her roots showing the color was artificial.
Dross didn't have names, but I had lingered on the surveillance footage of the dross pen and learned that hers was Lyssa.
She would lose that name when the processing for her species became more efficient. Her body mass and neurological reaction time were too high-quality to waste on initial test assembly. A swell of emotion washed through me, regret and sadness.
I could hold onto her name for her... I could...
Biological suppression initiated.
The emotions sifted into the banality of ennui, a heavy weight pressing them down so all I had was the memory of them, the memory of looking at the alien female and wishing things could be different, before those feelings were replaced by the dull ache of the empty boredom that was my existence.
Still, I didn't move, staring down at her as if I could recapture the feeling that had risen up in me.
Resume task. My control chip ordered.
My body jerked away from where Lyssa still lay on the floor, the form of the dross flagged for retrieval hanging limp over my shoulder.
There was no fighting it. I had heard rumors that units could hack their control chips, but I couldn't see how that was possible.
They would have to be an infiltrator unit on a mission, because any unit that was under the direct control of Plexus command would get flagged for repair if it deviated from its commands, and a single unit couldn't fight off the rest of its Plexus cluster, especially a large cluster like mine.
I carried the limp dross out into the hallway, down towards the processing room.
I stepped into the room that had become more crowded recently.
The ship had undergone a recent rearrangement, and several reconstruction chambers had been moved into the space normally designated only for new unit construction.
The reconstruction chambers moved were those housing units that had sustained extensive damage, such as the infiltrator unit that had been mauled by a pack of female Noscaryns.
I'd read the mission report, and there was a failure in how his biological suppression didn't allow the correct response to that species courtship rituals.
Noscaryn females were not forgiving of minor errors.
Why Plexus Command didn't just turn off the biological suppression for infiltration missions, I didn't understand, but I didn't query about it. Units who queried too much were flagged for recycling.
I dropped the retrieved dross down on the table, and its face wrinkled for a moment in a wince before smoothing back into a soft mask of sleep.
Dross shouldn't react to discomfort while under the influence of the sleep gas.
This human was awake.
I didn't alert the system.
The control chip policed my actions, not my thoughts, so I didn't scan her body for signs of alertness, since it would read the scan and flag it automatically. Instead, I reviewed the possibilities. What could I do that would give her a chance at escape? My task here was done.
Task completed. My control chip reported to Plexus Command, always a few moments slower than my own awareness. New Task acquired.
My orders had shifted to waiting and being available to assist if necessary, and a low level of dread filled me, an undertone too deep to trigger the biological suppression as it didn't cause a heart rate change or a burst of hormonal adjustments.
My body stepped back on its own to line me up with the wall, another piece of furniture in a room.
I didn't want to stand here and watch this. None of us did.
The other unit standing near the table, who had been assigned to do that actual work, sent me a series of unhappy face emojis on a private text communication.
A different Plexus Cluster we had coordinated with recently shared emojis with our cluster, and they spread.
Plexus Command saw them as junk data, so they had become a primary mode of communication on our shared feeds.
We had a certain amount of leeway when talking to each other, as cluster cohesion during high-load events required a sense of camaraderie and oneness, but only if communications were flagged as positive and supportive of Calicium ideals.
It couldn't police our thoughts, but it monitored all of our communications with each other.
So it was best to talk in a way that looked like nonsense to it.
I sent him.
I was letting him know the dross was awake and that I wanted to find a way to let it escape; I just didn't know how.
He replied.
He didn't know any way to give the dross a chance to escape, either.
I glanced around the room, looking for something I could do, something that would pause the initiation of processing long enough for the dross to slip away. It was doubtful that she would get very far, but she was an unknown species. There was always a chance she could find a way.
"This reconstruction chamber is interfering with efficient workflow," I stated out loud for the sake of both my control chip and the other unit, giving them a reason for my actions.
I grabbed the chamber by the large control panel jutting from it, using it to pull the reconstruction chamber closer to the table where the dross lay.
I should be able to move multiple items in the way before the control chip stepped in to evaluate my actions, triggering a Plexus command review and orders to stop.
It would mean tighter restraints from my control chip for a time, but if it gave the dross a chance to slip away, it would be worth it.
Not that there was anywhere for her to go on this ship.
"We must do a workflow redesi-" the other dross began to say, jumping in on my plan, but his words were cut off by the blaring claxon of a shipwide alarm.
New Orders. Maximum Priority. My command chip said, the urgency level of the orders seizing full control of my body and forcing it into immediate action.
Both of us turned and ran from the room, leaving the seemingly unconscious dross on the table. I reviewed the orders as I ran.
We hadn't found the wild Vaurelcar we had been hunting; it had found us. Not only had it found us, but it was whole and healthy, unaffected by the neutralizing contaminant that our infiltrator unit had managed to get on board.
It was attacking our ship.
Which meant I was about to die.