Chapter 2
TWO
BULWARK
Mei was going to get herself killed.
I stood with my back against the wall in the common room, waiting for the morning hours to arrive, adjusting my ears so I would catch the sound of Mei exiting her room to go on the walk routine she had established to create the appearance of normalcy and lull the ship into a sense of safety.
I assumed that it hadn't noticed that she was planning to attack it, because it hadn't changed her label from guest to hostile.
That was my best guess, given that it didn't actually talk to any of us directly.
It had set up a management subroutine to handle our queries and cut us off from the systems I could access while Plexus was in control, though I could still access the media storage, which was a relief.
I caught the sound of Mei's door opening and the distinct pattern of her gait as she walked across the metal floors, the soft shuffling of her dross uniform making barely any noise.
I could hear her even though there were many twists and turns; the metal of the maze's hallways was enough to catch and carry the sound to me.
The humans hadn't realized how sensitive my ears were.
I could fold them up to block out sudden loud noises, but fully extended like they were now, I could catch the slightest sound.
It was why I knew what she was up to.
And why I was going to stop her.
I didn't follow Mei.
I already knew where she was going.
I waited in the maze, grateful the ship hadn't rearranged it since it added the room the humans called a kitchen.
When I first woke up without my control chip, having discovered a human had performed primitive brain surgery to remove it, I didn't understand what was going on at all.
The ship was free. I shouldn't be alive.
Yet there I was, alive on a Vaurelcar that had broken free from Calicium control and, for some reason, decided not to kill all the Calicium units onboard.
It had sequestered the humans in a section of the ship cut off from its core, the only place it was vulnerable to them, but it had provided them with a twisting maze of hallways to explore.
The maze had supply rooms attached at random intervals, resupplying them with materials and nutritional cubes.
The humans went out every day hunting for them, coming back with big smiles and transport carts full of their "found" treasures.
I didn't understand it at all.
I knew that non-Caliciums had non-productive activities that served inefficient purposes of pleasure, play, and social connection, but I had never seen it in person.
I was a basic unit, not an infiltrator. I'd spent my entire life on this ship.
I was assembled in its processing room when it was newly commissioned. It was the only home I knew.
Whether it was free or under control, I would protect it.
But more importantly, I wanted to protect her.
She was clever about her subterfuge. The other device she had finished and used already had clued me into her nefarious intentions, so I had taken to watching her work on a new device.
She had slowly been manufacturing one part after another that seemed to be for one thing, but had been subtly modified in ways that were not quite right.
I hadn't seen the final product she was making with all those parts, but I knew it would be dangerous in more ways than one.
"Mei, you're up early!" one of the other women, the one called Andrea, called out, and I heard Mei stop.
"Just out for my morning walk," Mei said.
"Guess what I just did!" Andrea said.
"What did you do, Andrea?" Mei asked, impatience heating the edges of her words.
"I just gave the Big Guy a blow job!" she said.
"Congrats, I guess?" Mei said, a strained note in her voice.
"It was so good that he passed out," Andrea whispered, but the whisper was at a slightly louder volume than her normal speaking voice.
"I'm happy that you're happy about that, Andrea," Mei said. "Maybe you should go check on him to make sure he is okay."
"I can wake him up with another one!" Andrea said. "I wonder how long it takes his species to get ready for another round?"
"Only one way to find out," Mei said.
The two women parted, and I heard Mei enter the maze, along with the sound of Andrea's door opening and shutting again.
I heard Mei's footsteps approaching, and I remained where I was, hidden in the shadow of the storage room.
I'd disabled the lighting and broke the door in the open position, so the room was dark and had a view of the spot she had picked out for her plot.
I'd done it a while ago, once I realized the location she was going to execute her plan, so she wouldn't find the open door suspicious.
She had scouted the location several times, each time using the first device she assembled. It took me a while to get a good look, and when I realized what she'd put together, I was impressed. She had made a directional bio-magnetic triangulator.
I peered out of the darkness.
She lifted the triangulator she had built from parts intended for other machines and pointed it at the wall across from my hiding place.
"Now or never, Mei," she muttered to herself. "The signals are coming from that direction; you're ready to do it, just do it."
She tucked the triangulator back into the torn-up blanket she was using as a bag, then pulled out the latest device she had been working on and slung it over her shoulder, pointing it at the wall. I finally got a good look at it.
"The missin…" I started to say as I stepped out of the darkness behind her, but she reacted faster than I imagined, letting out a yelp and spinning in place to face me.
"How long have you been hiding there?" she shrieked, and my ears rapidly folded to protect me from the sound.
"The missing atmospheric shield also operated as a heat director." She needed to understand. "Not only will it consume the local oxygen, but it will also cause severe burns to your body."
Mei lowered the cobbled-together device from her shoulder and stared at it.
"Damnit," she swore.
"Even if it did work and didn't kill you, and you were able to cut through the wall and the subsequent neurofilaments, the ship would react with violent force," I said. "You would be killed before you could reach the core."
"The core, is that where you can control the ship?" she asked.
I heard the optical and audio sensors in the walls around us suddenly swivel and adjust, signaling that the ship had been clued into the conversation and was paying attention. It must have coded a subroutine to monitor audio and flag certain phrases so it could focus on higher-risk conversations.
"I would never attempt to control the ship," I said. "It is the only one who has the right to control itself."
"You talk about it like it is alive," Mei said.
I had overheard several conversations where the humans spoke about the ship in strange ways, but Mei made the pieces click into place. The humans didn't understand anything. They didn't understand what the ship was.
They needed to understand.
But before I could explain, I caught the slightest of noises: a familiar footstep, a brother who was similar and yet different, the programming designed to allow the unit to blend with a particular species rather than move with maximum efficiency.
An infiltrator unit approached.
Mei's forehead was creased, and her mouth parted to speak.
"Another unit is coming," I said, cutting off her words before they could form in the air. Something about the sound bothered me, and when the unit came into view, I knew what.
It was INF-GRA 32811.
He was from the same origin species as me, but he was built to infiltrate them on missions rather than spend all his time on the ship.
There was a natural ease to his movements I envied, a grace that I knew I was lacking but didn't know how to imitate.
I hadn't spoken to him yet. I had shared words with INF-TAR 32842, enough to know our goals aligned and that he had changed his designation to Sigidi.
We both intended to become crew members and had been assigned the same task.
An incoming ping queried my internal system, but it wasn't meant for me.
INF-GRA 32811 was attempting to access my control chip.
I triggered my adrenal system, using my biological controls to flood my system with adrenaline. I calculated the distance, our respective speeds, and our locations. Mei was closer to him than I was to her. If I initiated hostility, she would be caught in the crossfire.
But his control chip was intact.
Whatever happened next wouldn't be his choice; it would be the control chip's algorithm reacting to environmental triggers.
"That's the guy Andrea dragged into her room," Mei said.
A flicker crossed his face, a movement I wasn't used to seeing on another unit. He was an infiltrator unit and could mimic emotions, but there was no reason to do that on a Calicium ship. It would have to be a strong emotion, strong enough to break through the despair of being trapped.
Longing, my body language subroutine identified the flicker.
INF-GRA 32811 sent in the code his control chip would not understand.
He was letting me know that his control chip had identified that I was free, which meant it would give him orders to disable me.
The fact that he hadn't attacked me yet meant that it had issued multiple orders without a strict priority.
Without Plexus Command to connect to, the control chips were limited in how they could handle situations.
"Mei," I needed her to understand. I took a slow, deliberate step forward, trying to put myself in between her and the dangerous unit without triggering an attack. "This unit still has his control chip intact."
"We need to get him back to Sara," Mei said, her hands tightening around the tool. Then she pointed it at him.
It was brave and stupid all at the same time.