Chapter 22
CHAPTER
TWENTY-TWO
RISK
“The Maker’s alive,” Chrys gasps as she gets into the car. “I saw him. He was talking to that waitress at the cafe. Who may or may not have tried to drug me.”
She looks at me, expectantly, as Shock turns the car away from the cafe, and I look for any sign of him.
“I don’t know if Paisley was trying to drug you, but his name is Atker.”
“You knew?”
“We only just found out,” Shock says. “He made it so the people who know who he is are afraid to speak his name.”
“He was talking to the waitress… she wants Kissu…” Worrying her lip piercings, Chrys says, “I think we need to get home and check on him.”
Shock takes us home, ignoring speed recommendations. Arc still hasn’t fixed the regulator and I know Chrys is happy for that right now.
Nothing is out of place when we get home, but it is eerily quiet inside.
“Kissu?” Chrys calls out, kicking off her boots and hurrying inside.
He responds with a high trill and stretches, yawning as he hops down from the basket-like bed on Chrys’ tree.
“There you are!” He purrs appreciatively when she hugs him. “I’m glad I was worried about nothing.”
Kissu hugs her back with one furred paw wrapped around her.
One problem that turned out to be nothing is good.
My problem, however…
“I’m going down to the crash site before they take it out of here.”
Chrys isn’t happy about it. They both look out the window where the smoke used to be.
“Okay,” she hugs Kissu a little tighter. “But you’d better hurry back.”
“I will.”
Buried in the archives of the library, I found outdated manufacturing schematics for a particular kind of ship.
Those schematics told me Noa had lied to Shock… or maybe he’d just forgotten.
There’s something in the aft section of the ship that would help me find where the data was transmitted to. And if I don’t get down there and get to it fast… it’s going to be gone for good.
I leave Chrys feeding Kissu treats and Shock watching them in amusement.
The snow is still thick from the blizzards, and my bike throws up plumes in my wake.
Between those—if he’s looking—and tripping the sensors, Breaker is going to know I’m poking around.
It’s better if I get this done as quickly as possible.
I hop off my bike, letting it slide away from me as the engine turns itself off, and check that my gun is still mag-clipped to my thigh. No sign of anything in the debris or along the inner caldera wall…
Hurrying through the remnants of the crashed ship, I find what I’m looking for easily.
Fire casing will have kept this part of the circuitry safe and the backup data storage underneath should be intact.
When I get the panel torn open, my visor finds the connection port and I plug in the adaptor I brought with me.
So much information pops up on my visor, it’s dizzying.
“Filter for transmission code signal.”
The images go blank and then the information appears a moment later.
The data has been altered. The transmissions only look like they came from Calisan.
He wanted us to go to Calisan.
I don’t know why. But I do know that Arc and Kilo need to know.
I disconnect, taking a step back as the visor clears. That’s too much data for my helmet to download. I’m going to have to take the whole unit with me if I want to save it.
I try to call Arc, but it doesn’t go through.
Kilo and Riann’s comms are dead too.
Fuck.
I need tools, so I trudge back to my bike. The standard kit we keep on them should be enough.
But tools aren’t what I need when I take my first step back toward the wreckage.
It didn’t trigger my visor’s warning sensors. I didn’t hear it, but a cavrinskh stands between me and the backup data storage.
Something dark and wet hangs from its mouth, and it spits it out on the ground before making a low sound and stalking toward me.
Claws digging into the metal pieces it climbs over, I don’t look at them as they screech and puncture with ugly pops.
When I drop the tools, it pounces. My gun is only halfway up when it hits, and I don’t get a shot off.
The cavrinskh flails wildly, claws tearing through metal and skimming across my skin, tearing long lines in my suit and down my ribs.
The sting of it makes me flinch, and I have to get my feet under me—to keep it from dragging me further away.
All I succeed in doing is getting my arm caught in its beak a moment before it flings me away.
It was the wrong choice. Before I’m up off the ground, I have my gun leveled at it.
My first shot hits it in a shoulder.
The second it dodges completely, rolling away.
I don’t get off a third.
Breaker throws himself at the cavrinskh, and in a sparking flash, it drops to the snow and the scent of burning hair hits me.
“So,” Breaker says, breathing heavily and pushing himself up to standing. “That was almost really shitty for you.”
“Yeah, it was. Thanks. I don’t know how it snuck up on me.”
“It’s been a long time since you’ve gotten hit.” Breaker looks at me like he’s never seen Sian blood before. “Can you make it home on your own?”
“It’s not that bad. I just need to grab something before I go.”
“Not ours to take,” he says, but he doesn’t try to stop me nor ask what it is. He just gets to work cleaning up the carcass.
I snatch up the tool kit from where I dropped it and scan the area again… not that it helped last time.
Touching my ribs, I look at the metal its claws tore open.
It wasn’t here to kill me.
One of the cube-like canisters is leaking sludgy fuel. That should have burned off in the…
I see the dark, wet bundle a moment before I register the puddle it’s sitting in.
“Get back!”
The words are barely out of my mouth before it explodes.
The force of it throws me back into the snow and knocks all the air from my lungs.
“Fuuuuck,” Breaker groans when the echo of the blast has finally quieted.
That, more than anything, gets me to my feet.
“You okay?” I ask, holding my side and keeping my distance from his hands.
He sits up and pats at himself. “Yeah. You?”
“I’ve been better.”
The backup data storage is decimated.
“Either you’ve got shit luck… or that’s one hell of an anti-theft system.”
“The cavrinskh was carrying a bomb.”
Breaker’s skepticism is understandable. “That’s ridiculous.”
“No. It was doing what it was told.”
My visor comm notifications also explode, and I ignore Drift and Trench, answering Shock instead.
“I’m fine. I promise.”
“Something exploded.”
“But it wasn’t me. As soon as I disconnect, I’m on my way home.” And when I get there, I’ll be more mindful of what I say… someone is watching or listening, and I can bet I know who.
“We’ll be watching your progress,” Shock says.
“I know.”
Breaker watches me with a smile casting a crooked line across his face. “It’s nice isn’t it,” he asks when I disconnect. “Being loved?”
“Yes it is.”
“Go home. I’ll deal with Drift.” He turns away, answering the call, and like the dead cavrinskh, I do what I’m told.
ARC
There are dozens of files on Tylen’s old experiments. Detailed notes on the human genome, reproductive systems…
“These are old.”
Old enough the information might be available in the medical libraries in Ilidi if you got the right permissions… Kiro published his plans with the hubris of a man who didn’t think he could do anything wrong.
He was obsessed with the “unaided” propagation of our species.
“Saints,” Riann says under his breath, “you can tell he really hates Tylen.” Riann chooses to keep the rest of his thoughts to himself, and I return my focus to my screen while Riann notes the cavrinskh was captured and transported by Kiro… and this guy accidentally woke it.
He tabs through more notes, working backward. “I don’t think they were ever involved, but when Tylen found out we bond to humans, Kiro really went after him. Before that… he’s marginally less hostile.”
“They were harvesting eggs here,” Kilo says, disgusted. “Weeuns without the need for mothers.”
“If it’s any consolation, it looks like they were working with volunteers.”
“That’s what their records say. I don’t trust anything we find down here. Why leave anything but lies behind?” Kilo pushes the files away and opens up a new drive. “He doesn’t seem to like anyone who isn’t a sycophant.”
“Remind me to ask Andrea to stop teaching you big words.”
“Saints.” Riann looks at the data in front of him and looks ill. “Is it any wonder all the women left?”
“What?” Kilo asks it, but I would have if he hadn’t first.
Riann looks between us and he says, “Oh… did you not…” know that Kiro’s work started before everything else?
“Our education was provided by a man who chose to give us a highly biased curriculum.” And the CSS left Drift handle the rest once the Maker was dead.
Kilo shrugs and keeps searching. “We were told all of the women were killed by cavrinskh.”
“Some of them were. Some of them left. When you have six-legged monsters trying to eat you and two-legged monsters trying to remove you from every possible part of society they can… well, I’d probably look for something better on a different planet too.”
“What do you mean, remove them?” I look at the data with new questions as Riann points at the screen.
“Those are Sian eggs. Not human ones. They’ve been able to make it work with human embryos… That was the real reason Kiro was removed from all of the projects. He was fanatical.”
“And he wasn’t alone…” Kilo makes a little gagging sound.
“Most of those men are long dead, but it looks like at least a few are still around and working on getting their research back to where it was.”
“That’s what the Fillio Index is for?” I ask. “The viability of their eggs outside of their body?”
“More or less. The bio score is about her overall health and wellbeing when she gets here. The Fillio Index is solely about whether or not she can have children.”
“That’s kind of gross,” Kilo says.
“It’s why they don’t use the index when determining who is eligible to be matched.”
“But they still run it?”
“Yes.” Riann looks away. “It’s background data. The Agency likes their data.”