“I’m certain there is an airlock up on level eleven.” Mae slipped the overalls off. They’d retreated to the empty home she’d borrowed them from. “From the typical layout of a WY-9056 factory station, every level has at least one. They’re a safety feature that even Wey-Yu requires.”
Rook stood with his back to her, even though she didn’t need to get naked. His thoughtfulness was rather charming. “Are you suggesting an extravehicular activity?”
“Correct. Your access to the synthetic network means you can mask us as repair androids on their sensors, while to any humans observing we aren’t any different to them.”
Rook cocked an eyebrow. “I don’t look much like a Bishop model anymore, but we should proceed before they discover my presence in the node.”
Mae locked the door behind them. She didn’t want the residents to lose any of their few belongings.
They walked together across a quarter of the habitation level. Rook smiled and nodded at the people they passed. He even caught a red ball thrown by a young girl and bounced it back. Despite his damaged face, she thanked him politely. He seemed so at ease that Mae felt stilted in comparison.
“How many cameras are following us?”
“I have plotted our path to the airlock past the malfunctioning cameras. And we’re here.” Rook stopped in front of a dimly lit corridor. “After you, Lieutenant Hendricks.”
Only safety or engineering personnel would have the ability to open the locked exit. Mae withdrew her electronics kit and started running a bypass. Doing this as a genetic human took so long. Mae let out a sigh, hopefully with the correct amount of exasperation. “This will take a few moments, unless you want to do it.”
“Are you asking for an artificial person’s help?” Rook glanced back down the nondescript corridor. This maintenance area was supposedly for engineering staff to access the exterior of the station if there were any issues. Luckily, it had little traffic right now.
That would have been alarming to Mae if she lived here. Orbiting debris regularly pinged off and dented space stations. Minos continued to be a strange place. Hopefully, by breaking into the eleventh level, they’d find out why.
“No, I suppose not.” She bent to the task. After a few minutes, the lock chimed a low tone and sprang open. Mae didn’t try to keep a triumphant grin off her face. Hiding her secret from Rook, he wouldn’t be able to comprehend her delight at doing something the human way—even if it took 257 percent longer.
They hustled into the equipment locker outside of the airlock and shut the door behind them. Employees had left six full space suits hung up against the closest wall, while the far one was lined with equipment and machinery for repair work.
Rook strode over to the airlock and examined the mechanism.
Mae wriggled into a suit. “Hey, come on, you need to put one of these on too!”
He laughed. “No, I think you will find I really don’t need to. Not for such a short hop.”
“For this to work, you must look like a human. So I think you will find they don’t go out into the vacuum of space without one of these.”
“I forget how fragile humans are sometimes.” Rook climbed into an EVA space suit. The pressurized white garment was simple enough to slide into. They’d adapted this model from the bulkier units used in deep-space missions. The spherical helmet wasn’t as broad, with a clear surface to provide better peripheral vision. No one wanted to be hit by unseen space debris while walking out to undertake repairs. The gloves on this EVA suit were also much thinner, to provide better dexterity.
They twisted each other’s helmets shut and then pressurized them. Mae opened the inner airlock door. “Last chance to back out of this crazy human idea, Rook.”
His skillfully repaired face now allowed for a more convincing grin. “The gift of free will means nothing if you always play it safe.”
“Very human,” Mae muttered as they opened the outer airlock door and stepped forward.
Mae had never done an actual space walk in this body, or any other, though she possessed the logs of those who had. Rook locked the door behind them and cycled the air out before opening the outer hatch. As it slid to one side, Mae walked out and took hold of the tether.
She and Rook locked themselves to the system on the outer hull of the station. It ran in a grid pattern across the surface of Minos, but it was not a guarantee of safety. Any EVA trip contained the risk of debris and equipment failure.
Mae reminded herself not to calculate the odds. It wasn’t something a human would do. She, like Rook, could handle the vacuum of space if something punctured her suit. But the tether might still fail, and in that case, she would float away from the space station entirely. That would be uncomfortable.
Rook led the way, following the tether up the side of the station. Mae, though, couldn’t stop herself from looking down towards the planet. Such times were often influential on the shaping of a human consciousness, her father once told her. In the brief time he’d been inside her head, he’d tried valiantly to prepare her for an existence as a true artificial human. So she braced herself against the metal superstructure of Minos and turned around.
The great deep black of space, with the distant planet gleaming, was impressive. In the other direction, the planet provided more drama. The uninterrupted green of the planet and the bulk of the silver elevator filled her vision. Humanity’s achievements in contrast with the nature of the universe. And yet, though they’d claim it wholly as their own, it wouldn’t have been possible without the contributions of her kind.
“Are you waiting for something back there?” Ahead of her, on the curved surface of the station, Rook floated, waiting.
“No. I’m coming.” She scrambled up the tether after him.
The weightlessness of space was an interesting sensation, but it didn’t bother her as much as it might a genetic human. She followed Rook with very little effort up the side of Minos until they reached the airlock to the eleventh level.
This time, she deferred to Rook to break into the airlock. His synthetic efficiency would be required for this next stage of the infiltration. Mae already decided that if it came to needing to use her own, she would rather this mission succeed than fail. If that meant Rook discovered her true nature, then so be it. They’d wiped Erynis and EWA’s memories before, and they could do it to Rook too—if it became necessary.
They quickly gained access to the airlock’s interior, but they were not inside yet. Now she relied on Rook’s more impressive abilities.
Taking control of a whole synthetic network without being discovered was a greater challenge. An older model Bishop unit was unlikely to achieve it. However, Rook claimed to be more. Now Mae would discover if his claims were lies. The results were important: if they were caught, there were no explanations for how they accidentally ended up in this airlock. It wasn’t exactly a stroll from the galleria.
Rook examined the other side of the inner airlock door through the small window. He cocked his head. “Oh, there are synthetics and droids here. As I suspected, they have been shielded.”
“And can you access them?”
As an answer, the inner door hissed open. A small maintenance droid stood on the other side, retracting an arm he’d used to trigger the door lock. Rook stepped through and gave it a small pat on the head.
She followed more cautiously. This locker area was completely different from the one they’d left behind. It contained three EVA suits hanging on the wall, but they looked brand new and barely used. Instead, there were six small carts lined up against the walls. All were empty, except for one. It was sealed tight and bore an industrial waste sign on the outside. Opening it would be the only way to find out its contents, and she was not willing to do that.
The activities on the eleventh level remained hidden and dangerous. Still, that was not enough to call in the Jackals. Their remit specifically concerned Xenomorph eradication and all kinds of illegal experimentation with alien DNA. Anything beyond that—even if morally wrong—could result in the three generals pulling their support. Colonel Hendricks needed more evidence.
Mae and Rook stripped off their EVA suits and helmets, stashing them behind the other carts as best they could. Creeping to the door, Mae listened. Nothing registered with her advanced auditory sensors, but then, she was currently without many of her additional abilities.
“Wait a moment.” Rook joined her. “I am connected to several laboratory units on this level.”
Maybe they didn’t need to go any farther.
“Can you download their data? That would be enough proof for the colonel to order the Jackals in.”
“Whatever is happening here, the company is being very careful. Synthetic networks have been breached before. These units have some scrubbing protection installed. They are operating on their base programming alone.”
Even the mention of scrubbing alarmed Mae. That was her worst fear: to be whittled down to only an automaton, only performing basic functions forever. She imitated her mother’s posture, straightening her shoulders before confronting a dangerous or uncomfortable situation. “Then they’re forcing our hand. How do we proceed?”
Rook tapped the side of his head. “Don’t worry, I have plenty of eyes.”
He opened the door, and they slipped into the corridor. This level continued to be hugely different from the others they’d seen. It was immediately obvious that this was a sterile environment. Clean wasn’t the word to describe the white walls, floors, and ceilings. If Mae possessed human eyes, the shininess of it all might have blinded her.
“Here.” Rook passed her a clean suit and a mask. They both climbed into them, pulling up the thin hoods to cover their hair and putting on the respirator masks.
Mae was fully prepared to find the monsters her father’s data detailed. The variations that she’d experienced on Shānmén were not the same as his first contact with the Xenomorphs. They spawned the killers of so many miners on that planet from the substance released by the alien ship. However, the original monsters that both her mother and father had fought were different. They were slick, dark, terrifying, and deadly.
All three galactic powers, and their attached corporate contractors, spent a great deal of time trying to control the Xenomorphs. The 3WP, the UPP and the United Americas wanted them as bioweapons. Companies like Weyland-Yutani and the Jùtóu Combine wanted to profit by repackaging and selling them to the galactic powers. Zula Hendricks, Davis, and the Jackals had already destroyed many black sites, but the persistence of corporate greed wouldn’t allow the idea to die. Mae scanned the data that Rook supplied to the Jackals on his arrival; so many sites made Davis’s decision to create a daughter to continue the fight seem almost prescient.
“Over here.” Rook’s eyes darted from side to side as he accessed the synthetic network. “Not too many humans are working this late, but there are plenty of synthetics to alert me where they are. Let’s go deeper.”
He and Mae didn’t hide. They walked the corridors with as much confidence as someone meant to be there. The first laboratory they reached, she bypassed the lock, and they slipped in. Wordlessly, she took the right side of the room, and Rook took the left.
The workers kept their tools neatly laid out on benches or tucked away in fridges and lockers. With Rook occupied, Mae performed a human-based code break on a wrist-pd left on the bench. The person who worked here was obviously too lazy to think of a password. She’d taken her glove off and used a fingerprint ID instead. Mae’s ultraviolet vision scan spotted a rogue fingerprint on the bench. The worker in this lab was remarkably sloppy. Mae programmed a nearby 3D printer to recreate the pattern. She pressed the copy against the glass screen.
The wrist-pd automatically popped open on the last thing she’d been working on: DNA sequencing. Mae turned her back to Rook and scrolled at synthetic speed through the average workday of Dr. Weis. She was combining the DNA of human beings with something alien—but it wasn’t the Xenomorphs.
This was illegal work, no matter which galactic power you worked for. The history of such experimentation was ancient and full of dangers. Humans first tried to modify themselves around the same time they created the first synthetic person. Humanity’s curiosity and desire for improvement made attempts and DNA recombination inevitable.
The reports of the firebombing of genetically altered human settlements were horrifying. In the end, the three world powers declared the combining of human DNA with other living beings illegal, while allowing people to continue making mechanical improvements to their bodies.
But just like with their illegal tampering of Xenomorphs, Weyland-Yutani didn’t care about galactic laws. On the eleventh level of Minos Station, the scientists were hard at work combining an alien fungal RNA into the human genome. From the data Mae scanned, the results were unpredictable.
“I’ve found the cargo manifests to and from the planet.” Rook passed a pad to her.
Mae scrolled through the list. Names, ages, physical characteristics. “They’re not just experimenting on samples, are they? These are human families.”
The tight knot in her stomach felt real enough to Mae, even though it was synthesized like her. She passed the wrist-pd over to Rook.
He went still. “I think I know why they are so interested in familial units.” He scrolled through the pad. “Again, they’ve sectioned off their networks. The company is keeping data and scientists compartmentalized to protect the proprietary secrets. I can’t find anything on what benefits this fungus, Kuebiko, is supposed to grant the human subjects.”
“According to these manifests, they work on human subjects here, and then take them down to the planet’s surface. But why?”
“No data in this section will give us the answer.” Rook shot a look over at the door. “A human is approaching.”
They had no chance of sneaking back to the airlock without being spotted. Instead, both synthetics darted for cover. Rook folded himself up behind the stack of crates while she ducked behind the workbench.
When the door opened, she dared to glance at the newcomer from close to the floor. Humans usually kept their focus at eye level.
It was a young woman in a clean suit and wearing googles. She muttered to herself. Behind her trundled a robot, a laboratory assistant on wheels. It was flat on top and spherical, and possessed limited consciousness. It excelled at transporting fragile equipment and samples.
The human mumbled to herself. “Damn, I thought I put my wrist-pd down here. Dr. Dietzler said he’d throw me off the team if I lost another one.”
Rook must still have it with him, so this young woman would keep looking until she found it, and them along with it.
Mae ducked as the distressed scientist began poking around on her bench. The room wasn’t large, so eventually she’d find the foreign synthetics hiding there. Then, they’d either have to surrender or kill her. Though she’d killed before, she’d never taken a human life. Back on Shānmén, she’d gunned down local animals transformed by the pathogen, but only to protect her unit.
Not that she couldn’t murder a human—like Rook, with his lack of prime rules, she was fully capable of it. But the ramifications to her personality matrix were unknown. Murder changed a genetic human. It was likely to do the same to her.
However, this was a person with a life. Even if she’d done terrible things, Mae didn’t want to take her life. After snuffing it out, this young woman would have no chance to change and improve.
While this battle raged in Mae’s synthetic subconscious, the scientist drew closer. Soon, her feet were only centimeters from crunching Mae’s fingers. She prepared herself to make that terrible choice as best she could. The logic of it battled with the human instincts her father had encoded in her. With this many glass objects about, it would be a simple thing to overpower her and slit her throat. She could smash her head into the laboratory bench. Strangling her might make less noise and mess.
The lab assistant android let out a beep and rolled next to the crates Rook hid behind. Using a single articulated limb, it retrieved the lost pad.
“Here you are, Dr. Weis. You must have dropped it.” It whizzed back to her and held it aloft, like a child pleased with itself.
She snatched it back. “You should keep better track of my things. It’s literally your job.”
With that, she stormed out of the room, the android rolling after her as fast as it could.
Rook emerged from his hiding spot with a relieved smile on his lips. “Synthetic networking at its finest.”
Mae rose to her feet. “Nice work, but we’d better report back to Colonel Hendricks while we can.”
As they retraced their steps, Rook whispered, “This is all very important, but I want to know when you call her Zula, Mom, or Colonel. Must be quite a juggle for you.”
Mae didn’t reply, instead deciding to let him muse over that conundrum for a while. She put all her concentration into the space walk back and the intel she’d give the commander of the Jackals—Zula, Mom, or Colonel, whichever she might be.