“Welcome back.” The last thing Mae wanted to see leaning over her was Captain Warrae’s face.
Don’t tell him everything. Now she understood the nature of that voice: Davis, her synthetic father. It was much more comforting, with that knowledge. I’m turning down your pain receptors. I think you may have gone a little too close to humanity with those.
Her jaw lay on the medical cart next to her, surrounded by the blood Zula Hendricks insisted her daughter have. Amusingly, she hadn’t wanted a paper cut to reveal her daughter. This situation would have given her nightmares.
The desire to reach up and probe the damage consumed Mae, but the restraints prevented that.
“What did you see?” Warrae’s eyes narrowed on her. His actuators hissed as he leaned closer.
Mae didn’t answer because she couldn’t answer. They’d taken the parts of her body used to create sound. The captain let out a sharp laugh at his own stupidity.
“Sir, we have the results.” Homolka handed a pad over to his commanding officer, looking like he’d won a lottery.
Together, they practically drooled at what they read. “An unlicensed autonomous build.” Warrae scrolled through the results, a bead of sweat breaking out on his stretched face. “This isn’t anything by Weyland-Yutani, and it’s definitely too well-executed to be Seegson.”
“A genuine artist worked on it.” Homolka shot her a look. It contained all the emotion of someone looking over a piece of furniture. “The chipset in there is bespoke, and the firewalls were impressive even after we broke through.”
Warrae tapped his fingertips on the pad. “Yes, they were, but we need to ensure that there are no more hidden ones. A maker of this quality would have built in redundancies. Imagine the proprietary knowledge this thing has in it.”
They haven’t reached the true, self-aware core of you yet. Stay frosty, Mae. You can still survive this.
This Captain Warrae seemed to have one real flaw: curiosity. He was like so many humans, driven by profit, but that wasn’t the bedrock of his personality. Mae read it in his eyes. He wanted to find things others had not. Possessing secrets and knowledge was his burning desire. It was something she could use against him.
Carefully, though. Not too fast.
With one hand, she gestured to her jaw lying next to her. After a few moments, Warrae understood. He pointed to a tray on the far table. “Its processing systems are still fully functional. Install an inhibitor spike, and put its jaw back on. I want to hear what it has to say.”
Homolka and Warrae stepped back as the medical synthetics carried out his commands. It was an odd sensation when they hooked up the inhibitor to her pain sensors and central core processing unit. Once that was done, the medical units set about fixing what they’d done. Their earlier, savage removal of Mae’s jaw was reflected in their haphazard repair.
They reattached the joint but didn’t bother with the finer work of repairing the synthetic flesh. Instead, they slapped on some sealant to stop it from flapping around. Mae examined the depth of the inhibitor chip, and which of her systems it affected.
Nasty, brutish way to treat our daughter.
Her father was obviously outside the operating parameters of their spike, so at least she wasn’t alone.
With a complex, autonomous synthetic like herself, the inhibitor could not reach into her central programming. It was a far more primitive device to cut power to her exterior systems if triggered. At any point, Warrae could command it to drop her like a stone, trapping her inside her own synthetic body. Not only that, but it also kept her from networking with others.
That she’d just realized the truth of this synthetic body, only to have control taken away from her again, was enraging.
But he’s not inside your head. Good thing, too. I wouldn’t want to share space with that man.
Considering he was so highly augmented himself, she wondered if it was a case of self-hatred. She filed that away for later. It might prove useful.
These thoughts took mere nanoseconds, so while she waited, she examined Warrae and Homolka more closely. Now that she was aware of her full synthetic abilities, she focused them on her enemy. If micro-expressions brought her to this place, then it seemed only right to use them against the humans.
Homolka was a powder keg. Mae noted the annoyed glances he gave his boss when he thought Warrae wasn’t looking. A flicker of disgust showed itself in the tightening corners of his mouth. No doubt the sergeant wanted to be the captain. But wrapped up in his own unhealthy obsessions, his superior didn’t notice.
Mae focused her hearing, which, even while hiding her true nature, still operated at levels far above the human ear.
The Pope family talked in low tones. Lenny apologized to his mother. The hint of fear-tainted sweat reached her olfactory processors. It was coming from all of them. William and Daniella, with their life experiences, must be expecting to be ejected out the nearest airlock. Lenny and Morgan were their sole concerns.
Mae determined in that moment that she would do everything she could to keep the four of them alive. Zula Hendricks and her Jackals would have been lost if the Popes hadn’t brought her in. A less scrupulous group of humans might have thrown her cryo escape pod back into space and claimed the salvage. No one would know.
It’s the things humans do when no one is around to see that show what kind of people they are. It was what created my respect for your mother. Nothing we did or do will ever be known by the wider population.
As the synthetic medics sealed up her face, she recalled Rook’s damage. She chuckled at how it once horrified her. The throaty gargle wasn’t quite ready to be used, but it caught the attention of the two Extraktors.
Homolka frowned and leaned closer. “Was it trying to laugh?”
“Why are you doing that?” Warrae demanded.
Mae worked her reattached jaw back and forth before answering. It was still loose. “An inside joke. I was thinking of a friend of mine with a facial scar. We’ll be able to compare notes.”
“That’s not funny.” Homolka glared.
Mae shrugged. “Had to be there, I guess.”
The medics finished their work and stepped away.
“Functional,” was Warrae’s assessment.
Mae fixed them with a look she hoped conveyed her displeasure at the results. “How about a mirror? I’d like to know how I look.”
The two men stared at her blankly. Yes indeed, that was the expression they would give a talking dog. These Extraktors seemed to be morally bankrupt and without a sense of humor.
The captain’s eyes narrowed. “We put your jaw back on, so you’d better make it worth our time. We can always have your jaw removed again.”
Mae softened her expression. “I want to live. I want my friends to live, and I am prepared to bargain for both.”
Warrae crossed his arms. “What do you have to negotiate with that we cannot get from jabbing the probe back in?”
Careful with this one, Davis whispered in the back of her head. Don’t make him think he’s a fool.
The Extraktors did indeed have her in a tough situation. However, when they’d attempted to plunder her secrets, Mae’s defense program plundered them right back.
This unit was not military. The UPP sanctioned them, but they ran as part of the Jùtóu Combine. As long as they discovered the secrets of great android construction, they continued to be funded. The Combine’s synthetic division lagged a distant third to the likes of Weyland-Yutani and Seegson. This meant they were highly motivated to steal market share from their competitors.
The nasty, ambitious gleam in Warrae’s eye confirmed that.
She raised her head a fraction off the table. “Your probe is a blunt instrument. It will destroy my secrets before you can get ahold of them. Firewalls, burn protocols. I know you’ve heard of those.”
“Go on.” The eyes behind the still mask of his face flickered.
“You want technology that you can use or sell, but tearing me apart would be a mistake, because I know the location of far better and more valuable technology.”
“Don’t believe it, sir. It’ll say anything to save itself.” Homolka’s fists clenched as if he wanted to pummel Mae.
Warrae stared at her for over 68.334 seconds. Humans took so long to decide on things. A synthetic would have acted already. Mae tried not to display her annoyance. None of what she said was technically a lie, so if they monitored her basic synapses, then it wouldn’t sound any alarms.
“Where?”
Now she could reel him in. “A station, not too far from this one. It’s a black site with bioweapons, and new kinds of prototype synthetics. They’re not like me, they’re deadly. You can grab what you need, and come back rich.”
She counted on his curiosity, greed, and ambition, and her father taught her enough to read humans as well as machine code.
Warrae leaned back, shooting Homolka an appraising glance. “You’re an impressive bespoke synthetic, but your secrets won’t be useful in the military market. That is where the Combine wants to expand.” Homolka appeared fit to explode, but his captain raised a hand in his direction. “What do you want in return?”
“How about not ripping it apart?” Homolka was turning an interesting shade of red.
“I don’t care about death,” Mae replied, “but I care about that human family you’ve imprisoned. They didn’t know what I was any more than I did. I want you to let them go, and I’ll take you to the station.”
Warrae’s smile was that of a predator. “I’ll release them, except for the boy. He’s coming on this trip to ensure you’re not tricking us. Anything happens to my men and his brains will decorate our flight deck. Clear?”
She’d hoped to keep Lenny out of this, and caring for him weakened her position. Knowing what awaited them at Minos Station, she understood it would be dangerous, but there could be opportunities to get him away from the Extraktors.
“Crystal.”
“Remember that inhibitor spike in your central core, and behave.” Warrae jerked his head towards the combat synthetics by the door. “Let her up and go get the boy she came in with. Looks like we’re going on a trip.”
I hope you made the right choice, Mae. Leading these people to Minos is a risky move.
It accomplishes two things, Father. We needed to get back to Minos and Mother, and we can shake off these monsters with more familiar ones.