The Extraktor captain threw open the door to their cell and strode in. Through the glass, Lenny spotted Mae. She stood shackled with her head bowed.
He understood immediately that whatever they’d done to her in the back office was in fact torture. He jerked away from his mother and leaped to his feet. His heart raced, and rage bubbled inside.
They’d ripped her jaw off and then done a real shitty job of repairing it. It took him a moment more to realize what that actually meant. She’d been a synthetic all along.
That revelation sunk into him like a stone. It made sense, but it left him embarrassed and feeling foolish. She’d fought against going to the medical bay. Her cryo escape pod could barely sustain life. She wasn’t an amnesiac; she was a firewalled synthetic person. The ease with which she flung him off when he tried to get her to go to the med bay made sense now. He was a fool, and now his family was going to pay.
The Extraktors grabbed hold of him with uncaring, hard synthetic hands, and yanked him out. Everything happened in a muffled gray space. His parents and Morgan scuffled with them, screaming his name, but none of it mattered. In the end, the augmented humans beat them back, and it became a short and brutal fight. The Pope family were left bleeding and raging on the floor.
“Lenny!” Daniella howled in anguish. Her cry reached Lenny and punched him in the gut. It hurt worse than anything these tin-can wannabes could do.
The Extraktors were a mix of synthetic units and augmented humans. Their robotic arms were stronger, their augmented minds faster. Against that, even his SOF-trained parents were helpless.
Mae stood impassively by, her face a mask. After a short angry struggle, they cuffed Lenny and dragged him into line with the person he hadn’t really ever known. She was no more human than Pelorus. Lenny hung his head and didn’t speak to Mae.
The Extraktors cuffed the remaining Popes and dragged them from the room.
Warrae pulled on his thin black gloves. “You have one son left. Be grateful I’m letting you keep him and your lives.”
“We fought for the Union, you bastard.” Daniella strained and raged against those that held her. “We sweated and bled for it!”
The captain didn’t even look up. “Well then, thank you for your service, and for your son.”
Mae closed her eyes as they dragged the still-struggling family away. Lenny, though, watched until they were out of sight. These might be the last images of his family he ever got.
“Station security will release them once we’re on our way, but they won’t be able to undock their ship for some time.” Warrae gestured to his troopers. “Let’s get to the Ariadne.”
“Of course, that’s your ship,” Lenny muttered. “Ariadne betrayed her own family, too.”
No one even bothered to reply. Station personnel made themselves scarce as they took the elevator back down to the dock. Those workers that were around all turned their backs to the sight of one of their own being hauled away. Lenny didn’t blame them. Hell, he’d been in their position himself; when the Combine made people disappear, it was better not to ask questions.
Yet he had a million questions. What kind of synthetic was she? He’d seen plenty of them, and none like her. Shit, he’d kissed her and not even known. This was the kind of thing Morgan would have ribbed him endlessly about.
He wondered if Mae would apologize. He knew what he would say if she tried. It doesn’t matter. You put my family in danger, and you aren’t what you said you were.
Maybe that was unreasonable. She obviously hadn’t known herself, but what happened to his family hurt. How would they manage if he never came back? Because, if he was honest, that was the most likely outcome of all this.
The Extractors’ ship, the Ariadne, lay ahead. It was the stranger on the dock, the one he’d tried to identify when they’d first arrived at Guelph with Mae. Now he got a real close look at her. Warrae’s expression reflected pride.
“Specifically made for my unit.” He couldn’t stop himself from showing it off to Mae. “There are only five cryopods installed. Luckily for our guest here, because the Ariadne goes at speeds no unaugmented person could survive.”
“The benefits of none of you being completely human.” Mae smiled at him.
Lenny grasped that neither of them knew about his augmentation. Unlike the Extraktors, his wasn’t readily apparent. While Warrae enjoyed his moment, Lenny probed the edges of the synthetic network. Every military android unit carried one with them, and it appeared these did too. Lenny’s augment was of the same design, Seegson. He might make use of that, but not yet. He’d have to be very careful about picking his moment.
Warrae narrowed his eyes but did not rise to Mae’s jibe. Instead, he gestured her into the Ariadne as if he was some kind of old-time gentleman. Lenny, they shoved in after. He kept his gaze down but noted as much of the ship as possible.
Warrae hadn’t exaggerated. The Ariadne was brand new—the smell told him that. He caught glimpses of the controls and easily identified them as a Kinmokusei class. Straight off the line. He’d only read about them and seen a few pictures. If it weren’t for the situation, Lenny would have been excited to be on board.
The controls appeared to be carried over from the Shobu class, and he had prior experience with those. Another fact to file away for later.
The interior wasn’t luxurious. Nothing frivolous or homey existed in the Ariadne. It was completely different from the Eumenides, like comparing a laboratory to a family home.
Synthetic racks took up most of the space in the Ariadne. She barely had a seat available for a human backside. No military ship would have traveled with such a high ratio of human to synthetic soldiers. Most companies and galactic powers viewed augmented humans as untrustworthy. They used a few tragic incidents to support their claim that these implants raised the risk of psychosis and violent behavior.
Lenny could relate to the augmented Extraktors because he went through something similar. However, he’d ripped no one’s jaw off afterwards. They could never be his friends.
Instead, he aligned himself with the Ariadne herself.
While the rest of the troopers filed in, Lenny’s skin prickled with the presence of the ship’s AI. It must be a wide-capacity synthetic network. He could have attempted to hack into it—he was familiar with the Shobu class and its AI—but that would be suicidal. Instead, taking his lead from Mae, he held back.
The synthetic Extraktors filed into the ship and took their places on the racks to recharge. Apart from the ex-military combat units, there were five medical androids. They were the ones that worked on Mae, but they were not the most chilling; Homolka still stared at her as if he wished he’d brought a scalpel of his own.
Lenny stayed in the corner and kept silent, hoping they’d forget about him for a bit.
It interested him to watch the augmented humans who put themselves onto the racks like they were the same as their synthetic colleagues. It spoke volumes about how they viewed themselves. Lenny might be augmented, but he’d never wanted to become synthetic.
The enhanced human Extraktors took their places with barely a word spoken. Lenny found it a little eerie. They didn’t need to go into cryo for the journey, but they did hook themselves up to an intravenous supply. So much as they might yearn to be synthetic, they hadn’t completely shaken off their humanity.
Warrae and Homolka remained still. Their half-lidded eyes indicated they’d connected to the ship’s AI. Lenny took his chance before they returned and put him into one of the cryopods.
He waved one bound hand to get Mae’s attention. She tried to smile, though her damaged jaw made the gesture lopsided.
“I’m sorry.” Her words came out only slightly affected.
Despite what he planned, her damaged face made him change his mind. “Don’t be. I’d do it all again.”
Mae’s expression flickered from sadness to vague amusement then back to sadness. “You don’t know what we’re going into.”
It looked as if she might say more, but Warrae’s and Homolka’s eyes snapped open.
“We’ve input the coordinates. That’s Three World space.”
Mae let out a short laugh. “You’re not afraid of a little raid, are you? The rewards are worth the risk.”
Homolka glanced at his superior. “The probe results show that location as where her pod traveled from.”
The lure of a skilled artisan making exquisite synthetics like Mae seemed to be enough.
It was difficult to make out much behind Warrae’s eerie smooth face. Finally, he jerked his head to his officer. “Put her on the rack and the boy in cryo. If our prisoner moves from the rack we’ve placed her on, activate the inhibitor spike.”
Lenny objected to being called a boy all the time, but he wisely added it to his list of complaints to take out on this bastard later.
Mae moved to the rack without complaint, leaning back into it and powering down most of her systems. Lenny couldn’t help but feel a little strange, watching her. Even with her damaged jaw, she still seemed so very human.
“Ah, got a little crush on the toaster?” Homolka slammed Lenny against the side of the cryopod. “Can’t blame you on that one. A nicely put-together piece of kit.”
Lenny struggled. He popped one of his elbows into the man’s gut, but it made no difference because that, too, was artificial.
Homolka laughed and activated the cryopod. It hissed open, and he jammed Lenny into it. Only a rifle in his face kept him from leaping out. As the drugs overtook him and he faded into unconsciousness, he swore to wake up ready for revenge. Homolka’s grinning face was the last thing Lenny saw, and he carried it off with him like a stone in his shoe.