Ghost of Mind Episode One (4 page)

The woman was fast. Hell, way too fast for an
ordinary human. Either she was packing some fancy tech stuffed into
her bones and muscle, or she wasn't human at all.

Which made far more sense. If she really was
stuffed to the brim with high-class tech, she wouldn't be hanging
around the slums of Orion Minor. The Union didn't spend money on
technology just to waste it.

‘
I am a member of the Union Forces. You are
ordered to stop or you will be taken down,’ John boomed again, his
voice reverberating around the tight corridor as he shoved his way
past a suspicious group of aliens.

She didn't stop. In fact, she put on a burst
of speed that would have put even a cyborg to shame.

‘
What the hell?’ John mumbled, not
bothering to send his voice to the audio system, just mumbling
under his breath.

‘
Institute Upgrade A,’ John now added,
voice clear.

An upgrade, on the run. Why did he do this to
himself? He was on a freaking stop over - he was meant to be
relaxing before his real mission began. Yet here he was voluntarily
going to clean up the slums.

As John ran, his neural implant began to
buzz. Then a truly unique sensation rippled over his body. It felt
like tiny electrodes imbedding themselves into his skin, then
wending their way into his muscles.

Gritting his teeth and taking a stiff breath,
John got ready.

He knew what would happen next.

It was never pleasant. And no matter how many
times he'd done it, it never got easier.

‘
Upgrade initialized,’ the computer
replied.

Orion Minor, like all Union planets, no
matter how backwater, had an Integrated Computer Network. ICN's
were a vestige of Old Tech, but had been ripped apart and replaced
so often they - unlike the rest of the Old stuff - were not going
to run out of juice anytime soon. They were, however, very clever.
One computer system that ran the entire planet distributed over the
whole surface. There was not some giant industrial complex full of
computer banks that housed all the hardware; it was distributed
like a neural net in a human or one of the other soft-fleshed
races. Tiny live wires that could self-replicate littered every
building, street, forest, even the earth itself. There was no
limitation to what they could imbed themselves in; reinforced
planar concrete, ship hulls, wood, water, even magma. It meant no
matter where you went on the planet, you could always interface
with the system. Or at least you could if you had a neural implant
as sophisticated as John's. For your average slum dweller, you'd
have to go to a central terminal.

But none of that was the point. The point was
what was about to happen to John.

He was lifted off his feet as the computer
circuits in his immediate area all redistributed, massing around
them. He could see the distinct electric blue tinge they gave the
air. He could hear the furious hum too, and smell the acrid taste
that reminded him of singing flesh.

Clenching his teeth hard, he forced his body
to relax, forced his legs to separate, forced his hands to drop
open, his fingers no longer crooked and bent.

Armor began to form around him. The ICN took
hold of all the closest recalibraters, broke down sections of the
floor, of the smart glass above, of John's own clothes. It stripped
them back to whatever molecules it needed, then it knitted him
armor out of the very air.

It took seconds, but they dragged on and on
for John. The sensation of your own clothes being broken down while
a chunk of wall and floor around you suddenly became the leg of
your armor and the chest plate, was not something he would ever
rest easy with.

‘
Upgrade complete,’ the computer finally
informed him as John landed back on the ground.

The residual effect of the anti-grav field
that had first yanked him off his feet still tingled in his
muscles. His ears still rang, and despite the fact his jaw was now
locked in place by reinforced smart armor, his teeth still
rattled.

‘
Stop,’ John said one more time.

Though the woman was now out of sight, it was
a technicality. With John's unaided human eyes, he wouldn't be able
to pick her up. He was directly linked to the ICN now though, and
he used its scanners to ascertain her position.

She was headed down the opposite corridor,
absolutely flying down a set of stairs, past a group of heavy-set
well-armed Cantar mercenaries, and outdoors onto the Fourth Outside
Wing.

‘
Great,’ John mumbled to himself. Then he
sent a message to his own ship.

John was very much just on a stopover. The
authorities of Orion Minor had been instructed to help him in any
way they could to ensure his mission to the Rim started off as a
success. Nowhere in his debrief with them had he mentioned he would
run around their slums trying to apprehend their citizens.

Sometimes John just couldn't help getting
involved though.

His feet would move before his mind could
think. Maybe it was his childhood, maybe it was his training, but
if he saw someone in trouble, he acted.

Well, soon enough this woman would be in
trouble. Because John never lost. Not when he was playing cards
with the crew, not when he was gambling on a risky mission to the
Rim, and not when he was chasing down some poor woman in the slums
who probably had more fear than sense.

He'd drag her in, she'd likely share her sob
story, she'd explain why she ran, then hopefully the security
forces would leave her alone. John might have had an obligation to
pull her in - it was an offence to run from the Union Forces - but
he doubted she had any serious secrets to hide.

Still, he was going to play this by the
book.

Chapter 5

Alice

Alice zoomed past a group of Barkas massing
around a tiny Garpa alien. If she hadn't known better, she would
have though the cute, almost cherub-like Garpa was in trouble.
Years of life on Orion Minor had taught her differently. No doubt
the Garpa was trying to swindle the Barkas. And if it didn't work,
it would probably grab at its electric rod and send the group
flying into the smart glass high above.

That was the thing about the galaxy, the
universe even - appearances were misleading.

Gritting her teeth, Alice was a living
reminder of that. A small alien herself, and one that looked like
she couldn't protect herself from a Barka fly, she could take on
half the security forces of the planet if she had to.

She just really, really hoped it wouldn't
come to that.

As Alice ran, she closed her eyes. While that
was a move not recommended to the softer races, it did not affect
her speed, agility, or ability to dodge around the junk that
littered the narrow corridor. She still sailed right over a broken
crate of ship bolts, she still ran straight past a swarm of tiny
spider-like aliens.

With her eyes closed, she tried to
concentrate though.

She tried to integrate with the ICN. She
never, never usually did this. It was such a risk.

But she could tell the guy was hot on her
heels. She could also tell that he'd taken the time to upgrade.
She'd heard it, she'd smelt it, and heck, she'd picked up on the
electromagnetic surge as the ICN had redirected its power to knit
him armor.

Curling her lips up in a sharp move, Alice
swore bitterly.

Why him? Why the hell had it been John Doe?
Not only would he know all about Old Tech, but unlike most of the
other security forces you found down on the lower levels of Orion
Minor, he would have access to high-level upgrades. If he was in
the mood, he could tell the ICN to break down half of the building
in order to knit him armor capable of smashing through a whole
ship. It could make him a third-generation plasma coil gun within a
minute, it could generate an impediment force field around his
body, ensuring all objects within a ten meter radius ground to a
halt, living, dead, or never alive.

Swearing again, Alice accessed the ICN. She
would trip a circuit in doing so; there was no way around it.

She didn't have the choice.

Alice, still with her eyes closed, ran
towards the airlock that led out onto the outside promenade. When
she reached it, she didn't stop; she flung it open, refusing to
wait for the computer to utilize the dying, dried-up mechanism to
shift the 500 kilogram door in a minute.

She didn't even break a sweat.

From 30 meters behind her, she heard someone
swear. It sounded impressed. It also sounded like John Doe.

She jumped through the door, dropping and
rolling as she did, coming right under the legs of a rock warrior.
The creature was massive, and each of its three legs had the girth
of a small transport. If she'd ran right into one, even Alice would
have doubled back.

The promenade was a large open area that ran
around this level of Alpha block. While the weather on Orion Minor
was decidedly un-tropical, there were enough weather fields in
place to ensure a constant habitable climate for all the residents
inside the block. Or at least that was the theory. While the fields
on the higher levels were always maintained, down here they'd only
get around to fixing them when the cold and salt-laced wind
threatened to chew through the lower levels and topple the entire
structure.

One of the fields was clearly malfunctioning
right now, because Alice could taste the salt shifting through the
air. She could also feel the distinct drop in temperature. But
while it might have sent a softer race reeling back inside before
their eyebrows froze over and dropped off, Alice simply redirected
energy into her skin.

She could take more, much more than this.

Which was a good thing, because that's when
she heard something.

She'd snapped her eyes open when she'd yanked
the door open, but just for a moment she had allowed them to close
again.

She didn't have a lot of time here. John Doe,
it seemed, was intent on catching her. The Union Commander
obviously hated the idea of scum running free.

‘
Come on,’ she snapped under her
breath.

If she hadn't been so flustered and on the
run from the security forces, she would have integrated with the
ICN in a snap.

In fact, it would have welcomed her back with
open arms. Because no matter how much the Union had changed it,
underneath their downgrades and replacements, the technology was
still Old.

And so was Alice.

Finally Alice was in. There wasn't a click or
a snap, but there was a buzz. Just for a second every single
computer circuit on the entire block suddenly whirred into life,
glowed bright, then dimmed in a snap.

Several of the aliens standing around her saw
it, and they all shifted their heads around, expressions surprised.
One or two mumbled something about a fluctuation in the power
grid.

That had been no fluctuation. And it was
probably time to stop standing around.

Alice brought up a hand and shifted her face
to the side.

It was just in time.

One by one, the weather fields protecting the
block started to shut down.

It started at the top of the building, then
descended, gaining speed, the low whir of the fields snapping off
echoing around the promenade.

Alice didn't smile, she didn't even let out a
satisfied puff of air.

It wasn't over yet. But she just had put a
dent in John Doe's plan.

With the weather fields shut down, Block
Alpha was now at the mercy of the freezing, incredibly strong winds
of Orion Minor. And if the winds weren't enough, sometimes there
was so much salt being carried on them that the crystals were large
enough and moving fast enough to scratch metal, let alone shred
flesh.

Fortunately the shields had shut down slow
enough that every alien on the promenade had ducked for an airlock
in seconds, leaving only Alice standing on her own.

Alice didn't even bother to shrug further
into her hood. She always wore it, and it was a fact she was now
truly thankful for. Throughout their entire altercation, John Doe
would never have clapped eyes on her face. It was, after all, no
ordinary hood. Alice had never had much money, but she was the last
of the most sophisticated of races ever to have lived in the
universe, and that came with its perks. She usually shunned her own
technology, knowing the risks of someone else ever seeing she could
operate it, but this hood was her mainstay. From the outside it
looked like a thick blue fabric that, while warm, was not fancy. It
always sat just below her eyes, her nose, lips and chin the only
thing in view as she tramped around the lower levels of the slums.
But appearances were misleading, very misleading when it came to
her simple blue hood. It actively disrupted in-depth biological
scans. It also sent out a field that confused biologicals. However
subtly, her cloak would obscure memories of her face. Especially
amongst the soft races. And little John Doe was, despite his heroic
tendencies, still a softy.

As the wind howled over the promenade, it
brought its salt-laden bounty crashing into everything around.
Alice could feel the brunt of it as it tickled along the skin of
her exposed arms and cheeks, but it did not shred her to
pieces.

‘
God, I can't believe I'm considering
this,’ she mumbled to herself as she took an enormous
breath.

And then Alice stopped breathing. She also
ran forward, right at the railing that ran around the promenade.
The railing that it would have been impossible to fling herself off
when the weather fields had all been operating. But the railing
that now invited one to fall a good three kilometers down to the
ice and salt covered surface of the planet below.