Page 90 of Alliance
[Warning] Perhaps my parumauxi was dismantling parts of my code while also building organic systems. Was the swarm making memorehuman...?
Fásach cupped my face, crouching before me with his ears trained on my response. "Are you sure you're alright?"
I nodded, kissing the side of his thumb. "Yes," I said, surprised when it rang true even for me. I smiled at him and his ears relaxed. "Better than alright."
A distant buzz caught our attention at the same time, and we looked up at the canopy.
"Stay here," he said, scrambling off the sled. He tucked his cock away, then jumped up the side of a large tree, his claws carving through the soft bark as he climbed.
A loud engine roared over the jungle close enough to the path that the canopy whipped into a frenzy like a rising tide. Pollen swirled through the air, caught in its wake as it drowned out all other sound and receded into the distance.
"Roz!" Fás panted, jumping down from the canopy with a heavy thud. I was already on my feet, wide-eyed and trembling.
Because dancing through the pollen were artifacts of the transpo's data halo.
A music feed, cranked to full volume. A mixture of shilpakaari pop music...
And American classic rock.
33
A bright, anxious smile burst across Fásach's features as he sprinted to my side. He turned me around by the shoulder and pointed at the canopy.
"I can see towers," he breathed urgently.
"White towers?"
"Three of them," he confirmed.
"Dios mio,"I gushed, all of my systems lighting up like fireworks. "That's it! That's Renata!"
"A couple miles. There's a break in the canopy five hundred feet ahead, where the valley descends." Fás pressed both of his palms into the fronts of his antlers. "I didn't think we'd get this close without a fight." In a rush, he opened his holotab. “Look! All of these bastards were offline before, but now they’re active. And my comms… are waiting for an upload connection!”
[Warning] The excitement in my chest stuttered to a halt. "Comms?”
“I sent a couple to Vin and Sizzle,” he admitted breathlessly, spreading his arms wide. “I don’t exactly look like the last time we saw each other, you know? I wanted to be safe.”
I pushed the inexplicable worry away. “Right.”
Then my eyes glanced down the path without my prompting. How long would it take me to get down to the river? I didn’t want to meet Vin and Sizzle right away. For some reason,they made me anxious. I wanted to see Imani.OnlyImani. She would be able to tell me if—
Fásach's chest exploded in a victorious chuckle, too wrapped up in his own elation to hear my hesitation. He punched the air and snapped his teeth with a sharp crack.
“There’s no guarantee they’ll get the comms though,” I said, more to calm myself. “Uploads might be throttled without administrative permissions within the colony’s security dome.”
How did I know there evenwasa security dome?
Still panting, Fásach’s smile faltered. “You’re right.” He stopped in his tracks, licked his teeth, and chuffed at the trees he'd just jumped down from. "But Sizzle and Vin will remember my howl from our dock days. If I call from the treetops, they'll probably hear it."
[WARNING] My face froze in an elated, beaming smile, and panic bled through my eyes.
Something waswrong.
I stopped breathing and went entirely too still, like a mannequin in a market with a painted face. I’d never felt more like the doll I’d been born as then at that moment. My faculties were paused, andnot by me.Some horrible force had taken hold of my vitals deck. The ghostly code at the corners of my LMem slithered its binary deep into the lines between my programming, shoving its way in here and there, breaking apart my core control. I tried to open my mouth and scream for help but—
Warning. Non-essential movement restricted during priority override.
No!
