Page 9 of Alliance
I pressed the space behind my ear where I remembered the sharp agony of having one installed, but there was no telltale black button there. And though I knew two human languages—English and Spanish—I spoke and thought in Hja Erle. I contemplated this as my feet carried me back through the drifts of foam, following the human’s decaying halo.
“Rosy! Wait!”
I followed the human’s urgent whispers regardless of her warnings, too impatient and fascinated with my newly unlocked autonomy. I pushed the door to the service hallway open, wading into the warm foam as it encroached on my hips. It was dragging down on me now, my feet, ankles, calves so hot. Too hot.
I stumbled over my charging pod, knocked sideways and hidden beneath the snowy dunes, eyes on the loading bay door and the overseer’s chair. My heart was pounding in my ears, my hands shaking. I pumped oxygen like I was running, but I couldn’t remember why I needed to get outside. [Priority] I needed torun.
Oh God, what if she catches me?
I panicked.
With a burst of speed, I lunged forward with wide eyes turned over my shoulder. If I looked away, she would be there and so would judgment. Everything I’d done was only alright if I never faced the consequences. What had I done? It wasn’t clear to me, but I knew one thing.
I was my originator.
But she wasn’tme.
I stumbled out of the loading bay door and a loud [firearm]popfroze me in place, eyes squeezed shut. But something about the air and the ground was uncomfortable. I couldn’t abide standing in one place, not with the sizzling sound rising up from beneath my feet. Air completely devoid of moisture brushed my cheeks, and the foam still growing and sloughing off my body shriveled around the edges like dried soap.
Tentatively, I opened my eyes, and a slew of information streamed in. Data halos of people I recognized and so muchnoise.Radio frequencies, vibrations in the ground, bristling heatagainst my skin, bright lights and exhaust pipes so hot they warbled like welding torches. The nursery and the lounge had been sosmallcompared to this, enshrouded in a thick layer of security that kept everything outside from getting in. Thousands of networks and vital decks, power cables and radio frequencies. It was too much for me to process, and there was no instruction on what to prioritize.
Scorching breath beat in and out of my lungs. I crouched, covering my eyes and ears as I curled in on myself, then gnashed my teeth at how itchy I felt. Every nerve ending was raw, and even my own hands felt too hard as they pressed into my temples, trying to force myself back into shape so I could contain it all again.
How did humans handle this? Was I defective?
“Traitor.”
A terrifying snarl jolted me, but it was distant and cold. I knew it was the last thing I heard, somewhere deep in that ghostly coding on the outskirts of my mind.
Somehow, it calmed me.
I pushed my matted silk curls out of my face and they stayed in place, foam folding into the creases of my palms like wet baby powder. My gaze fixed on the halos around me. Frantic vitals. Snippets of panicked comms. A transport.
Digital noise wasn’t the only data though. I blinked rapidly, trying to wet my eyes even though they dried instantly. Through the blur, I assessed the walls baking with blue blood spatter. Venandi. The tang of a shock laser still zapping the air. And cushioning my knee…
I glanced down at the thick pool of brown sludge now warped and cracked like warm asphalt on a hot day and knew that this was where I’d died.
Was I meant to follow these same actions? Should I lay down and wait for my charge to deplete? [Conjecture] Perhaps it is what my originator wanted.
No, it couldn’t be. I could make my own decisions! I didn’t want to decommission myself. I could make different choices.
“Traitor.”
That snarl caressed my ear, and I fit my hand around my throat, breathing through the rising panic. Was that voice really talking about me? I couldn't tell for certain. Maybe Ihadbeen a traitor, but I didn’t feel like one, nor did I understand how it could be true. All I wanted was to find my people, to live as me and be free. When I searched my new, elusive coding, those feelings were the same.
“I’ll hold it off as long as I can.”
My eyes jerked sideways fast enough to catch just the smallest whiff of that human’s voice again. It disappeared where the transport’s wake began.
I had died, but that woman hadn’t. I needed to find her, to thank her for guiding me out of the lounge.
I needed to ask her if I was the traitor.
[Priority] With single-minded determination, I stood, picking the transport’s navigation address out of the sea of digital trash in the air…
And started walking.
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