Page 44 of Loved By the Alien King
“I only know this because your mom synced her phone to my mainframe for a signal once, and I don’t think she knows how to unsync it. I’ve offered to help, but I don’t think your mom still—”
“She doesn’t do email or anything ‘too techy,’” Nera said, using air quotes. “I know.”
“She called me a robot once,” Rain said softly. “When I politely corrected her, she told me to rust in peace back in Wireland. I don’t think she ever liked me much.”
Nera unclenched her fingers and curled them again and again into her palms as though collecting courage from the air. “Tell me about the Appalachian mountains.”
Rain leaned against a crumbling wall and crossed her ankles, a very human thing to do. “I don’t know what I was thinking when I decided to climb a mountain. I liked the symbolism of it because of my newfound freedoms, and I thought it would be easy. I was maybe halfway up when I picked up a signal.”
“What signal?” Nera asked, her fingers still flexing to gather up more courage.
“One that destroyed my hard drive and took complete control of it. Of me. In other words,”—she flicked her gaze up and looked Nera right in the eye—“I was hacked.”
“By who?” she asked without missing a beat.
“Not by my makers. I was intended for peace, not war.”
“Thenwho?”
“Earth Space Fleet,” Rain answered simply.
If only that answer really was simple. Rain’s words seemed to suck the air from the room, leaving Nera panting, paling, close to breaking.
“Why would they do this?” I asked so she wouldn’t have to.
“For control. It was a test to see what I would and wouldn’t do, to see how far they could push a sentient AI before they…failed.” Her voice cracked, and she looked away, her tears coming faster.
She sounded so human, not like I imagined a Faid would sound. When I’d first come to with the Faid tech implant in my head, I’d expected my voice to be mechanical, emotionless like all the times I’d heard Faid speak before, but compared to my memories, I sounded the exact same as I had before I died.
I wanted to ask why, but of course I kept my mouth sealed shut.
“It was just me that got hacked though.” Rain blinked, and a holographic computer shot out of one eye. “All the other cases of Faid attacks were and continue to be false. Evidence is fabricated to further the Faid War narrative, and people point fingers when they have no other leads in murder cases.”
Her computer’s viewscreen was littered with headlines like “Police Poke Holes in Murder Witness’s Story of Faid Attack” and “Scorned Human Lover Admits Guilt After Blaming Faid for Lobbing Off Male Anatomy.” There were dozens and dozens of them, all basically saying the same thing.
In a sense, the universe could blame Faid for everything. Emjay was convinced a Faid killed her father in cold blood, that Faid were murderous, lecherous liars. She’d been brainwashed into believing that. Everyone had.
“Those bubbles over there,” Rain continued, pointing to the machine in the corner. “They’re hooked up to a computer that tracks Earth Space Fleet’s continued hacking attempts in real time. Thousands and thousands a day, all thwarted when the bubbles pop. As long as I am sentient, and probably even longer, they will never again hack a Faid.”
She’d explained some of this to me in our email exchanges, and I’d believed her then due to the long,longlist of anti-hacking measures she’d given. After all, who else could prevent a Faid hack than a Faid who’d once been hacked?
But hearing her, seeing the bubbles pop, coursed a fresh wave of relief through my veins. I would never be with Nera if I thought I could also be hacked and harm her. I would never be a Faid, period. I simply wouldn’t exist.
“These news articles you see were buried,” Rain continued. “Earth Space Fleet went to great measures to cover up the truth and prolong the Faid War.”
“Why?” I asked.
She flicked her eye computer back into her head and shifted her watery blue gaze to me. “There’s money in war, King Maxx. And if you keep trying to hack a Faid, maybe they’ll actually kill someone youwantdead without the mess of doing it yourself. Lucy was…a test.”
Free assassins. Why pay Emjay when you could hack someone to do your dirty work for free?
Nera heaved out a shaky breath, her fists flexing as she studied the leafy floor. “My daughter was so much more than a test.”
“I know. I never meant to—” Rain’s voice broke off with a crack. After a moment of staring at the rotted leaves on the floor, she tried again. “I never meant to hurt you or Lucy, Nera. That’s not who I truly was. That’s not who I truly am.”
A long shudder bristled through Nera, and she leaned against the half wall as though to stay upright. “But you did hurt me.”
Both of them went silent, their incomprehensible pain forged into their existences for an eternity. My hearts ached for Nera, but also for Rain too. It was obvious she’d lost a part of herself that day as well, literally and figuratively, physically and emotionally. In all the ways that mattered and hurt the most.
