Spinward Fringe Broadcast 7: Framework (32 page)

Somehow Alice heard someone shuffle their
feet, despite the din of exercising meat. She leaned out to see the
source of the sound. Her foolishness was rewarded with several
shots in her direction. Small vats filled with jerking chicken
exploded, covering her with foul liquid. Even as she ran she
couldn’t help but gag momentarily; the smell was nothing compared
to the viscous fluid that clung to her skin.

Her pursuers were closer than she thought,
and they didn’t seem to care much about the value of the delicacies
within the production building. They fired at any sign of her,
sometimes missing by only centimetres. Fear and anger mingled as
she could feel them closing in on her location. Some of them
drifted at speed on skid boards, antigravity hover devices that
took the fairness out of most chases.

She ducked under a row of larger mammals.
They might be cattle, but it was difficult to tell in the dark. She
only had a few seconds. Her new hiding place made things
inconvenient for them, but it didn’t make her invisible.

“I’m not going to get out of here without
fireworks,” she said to herself. Her free hand dug in her jacket
pocket and curled around an incendiary grenade. She didn’t want to
use it, but it would set off alarms, get them on the run for a
change. The chemicals in the vats might ignite if the grenade was
hot enough, that would cost her.

She was wanted for stealing security
information, but if she set a grow house the size of three city
blocks on fire, she’d be wanted worldwide, and Uro had as many
police officers as they had merchants. “Guess I’m leaving the
planet,” Alice said. She pulled the grenade out of her pocket, set
it for one minute and activated it.

“Get out!” shouted one officer, his voice
amplified so it could be heard over the sloshing. “Abort and
retreat!”

“Yes, Sir,” Alice said, pushing herself out
from under the row of exercising mammals. She almost made it around
the corner when a round caught her in the arm. Her bomber jacket
stopped most of the damage from going through, but something still
impacted her arm beneath, right below the shoulder.

It didn’t stop her from running, something
she’d been doing almost constantly since she took the ambitious
job. Holding her wound, she turned to the nearest wall of the
grower building. Sunlight spilled in through a double door that was
in the opposite direction of her pursuers. Small bits of the
concrete were flung into the air as rounds impacted on the floor
around her. The shots were coming from behind, and she couldn’t
help but glance. The officer firing at her ducked behind a row of
vats, as though she were about to turn and fire, but she found
herself thinking: what a moron, he’s going to go up with the
building because he just wouldn’t stop chasing me.

She returned her attention to the door
ahead, trying to swerve and put something between her and the idiot
firing at her. Alice was within ten metres of the exit when rounds
tore through the backs of her thighs. She struck the concrete floor
and slid. The pain was so intense it was hard to breathe, and she
watched the counter for her grenade count down from twenty seven
seconds as her command unit administered pain and coagulation
medication.

The pain was gone, but she couldn’t get her
feet under her; Alice’s legs simply wouldn’t obey. She had one hand
to drag herself to the door. “I can’t go out like this,” she
said.

A short man with long hair stepped into the
doorway from outside with an assault rifle raised. He unleashed a
barrage of cover fire as he walked to her with perfect confidence.
“Bad girl, drawing so much attention,” he said as he leaned down
and grabbed the back of her jacket. He ran backwards, dragging her
and firing bursts from his assault rifle.

With nine seconds to spare, they were out of
the warehouse, and he was dragging her into an awaiting shuttle
that was so marked by time she wouldn’t be surprised if it dated
back to the early colonial days. He dumped her onto the floor
behind the pilot seat and hurriedly closed the door. A slight
jostling told her that the grenade went off, and at a glance
through one of the portholes, she could see the craft was rolling
across the ground. The hull scraped and creaked until it came to
rest and the pilot engaged the engines.

Alice pulled herself across the narrow bed
of the shuttle and reached for an emergency medical box on the
wall. Her savior released the controls of the shuttle and turned
his attention back to her. “Here, let me get that,” he said,
pulling the kit from the wall and opening it. “You’re lucky you’re
wearing that jacket. Saved you from being shot through the back.”
He pulled it off without much regard to her injuries and dropped it
behind him. He was right, the thicker armour on the back side of
the jacket had stopped at least seven rounds from passing
through.

“Who are you?”

“I’ve been following you since you made land
on Uro. Didn’t think you’d get those files,” he stretched the back
of her vacsuit away from her body and used a surgical particle saw
to get through it, stripping her lower half from there down.

“Hey! They got my legs!”

“Relax, your security scan was more
revealing than this. And yes, they got your legs, but you’ve got a
hole in your backside, too.”

He pulled a regenerative spray from the kit
and shook it before beginning to spray it on. “You don’t have any
cybernetics in your legs or backside that you managed to hide from
the port scanners, do you?”

“No, all natural,” she replied, glad she was
dosed with pain-killers. “And who gets implants in their ass?”

“Hey,” he said, holding his hands up
defensively. “I’ve seen stranger things.”

“Why are you helping me?” Alice asked as he
finished covering the wounds on her legs and bottom with the spray
and moved on to her arm. Even through the painkillers she could
feel the regeneration drugs going to work.

“Because you’re going to cut me in for
half,” he said with a crooked grin. “You need an expert, or you’re
going to get killed.”

“I’ve pulled off harder heists,” Alice
replied.

“Not on Uro, you haven’t. You’re either
going to cut me in for half, or I’ll drop you off at the nearest
police station before your legs are all healed up. I figure I’ve
got twenty three minutes to decide.”

“You’d be in trouble too,” Alice
replied.

The long haired fellow pulled a
cheap-looking computer pad from his pocket and showed her the
screen. There was a detailed security scan of her – so detailed
that she found herself blushing – with a reward of one point eight
million Uro credits offered for her live capture. News agencies
listed offers for footage of her beneath. “You’re famous here now,”
he said with a chuckle. “They’re going to be watching for you
everywhere in this solar system.”

“Dammit, Meunez is going to get into this,”
Alice said, pounding the deck with her good hand.

“Who’s Meunez?”

“Never mind. I’ll cut you in for half, but
all this has to happen quickly.”

“Love it,” the fellow with the long hair
said, standing. “Girl with a complicated past looking to get the
job done in a hurry. Where are we going?”

“What? You don’t know already?” Alice asked,
teasing. He was an attractive man, a couple of centimetres shorter
than her, with dark, straight hair. His features were so mixed that
he could be from anywhere. His piercing dark eyes seemed to
indicate a tendency towards mischief.

“I said I’ve been following you, not tapping
into that wrist computer of yours. Even Uro cops couldn’t get in,
or track you once you got out of scanning range. I would have
ignored you if there wasn’t some recognizable skill.”

“Thank you,” Alice said.

“Wasn’t a compliment, just an observation.
Where are we going?”

“First, what’s your name? Nothing comes up
on my system,” Alice asked.

“Lewis, just call me Lewis.”

“Okay, Lewis, we’re going to Illihd
Prime.”

“Where on Illihd Prime?” Lewis asked.

“I’ll tell you when we get there.”

* * *

Eve woke up on her stomach. The tingling
sensation from the memory-dream in her legs was still fading.
“They’re getting longer,” she said to herself. They were also
falling into sequence constantly. There were no flashes of early
life, or digital remnants from before she became human. Those were
the most confusing experiences. They were half memories, with murky
images that blurred together, not even worth paying attention
to.

Everything was changing. She felt better,
more like a whole person, but she looked forward to sleeping,
eating was less a chore and more a pleasure. That made her
situation even more difficult. Her nervousness at whatever Hampon
was planning kept her up, and she didn’t eat anything since she
discovered that there could be a nano-modification ready that would
limit her forever. He could easily put it in her food, or dose her
while she slept.

Eve had to get some distance from him
somehow. The day of her great address had arrived, and she hoped it
would be easier than she thought. “It begins when I’m ready,” she
muttered to herself. That was what the notes that came with her
speech said. She could put the event off as long as she wanted.

There was little reason to hesitate. She
wanted to get on with it and she didn’t take more time than she had
to in the bathroom. Eve was never any good at putting on makeup,
but she did a serviceable job of applying the basics using an
auto-kit that was provided with her toiletries. She supposed it was
something else she learned from Alice, who was taught by Bernice
during a particularly long hyperspace trip. Eve was thankful the
kit matched her colouring; it was something not even Alice had much
of a knack for.

She put on the same dress she wore the day
before, only putting the white and gold layer on the outside. Eve
made sure the emergency environment patch was on her back
underneath, as there was no telling where her day would take
her.

The door chimed as she finished smoothing
the dress down. “Come in,” she said, activating the door. It was
either the Child Prophet or Gabriel Meunez, and she wasn’t eager to
see either one of them.

Wheeler entered with the adolescent Child
Prophet in tow. “Little Lister here told me you were getting ready
to. . .” Wheeler trailed off, staring at her, astonished.

A lump rose in her throat, and she checked
her dress to make sure it was in place, looked in a shiny wall
fixture to make sure she hadn’t done something unusual or shocking
with her makeup. Everything seemed fairly normal.

“Ahem,” the Child Prophet said, crossing the
room and taking her hands. “I think Lucius is stunned to see how
beautiful you look this morning.”

“Right, yeah,” he said. He wore an old thick
black coat over what looked more like the clothing Eve had seen in
her dreams. Thick pants over a vacsuit with a gun belt that had
been robbed of its weaponry. “Sorry, your Excellency, I’m surprised
to have an opportunity to see you in person.”

“You should brush your hair,” the Child
Prophet said.

Eve nodded and returned to the bathroom,
sliding the door most of the way closed.

“What was that?” the Child Prophet asked
Wheeler quietly enough for him to think he wasn’t being
overheard.

“I expected her to look like Gloria, and
that’s something else,” Wheeler replied, not as cautiously.

Eve dragged the brush through her hair as
she listened. “That’s what we’re tracking. Her features are
shifting bone deep while she’s sleeping. Her framework upgrade
wasn’t built for that, but it’s happening nonetheless.”

“What does it have to do with me?” Wheeler
asked.

“You’ve spent time with Patterson, more time
than anyone after the change. We thought you could give us some
insight since he seems to have control on a new level, not to
mention, you’ve learned how to change your appearance
yourself.”

“So you think she’s doing this
consciously?”

Eve looked at herself in the mirror for a
moment and realized that the difficulty she had recognizing herself
wasn’t all in her head. She really was changing. She stroked the
brush through her hair one more time before dropping it in the sink
and leaving the room. “I’m not,” Eve said. “I’m not doing it
consciously.”

“Then what’s changed?” Wheeler asked.

“I’ve been dreaming someone else’s
life.”

The Child Prophet looked at her, alarmed.
“That shouldn’t be something you talk to just anyone about.”

“He’s not just anyone, you said he has total
control,” Eve replied. “I like that idea.”

Wheeler smiled and leaned against the wall.
“It’s a good thing you don’t look like my old first mate. It would
make looking at you while I teach you a few tricks pretty
awkward.”

“So you can teach it?” Eve asked.

“It’s all visualization,” Wheeler replied.
“Well, it is for me, at least. My last travelling companion seems
to have a different approach.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, it’s more like he actually is the
framework. He gets that thing doing all kinds of stuff that I can’t
even wrap my head around. Most of it’s biologically based, not like
me. I just push the system to numb pain then get it to shift
whatever I need around so I look like someone else. I can also use
a tactile-“

“Can we continue this later?” The Child
Prophet asked. “The followers are assembling.” He turned to Wheeler
then. “And I think you have an important bridge to build.”

Wheeler shook his head at the shorter man
then looked at Eve. “Never let ‘em know you’re good at diplomacy,
or you’ll be building bridges and mending walls for the rest of
your life. Good luck with the speech. As long as you don’t tell
them you eat babies or are outlawing sex you’ll have those
followers down there hand feeding and naming children after
you.”