Spinward Fringe Broadcast 7: Framework (49 page)

“Aye,” Ashley said. The light of the four
main rotary engines was joined as the rear of the ship lit up.
“Well, the inertial dampers are good. Didn’t even feel that.” She
ramped the thrust up slowly, and stopped at six percent. “The
Samson never moved this fast.”

“We’ll be slower soon,” Jake said, watching
the sun loom closer. “Still much faster than the Samson, if
everything goes right. Give it another three percent for ten
seconds.”

“That’ll take us up to approach speed,”
Clara said.

Ashley didn’t ramp the power up as slowly as
before, but surged it up to the requested level. “Whoa,” Finn said
as he watched the power levels jump then normalize. “Okay, we’re
okay. I was sure we’d lose a few micro nozzles.”

Ashley powered back down at the ten second
mark, and nodded. “Smooth ride.”

“All right, how long until we can close the
doors on those thrusters?” Jake asked.

“Three more seconds,” Agameg replied through
the comm. “The inboard engines are cooling as quickly as expected.
They’ll be easy to conceal.”

“Close them as soon as you can,” Jake said.
“Time to let the ergranian steel work its magic.”

“Never seen this before,” Frost said. “Not
like this, anyhow.”

Jake sent the order for all departments to
get ready and received positive reports within a minute. “All
right, monitor your stations for problems and report as soon as
anything comes up. Time to flip the switch, Finn.”

“All right,” he nodded. “Energizing the hull
and releasing the static binding. This is going to be loud.”

“Beginning slow rotation,” Ashley reported.
“Time for baby to get a tan.”

“It’s not even nearly the same thing,” Finn
replied. “The Warlord’s hull is going to absorb solar radiation and
increase its mass and size as it converts the energy to matter.
It’s more like photosynthesis, only better.”

“Okay, then,” Ashley replied.

The Warlord’s hull was bathed in light as it
slowly rotated. Jake’s tactical screen told him that they were
being scanned by one hundred fifty eight vessels and counting.
Everyone in the system would know what kind of hull the Warlord had
before long.

Before anyone was ready, the ship around
them began creaking loudly. “It’s just the steel binding with the
inner supports and growing along the seed lines inside,” Finn
yelled.

The bare struts above them were enveloped by
strands of grey-silver metal that crept across the metal like thin
vines until all the supports and the outermost surfaces were
covered completely. “Full internal coverage,” Jake told Finn.

He made a few adjustments and the ergranian
steel stopped growing into the ship. The outer hull began retaining
all the radiation from the sun, and Jake smiled as he heard
something that the metal had become known for. It began to groan,
then the sound increased in pitch.

“It sounds like the hull is singing,” Kadri
said.

The hull outside thickened, and Jake watched
as the surface rose until the devices and round launcher ports were
almost recessed. The fins rose along with the rest, only they grew
harder and took on interior details that would make them the most
resilient parts of the ship. Finn was doing a good job of directing
the growth of the hull at the front while Agameg worked at the rear
and several other crewmembers worked the middle. Jake took over two
of the main engine pods himself, seeing that whoever was in charge
of them was having difficulty. They had glider blades built in to
the struts, like the Uriel fighters, but they wouldn’t be useable
until someone cut away parts of the hull that bound to them by
mistake.

After several minutes of rotating past the
sun, every station reported they were finished, and all the parts
hanging off the Warlord were recessed except for the four main
rotary thrusters and the blade-like fin arrays.

“Returning the hull to stable status,” Finn
said. “Reports coming in. We have a lot of cutting to do.”

Jake saw the status reports coming in from
across the ship. Most of the reinforcement went well, though some
areas weren’t completely covered, while a some hatches would have
to be re-cut. There were no major injuries, and no unexpected
problems. Most of the cutting and hull treatment would have to take
place on the outside, however. A few of the emitters, launchers,
and outer hatches were sealed. “Flight, how are our thrusters?”
Jake asked.

“Rear thrusters are sealed shut, but we have
our four mains, and rotation is fine,” Clara reported.

“Controls have adjusted,” Ashley said.
“We’ve lost some responsiveness, but I think she’s still a sleek
bird. Ready to enter hyperspace.”

“We have enough open emitters,” Finn
replied. “We just can’t project a wormhole yet, so no way to test
the combination FTL system.”

“Captain, this is Ronin. Both fighter
launches are sealed shut. Looks like whoever was in charge of
growing those sections didn’t control them very well.”

“Looks like you’re grounded until we get
those cut,” Jake said. “We’re heading into hyperspace in a few
seconds, so make yourselves at home.”

“Course plotted, we’ll be ready for
hyperspace as soon as we clear the solar system,” Clara said.

“Good,” Jake replied. “Congratulations,
everyone. Our new ship has a shiny, thick skin.”

The walls and ceiling were polished to a
silvery shine. When Alice opened her eyes, she saw a woman that she
recognized immediately, but what she saw didn’t make sense. The
brown-haired, blue eyed, tall woman who stared back at her felt
perfectly right, but she’d never physically been that woman. One of
her eyes was cybernetic, and seemed exactly like the one she’d been
given on Veers Nine, but it was blue, matching her natural eye.

Someone had put a grey metal choker on her.
The vacsuit, heavy boots, as well as the thick command and control
unit were all Freeground military issue. They were newer models,
but definitely Freeground. She pushed her fingers through her
straight, longer than shoulder-length brown hair. Her smile
reflected back at her and broadened at the sight of it.

She remembered dying. That body that was
such a reliable host for years was fully corrected, and the flaw in
its brain that allowed her to borrow it for so long was gone. Alice
remembered being trapped, hearing many of the Triton crew speaking
to her, entertaining her for hours on end. Then she let go, and
copied herself into a digital system. Her last memory was of the
man who treated her like his daughter, patiently sitting at her
bedside. She’d said goodbye, but he couldn’t hear her.

“I’ll make sure he hears me when I say
‘hello,’” she said aloud. The sound of her voice in the silent
space was so surprising she clapped both her hands over her mouth
and giggled. It was a strong voice with a very feminine tonality,
almost exactly how she sounded when she was still an artificial
intelligence running on Jonas Valent’s command and control unit.
“Now, how’d they do that?”

Alice tried to scan the small room but her
cybernetic eye failed. She could feel the choker around her neck
interacting with the eye and the implant that allowed her to
communicate through neural channels. “A restraint,” she said,
tugging on it with no success.

The outline of a door appeared and a slab of
metal was drawn out of the way. A woman with sharp features and
long, dark red hair emerged. She wasn’t wearing a soldier’s
uniform, but a long, conservatively cut green dress. The woman
nodded at the soldiers behind her and the door closed. “We don’t
have long, so I would like you to answer my questions quickly. Then
you can go.”

Alice decided that the conversation should
begin with a logical leap, maybe that would skip a lot of minutiae
and get to the point. “Why has Freeground Intelligence resurrected
me, and how did they do it?”

The woman looked stunned for a moment then
smiled. “Why didn’t I see that assumption coming?”

Alice’s guess was obviously a miss, but she
pressed on. “This room, the style, it’s all Freeground. That door’s
a metre thick.”

“So you have no memories from the artificial
intelligence version of yourself, or your experiences while you
were my passenger?”

Alice thought for a moment, and remembered.
She sent herself towards the biggest Regent Galactic communications
hub she could find right before she made the transfer to digital.
“What happened?”

“An artificial version of you separated from
a file that it guarded. That file had all your memories and human
traits. It started degrading so your artificial intelligence copied
the file into my brain. You don’t have any memory of that, do
you?”

“No,” Alice said. She tried to remember what
it was like to be an artificial intelligence before she was human
and realized she could barely recall anything. Her life as software
was, for the most part, gone. Her human memories were rich, clearer
than ever before. “Someone did some serious housekeeping in my
head.”

The smile that brought on in the woman
watching her was surprisingly joyful. “I’m glad you’re back. I only
wish we had more time.”

Alice watched the woman, there was something
inexplicably familiar about her, but she couldn’t figure out what.
“Okay, then where am I? Whose pet project am I?”

“You have to promise not to react too
extremely, let me explain the whole situation.”

“Okay,” Alice replied, sitting up straight.
“I’ll let you finish before I decide on an escape plan.”

“The creator of framework technology didn’t
stop developing it after escaping Vindyne. He incorporated edxi and
issyrian technologies and kept on researching the secrets to true
immortality.”

“Edxi,” Alice said, nodding. “I met one,
looked like it took a real act of will for it to resist tearing
into me like an entrée. They don’t like anyone researching or
altering them.”

“That may be true, but Omira, formerly
Doctor Marcelles, had a lot of success. Your framework created a
modified version of human physiology. You have neural pockets
scattered throughout your body, a little more strength, you’re
hardened against vacuum, radiation, and extreme temperatures to a
certain extent.”

Alice looked at her bare hand. It looked
completely normal. She pinched it has hard as she could with her
fingernails. She felt the normal pinching pain, but it didn’t break
the skin. “Vacsuit skin.”

“That’s accurate. You also have a reserve
lung and a bladder that reprocesses excess moisture, like an
issyrian,” the woman said. “I wasn’t told this until you’d been
transferred across, and they offered the same upgrades to me. Our
version of the technology is locked, so we can’t make modifications
to it.”

“This thing locks me down?” Alice said,
picking at the choker.

“No, the lock is mental, and it can be
broken, but I’ve seen what can happen when that’s done, and I don’t
recommend it. That choker is keeping your cybernetics from
operating. If you reached out to networks outside this ship, or
started scanning things with your eye, the fleet would detect
it.”

“Okay, if Omira could upgrade most of my
important bits by borrowing from other races, why do I even have
cybernetics?”

“Those are manifestations of your mental
self image. Your memories of yourself having those are so clear
that the framework duplicated them when you were transferred.”

“So if I had four arms before…”

“I suppose you’d have four now,” the woman
replied, smiling at the whimsical thought.

“Damn,” Alice said. “Should have pictured
five myself five years younger, with wings and a pooper that dumped
platinum.”

The woman chuckled and pressed on. “You’re
on Omira’s research vessel, the Fallen Star. We don’t know where
she is, before you ask. We have a ship ready for you with the
coordinates of Jacob Valent programmed in. Once you are clear of
our fleet, the choker will fall off, and you’ll be able to use your
implants however you like.”

“That’s one great big prize package, lady.
Who are you?” Alice asked. “What did I do to win all that? Oh, and
where am I?”

“You’re in the middle of the main Order of
Eden fleet. I’m not going to tell you where the fleet is operating
from, since that would breach our security too drastically. I’m
also not going to tell you who I am. I could have had you cut out
when I discovered you in my head, but instead allowed you to be
saved.”

“Well, that’s the most terrifying thing I’ve
ever heard. I’m in a cell, in the middle of the enemy camp, which
I’m assuming is bigger than I could guess.” Alice thought for a
moment. “What happened to the artificial intelligence that put me
in your head?”

“She deleted herself after Meunez arrived,
at least that’s what she said she’d be doing.”

“Gabriel Meunez is here? Talk about burying
the lead. Now I know I need to get going,” Alice replied.

“Answer a couple of questions for me, and
I’ll set you free.”

“Fire away, Red. If Meunez is nearby, I have
to get out of here. I didn’t make the greatest impression last time
we ran into each other.”

“Well, he’s moved on to other things, but
we’ll get to that. I’m wondering, what happened to Lewis?”

“How do you know about the Clever Dream’s
AI?” Alice asked.

“There was another Lewis, before.”

The memory of him, and his last moments
instantly lowered her spirits. “He’s dead.”

“Oh,” the woman replied. “How?”

“Okay, before I spill the nitty gritty on
one of the most complicated men I’ve ever met, I’ve just gotta know
why you’re asking after someone who was maybe known on two worlds.
Two worlds that, I’m just guessing here, are a long way away.”

“I read about him in your history, but the
file was incomplete,” the woman replied.