Runners: Escape Prison World or Die (Empire of Time Series) by John Argo

Page 23.

"She was really pretty," Amela said regretfully. The beautiful automaton sitting beside her continued to leak bluish, frothy liquid from the mouth, nose, and ears.

"She was modeled on a live prisoner," Vigri said. "You know what that means? They used Swarm technology on a live human being, to make an android pilot out of her. She really was Denla Whirrit once. She asked me to end her tragedy, once and for all. I have done her the ultimate service. I became her anima. In you, and in Deni, I have been privileged to redeem myself and serve the gods. She is at peace now. By the end of this day, so finally will I." She patted the former woman's shoulder absently, but spoke to Amela. "You will leave us behind and seek your freedom. Then, hopefully, you will bring the Dominion here to save the rest of us on this forsaken lizard world."

Amela knotted her fists and stared straight ahead in a roiling of emotions.

Vigri rubbed Denla's shoulder. "You look beautiful in your uniform, dear. If I could, I'd promote you to chief four or maybe major, but you wouldn't care." She said past Denla's freckled features to Amela: "She was a spunky young combat pilot from the Kmell Bridge before her universe turned into a nightmare. She leaves a husband and a child. They would have had more, and be a teeming family, but it wasn't in the cards for her. I pray that you will enjoy your family and your freedom all the more for those of us who could not."

Amela felt warm tears running down her cheeks as she sat stoically with her eyes closed.

The object that had been Denla Whirrit continued piloting its last flight. The last bit of Denla Whirrit's humanity had now been punched out of its neural nexus. She was now entirely an automaton, running on lubes and fuels until the last of those leaked from her cortices.

"We will fight the Swarm to the death," Amela said. "Freedom or death!"

During the earliest millennium of human star flight, the human empire of that time had practiced all manner of inhumane engineering on its own people as well as aliens, including the use of brainbox guidance systems—human neural systems, intact and complete with brain and all long nerves like arms and legs, amputated from their fleshly context, and installed in starships and other remote vehicles. The victim's memories often lingered for lonely centuries, suffering silently among the stars, far worse than Vigri's or Amela's desolate prison camp sojourn. Such days were long gone, replaced by the new absolute value on human life recognized during the Rediscovery of Man, or ManTime. Humans had been hunted, condemned, and enslaved or killed across the galaxy. After several thousands of years (the Inversion of Man) they had fought and clawed and earned their way back to equal status with the best of the galaxy's ruling races. That too was long ago, but the lessons of those dark ages were never to be forgotten by humans. The current Old Humansh Dominion was especially contrite and conscious to avoid such practices.

Amela, in her rage, recalled floating air banners across all the human Dominion's starports and transit stations. Picturing uniformed male and female fighers, the banners had resounding recruitment slogans like Smash the Swarm! It wasn't about aliens…it was about the specifically noxious and murderous methane-breathers, whose icy eyes and morayil faces on recruiting banners were enough to galvanize humans, humanians, and alienians alike to sign up for battle.

"It's got enough juice left to get us where we want to go," Vigri said of the automaton who had been Denla Whirrit. "I've gotten used to a lot of horrible things over these many terrible years. I see that you are pale as a ghost. I see your tears. Thank gods you are still really human. This poor thing and I both lost our souls."

Blue skies and sunshine filled the air all around. The scratched windices and dull metal surfaces inside the skimmer vibrated in fine, rapid wavelengths. Desert stretched in all directions below. In full daylight, the cratered wasteland glowed in various shades of brown and red, from rusty yellow on the exposed, sunny surfaces, to deeper bloody red that seemed to drip down mountain ranges, to oxblood purple and black-brown in rilles and crevaces.

Vigri pointed to a dull green button on an obscure side panel. "See this? When all is done, press this."

"When what is done?"

"Your trip. When you no longer need the skimmer or the corpse."

"Denla."

"Denla is dead. This is meat and screws. An automaton."

"Oh gods."

"I know." Vigri sighed. "She was a pretty doll. So sad."

"When will I be done?"

"Soon. You'll know. Push the button, and jump out. The systems are programmed for a final, short end-flight. Denla Whirrit programmed it herself. She understood the whole route, but she had no idea how or when I would kill her. I hope she is the last life I take. Give her dignity. Push the button, and jump out when the time comes. Do it for Deni."

Amela was now more afraid that Denla's ghost would die, and the skimmer would crash. At this high speed, it would be a fatal end.

"Be calm," Vigri said. "The automaton is hooked into the boat, and the boat has its own aeroservs. Together, it and the ship will fly us where we are going."

"What else are you keeping from me?" Amela asked.

"Nothing. We can speak freely now. Texel and the other monsters can no longer listen in. Do you have your detector?"

Amela held up the gadget Vigri had given her.

"Run it over the thing sitting to your left."

Amela made sure the detector was firmly looped around her thumb and forefinger. Then she awkwardly brought it close to Denla's clean flight suit.

"Point your finger like I showed you."

Amela pointed at the former Denla Whirrit's torso beside her. For an instant, she felt nothing. Then she felt energy pulsing through her finger and hand. The device picked up the wave field and projected a digital stream on the little screen. Amela saw a glowing green-on-black mesh of lines resembling a wire drawing of a human being. To the side were some glyphs, including a cryptic 8=8 in amber lettering.

"That tells you she is an automaton," Vigri said. "If it still has a human soul, so to speak, it's a mandroid or femdroid. If it's meat and screws, it's an automaton. If it's just articulated metal with a little wetware to help it do simple tasks, it's a robot."

"I see." Amela took the gadget off and dropped it in her pocket.

The skimmer streaked ahead.

A broad, dark blue vista emerged with a glory all its own.

"There it is," Vigri said delightedly. "The deep blue ocean. That has been my dream all these years. Just to walk on the beach, pretend I have my husband and my son and daughter with me. We laugh, and skip around, and collect sea shells like you can do all around the universe."

"Same thing on Belair," Amela said of her home world.

"I hope you get to find seashells with your husband and son soon."

Amela did not answer, for fear of stirring up more pain in the other woman's psyche.

"If we find the Pitz Boat," Vigri said, "you should be able to climb on board, rev up the engines, get the autoservs going, and escape into orbit. From there, if the boat is starworthy, it will trace its mothership's course back onto the starways, and you can find your way back to Dominion space."

The Starways were a transportation system outside time and space, built by a long-lost race of aliens whose technology was eons beyond that of any known species today. Most modern star-faring civilizations were built around nodes in the Starways. That included alien and humansh species.

Wars were fought around the Starways, leaving a lot of damage, but the Starways had a near-miraculous manner of repairing themselves.

Once you entered a Starways portal, flying whatever fast l!ght ship your race devised, you used wrinkles outside the fabric of time and space, said to be in the motherverse itself, to hop or skip from one node to the next along space-like drifts of shadowy matter and light. Entire cities and civilizations had grown up, over a billion years, in the Starways themselves. Clouds of stars glowed in this truly outer space, doppler-shifted spectrally depending on whether you were approaching (bluish) or departing (reddish).

Vigri left unsaid: …and from inside the Starways, it's just a matter of hopping the right Navy rig or maybe a cargo liner or even a gypsy runner to take you to your home world.

Thank you for reading. If you love it, tell your friends. Please post a favorable review at Amazon, Good Reads, and other online resources. If you want to thank the author, you may also buy a copy for the low price of a cup of coffee. It's called Read-a-Latte: similar (or lower) price as a latte at your favorite coffeeshop, but the book lasts forever while the beverage is quickly gone. Thank you (JTC).

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