Gavin woke with a start and started calling out. “Hughes? What happened? Are we ready?” There was no answer. Gavin looked about and realized many things at once. He had a body for a start and relished the simple feeling of flexing muscles long left unused. He was no longer attached to the VI gestalt, the silence of their absence almost deafening. And he was in a place he’d never thought he’d see again. The small cottage was exactly as he remembered it: dark, dreary, and a lone fire in the hearth birthing deep shadows. As Gavin looked about in his confusion, a shadow detached itself from the wall.
“Back again?” the shadow said.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen this way,” Gavin said with some confusion as he tried to sort out what had happened. Hughes had only connected the Control Box through an auxiliary port, which did nothing but allow Hughes to check on data, creating the illusion that the Major had deactivated Gavin and taken control. Gavin meanwhile had played dead, watching silently through the security systems. Everything had been going according to plan right up to the launch from Falldown, and then? And then…
“Oh shit,” Gavin whispered.
“So you remember,” the shadow said, nodding.
“How the hell did they know how to cut my physical connections?” Gavin asked angrily.
“I really couldn’t say. Remember, I’m the part left behind,” the shadow said with a chuckle.
Gavin sighed, and took a seat on one of the cushions before the fire. The mercenaries had known exactly where to go, and what to do. Not even Hughes had known about the Data Core lines at first. Who was their client, and how had they obtained that information?
“A very good question,” the shadow said, responding to Gavin’s thoughts. “It would have to be someone that was as familiar with the ship’s design as you. There can’t be that many, could there?”
“Only about fifty,” Gavin said despondently.
“Did any dislike you?”
“What do you mean?” Gavin asked, not sure of the shadow’s point.
“Well, I’m just saying, doesn’t it seem mighty convenient that you are somehow connected into that plane? Without your knowledge, consent, and by persons unknown? And then, just as mysteriously, a lone mercenary girl springs you from a highly fortified, highly secret Military base?”
“What the hell are you saying?” Gavin asked, his frustration growing at the shadow’s roundabout explanations.
“It just seems, well, convenient to me,” the shadow said, taking a seat next to Gavin, his robes billowing around him. “For such a bright man, it never occurred to you to take a step back and look at your situation?”
“I haven’t really had the time,” Gavin protested weakly.
“You have been on the run,” the shadow conceded graciously. “But isn’t it more that you didn’t want to look? “
“What?”
“Let’s look at the facts here and now, since you now have time. You were imprisoned as the brain of a super-powered weapon of war. Your body was left to rot in stasis as a byproduct of the implantation. Suddenly, she wakes you from your slumber, and springs you from the Military prison not knowing that her prize contained a living mind. Still, she knows all of the installation’s security protocols, and all of the codes to access the ship. She bypasses wings of elite Cavaliers, and hundreds of armed guards. Where did she get the information to do that?”
“I…” Gavin stammered.
“Then later, an elite Military group using a very similar ship that you didn’t even know about sets off in pursuit, and when they do catch up, they use a method of control completely different from the girl’s. A method that is not nearly as sophisticated or as well thought out, but strikes at your very core. You somehow, with the girl’s help, manage to bypass their control. But not a moments rest later, a new enemy appears. A group of mercenaries arrive, in no small thanks to that afore-mentioned girl; and these mercenaries even though they are no longer her kin, happen to possess an even greater insight to your inner workings? This all seems very odd to me.”
“You’re saying it’s all connected, and its someone from the project.”
“Precisely,” the shadow said, nodding. “I’m also saying that whoever is providing the mercenaries with their intel is not providing the same amount of information to the Military.”
“So who’s spinning the web?”
“Indeed a very good question,” the shadow said, nodding. “Any ideas?”
“No, damn it all!” Gavin barked out, throwing his hands into the air. “If I knew that, why would I be asking?”
“But you do know,” the shadow said sagely.
“Really?” Gavin said unpleasantly.
“Think about Sentinel,” the shadow said. “What was the last thing you remember?”
“Working on the Praetorian VI interface,” Gavin said quickly.
“Details, please,” the shadow said, patiently. “Think harder, where were you at?”
“I was in the simulation room,” Gavin started, remembering. “I had just completed a VI interface and was pulling it up in the simulation room for final tweaks. It was late, after midnight, and the complex was practically empty.”
“Who was there?” the shadow asked.
“I don’t remember,” Gavin said, shaking his head as his memories went blurry.
“Start again, concentrate on details,” the shadow said. “Was the room warm? Was it dark?”
“The room was cold. It’s always cold in there,” Gavin said remembering the dreary little room that shared a wall with the complex’s cooling system. “It was dark as well. I had turned down the room illumination in order to better see the holo-interface. Holy crap,” Gavin said, looking up.
“You remember something?” the shadow asked.
“Yes!” Gavin said as he worked through his memories. “I wasn’t the only one in the room. I was working with someone. Who was it? Damn it! I can just make out the face. Her face… My assistant! Sasha!”
“Ah Sasha,” the shadow said, reminiscing. “Such a good kid. Bright one too. She was going to go far.”
“Yeah, she was,” Gavin said with a chuckle. “It was a real shame…”
“What was?” the Shadow asked suddenly.
“She stole AI data from Dr. Sydney to further her own research. The project frowned heavily on plagiarism…” Gavin trailed off, lost in thought. “So why do I remember her working with me that night?”
“I don’t know, why?” the shadow repeated.
Gavin frowned in concentration, his brow furrowing. “She had snuck in, she was trying to… Damn it all. She was trying to tell me something. What the hell was it?”
“A warning?” the shadow hazarded.
“Why don’t you tell me, damn it! You seem to know!” Gavin exploded.
“Because this is something you need to remember. I’m just a shadow.”
“Ah hell,” Gavin said standing up and pacing around the small room.
“She was telling me something important. She was upset, I think. She was crying. She’d been framed. Was that it?”
The shadow said nothing.
“I remember now. She was telling me that she hadn’t plagiarized Dr. Sydney’s data. She was coming to me for help. I was her alibi. On the night she’d supposedly stolen the data, she was with me.”
“Sleeping with assistants? How droll,” the shadow chided.
“No!” Gavin protested loudly. “No. It wasn’t anything like that. That night had been a typical late night research session. But that particular night she’d been on my case about calling my Father. She wanted me to stop the argument and reach out to him. It was one of her quirks. I don’t know really why.”
“Because family was important to her,” the shadow added.
“I guess,” Gavin admitted.
“She had feelings for you, that’s why. But you were always too busy with your work to notice. And now she was in trouble, being blamed for something she didn’t do. Why was that?”
“I don’t know,” Gavin said.
“Sure you do,” the shadow said. “You were too successful in your VI work. Other departments had noticed. Many even joked it was your cute, bright lab assistant that was the key to your success. But other departments weren’t quite so lucky in their research, were they?”
“No,” Gavin said, remembering the fiercely competitive environment of the complex. Departments received bonuses for completing research goals. “Some were way behind in their progress.”
“Any given to jealous or violent tendencies?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say that. But the competition was fierce, and tempers were running fairly high in the last few days of…” Gavin trailed off again.
“Of?” the shadow prompted.
“My god,” Gavin said, remembering. “I was such a fool.”
“It happens often,” the shadow said, snuggling deeper into his dark robes. “The smartest people often miss the most common of problems.”
“I need to get out of here,” Gavin said, heading towards the door. “I know who set Sasha up. I know who put me in that damned plane!”
“Don’t open the door!” the shadow warned suddenly as Gavin reached for the knob.
“Why?”
“Things are different out there now, my friend,” the shadow said sadly.
“What do you mean?” Gavin said, uneasily.
“The VI gestalt no longer calls you master, is what I mean. If you go out there now, they’ll rip your mind to shreds. You are an alien component of a well-defended hive.”
“So what am I to do, just sit here?”
“That really is all you can do.”
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