Gunmetal Dark
By Angelina Vansen

RATING: NC-17 for sex and violence, though not in this chapter.
CODES: Uber J/7
SUMMARY: Having removed the Softsuit from Mia (Seven of Nine), Dr. Kaine Sigg (Janeway) must now explain her origins. But if you haven't done so already, I recommend that you start at the beginning. I want to take this opportunity to thank my beta reader profusely for all her help, with this chapter and all the others. She is absolutely incredible and I can never thank her enough.

16.

"Kaine?"

Mia's voice, from upstairs. Kaine had been lost in her own world, poring over the scans of her own Augbrain. Trying to see what was salvageable. Trying to see what she could fix.

"Are you here?" asked Mia.

"Yes, I'm here."

Kaine stood up, stretched her back and blinked. Outside, the light was brighter, and it had stopped raining. She had been so absorbed she hadn't noticed.

Her nose had stopped bleeding, too, though her head felt thick and prickled with static.

She needed sleep, but had been afraid to attempt it. Every time she closed her eyes, the blackness reminded her of the Sluice.

Mia stood, expectantly, in her thin white robe, arms by her sides. It was strange to see her like this: an actual human being. Kaine looked at her for the first time, seeing the woman who had been inside the Softsuit.

Mia was tall, slim, narrow-waisted but curvaceous. A comely face, too, a little blank at the moment, but she had full lips and slightly exophthalmic eyes. Interesting. Attractive. Her blonde hair sat untidily on her head, unwashed and flat where it had grown under the brain plate of the Softsuit.

Kaine switched channels on her comset and scanned the young woman, checking her pathways, checking the Orgbrain. Making sure everything was still functioning.

"Feel better now you've slept?" she asked. "Clearer?"

Mia nodded.

"That's good," Kaine smiled. "It went well, I think. Removing the Softsuit. Once I shut down the Mirror, your Orgbrain took straight over."

Mia nodded again.

"I wasn't expecting it to be so easy," Kaine confessed.

"It was easy?"

"Well ... yes. Colonel Filer told me her scientists hadn't managed to remove a Softsuit without killing the trooper. I thought once the Mirror and the Orgbrain were paired, they couldn't be separated without both shutting down and killing the patient. I wasn't expecting to hack straight in and shut the whole thing down like that. Not at all."

Kaine stared at Mia for a long moment, as if her eyes alone could analyse her. "There must be something that we're missing."

"What do you mean?"

Kaine mulled over her answer before speaking. "I'm not sure. Perhaps something different that happened to you during the process. When you were put into the Softsuit."

"I don't remember that."

Kaine sighed. "I was hoping you would once we took it off."

Mia shook her head.

"Never mind. You've been through a lot. Perhaps it will come back to you later."

"Perhaps."

Kaine smiled. "Are you hungry?"

Mia looked blank.

"We'll have a cup of tea," Kaine said kindly. "That's a start."

Mia nodded.

Kaine picked up a piece of tapewire from the table and plugged it into the Mainstem port on the back of her neck. The other end slotted into the control port on the kitchen wall. No point trying to t-sync with the boiler; that part of her Augbrain was well and truly dead.

"There we go," she said.

Mia started; made a strange face.

"Tenkatech Hydro Boiler? Version 77 dash 01?" she asked Kaine.

Kaine nodded.

"I felt it," Mia told her. "Inside my head. When it activated, I felt it."

"That's your Orgbrain." Kaine pulled the tapewire out of the control port and went to get cups from the cupboard. She did not look at Mia as she spoke. "I can't remove that. You're getting signals through it."

"What is my Orgbrain?"

Kaine poured water from the boiler into the cups. "It's a device inserted into your head to give your brain the ability to interact with machines. It gives you a higher awareness of their activities."

"Oh."

Kaine stirred the cups, the spoon churning the dull green tea into a tiny maelstrom.

"I have one, too," she explained. "A different type. Yours, I believe, was designed specifically for Project MIA, for people who wear the Softsuits."

She picked up the cups and carried them outside, into the neat garden. Some fresh air would probably be good for both of them.

Mia followed her to the aluminium table and chairs on the lawn. They sat down.

The garden smelled good from the rainfall, fresh and green. Droplets of water still adorned the leaves of the plants and the petals of the flowers.

Mia looked about herself in wonder; her eyes flicked from one plant to the next.

"These ..." she breathed. "They're not real ..."

"The plants?" asked Kaine. She realised what Mia was feeling. "No, they're not. Real ones need too much care, and this house, most of these houses, are empty ten months of the year."

Mia nodded. "I ... I could ..."

Suddenly, a bush to Kaine's left burst into bloom; purple flowers erupted all over it. Then, the grass on the lawn grew longer, suddenly lush and verdant instead of neat and trimmed.

Kaine suffered a swell of jealousy; her Augbrain felt only the merest tickle from the plant controls. Right now, there was no way she could interact with them as Mia did.

The honeysuckle on the wall grew higher, crept along the oldlook stones until it merged with the ivy which came the other way. Leaves grew, curled, vines entwined. Buds bloomed and burst into beautiful flowers of every colour.

"Do you remember anything from before? Anything at all?" Kaine asked. She wanted to distract Mia before the garden became a jungle.

"I don't know," she said. "I remember the Softsuit ... all of that. Before that ... no."

They fell silent. Kaine drank from her cup, taking a sip of the bitter liquid.

Mia tried her tea, too. Grimaced a little, but sipped again.

"Do you know?" she asked Kaine.

Kaine was surprised out of her thoughts. "Know what?"

"What happened to me," Mia said.

Kaine swallowed. Licked her lips. Leaned across the table. "Not for certain," she said. "Though I think I have an idea."

"Will you tell me?" Mia breathed.

Kaine pursed her lips and nodded once. She wanted to do it, owed it to Mia, but that did not mean it would be easy.

Softsuits on the dead? Orgbrains? Citizens used as Tenkatech troops? She didn't want to believe it herself. How was she going to find the words?

This time last week, she had been working on t-sync problems with the Dharma Grid. Sitting in her CleanLab with her team, the outside world barely a concern to her. The only thing she had worried about was when she could next meet Timon.

Now Timon was dead, she was a fugitive, and everything had changed. No Augbrain, no Tenkatech, no support. Beaten and bruised and dressed in someone else's clothes.

Yet, as much as she desperately wished to go back to her life, she could not ignore the things that Colonel Filer had revealed. Nor could she turn her back on the plight of the woman in front of her.

Things were different. She could never go back.

"Honn and Kidder," she began, unsteadily. "They took over the Softsuit project once I had built the prototype. From what I've learned, they implemented a program called Project MIA."

"What is that?"

Kaine took a sip of her tea, her mouth unusually dry. She watched the wind blow a fallen leaf onto the table. Pick it up again and blow it high over the wall. "Well, it seems there weren't enough volunteers to become Softsuits among Tenkatech soldiers."

"And Project MIA changed that?"

"To wear a Softsuit, to have it work in the way it should, a person has to be heavily modified. A lot more than average. Augbrain, ports, muscle stimulators, reflex enhancers. Most people don't want that much augmentation, and you have to remember, Tenkatech run a professional army. Strictly voluntary. They don't go pulling people away from their homes and families to fight wars they might not agree with ..."

Kaine stopped herself. She sounded proud. In light of what she was about to say, that pride was ridiculous.

"Well, that's what I thought, anyway" she said. Took another sip from her cup.

Mia waited expectantly. Her pale eyes did not even flicker.

"At some stage, the Orgbrain was brought in," Kaine continued, her voice a whisper. "Perhaps it was developed specifically for Project MIA, or perhaps it was a concurrently running project that happened to have applications ... I don't know. But ... it changed everything. It enabled the Softsuits to become a proper army, the way Tenkatech wanted it. But ... the way Honn and Kidder did it ..."

Kaine's eyes pleaded with Mia, her hands reaching unconsciously across the table towards the younger woman.

"How?" demanded Mia. "How did they do it?" She sat straight-backed. Unmovable.

"The Orgbrain, it's a remarkable thing. I've never seen anything like it. It's totally organic, they clone it, grow it ... it works like a regular Augbrain, but ... initially ..."

"Initially?" Mia insisted.

"They use it ... primarily ... as a reanimation device."

Mia wrinkled her brow. "Reanimation?"

Kaine nodded. "It brings the subject back to life."

Mia sat back. Her jaw trembled slightly. "Back ... to life?" she gasped.

"Apparently so. I know it seems far-fetched, but I ... I've seen it done. The Orgbrain reanimates dead tissue, it gives the ... the subjects the appearance of life at the very least. Then they can be put into Softsuits and programmed to kill with what I am sure is ruthless efficiency."

"Back to life?" Mia repeated.

"Yes."

"I am ... a dead person?"

"Mia ..."

"Am I?"

"Mia, I don't know. That's the truth. But the chances are ..."

"How did I die?"

"I don't know that, either. But you ... your body ... you've been abused in the most horrific way. My Softsuit ... I had no idea. I want you to know that."

Mia was not listening. She stared at the horizon, mouth opening and closing as if she was gulping for air.

"I'm sorry ..."

"Then who am I?" Mia shouted, suddenly. "If I am a dead person, who was I before I died?"

"I don't know. From what I've learned, probably a soldier. The Softsuits are programmed to pick up the enemy dead from battlefields and bring them back to make more Softsuits."

Mia's mouth dropped even more. "Protocol Child ..." she gasped.

Kaine didn't know what that was. "I'm so sorry, Mia ..." she breathed. Not having the words, not knowing what to say.

"I was not even fighting on the side of Tenkatech?"

"No. They only take the enemy."

"That is what that Colonel meant, isn't it? When she said I was a Citizen body in a Tenkatech shell."

Kaine nodded. "Mia, I am so sorry," she pleaded. "If I had known, I would have stopped it ..."

"Is that so?" Mia sounded sceptical.

"Absolutely. I would have withdrawn the Softsuit's license from military use. Some people want to win the war at any cost, but this ... it's insane."

"You would have stopped it?" Mia barked. "I do not believe you would."

"I would," Kaine told her in no uncertain terms. "That's why I've helped you. Why I will carry on helping you."

Emotions warred across Mia's features.

"I want to find out why it is you are different from the other Softsuits. The ones Colonel Filer tried to remove. Perhaps we could use that information to help others."

"I should trust you? You are Tenkatech, correct? My enemy?"

Kaine let out a breath. She was exhausted, utterly shattered.

"Look," she sighed. "I owe you my life, Mia. More than that. And besides, look at us. Look at where we are, what we've been through. Neither of us are exactly Tenkatech or Citizen any more, are we?"

Mia shook her head.

"Then let me help you."

A long moment passed. Mia pursed her lips. Looked Kaine in the eyes. Looked away.

"I have little choice," she said eventually.

This was true. It terrified Kaine, but all either of them had right now was each other.

She would need to be strong. She had no backup, no Timon, no base full of soldiers around her. Nothing at all. All she had now was this woman, this damaged creature who was as unpredictable as she was deadly. It was not going to be easy.

"I promise that I will help you, Mia," she told the young woman. Reached out and took her hand on the tabletop.

Mia looked away, but she did not remove her hand from Kaine's.

"All right. Maybe you should start by telling me what happened to you. From the beginning. What you remember, anyway."

Mia nodded, and took a moment to collect her thoughts, brow wrinkled.

"I woke up," she began. Eyes gazing into the distance. "It was night and it was raining. I was in a launching field, with ships ..."

"Aircraft?" Kaine interrupted.

"Yes, aircraft. I was wearing the Softsuit ... everybody around me was wearing Softsuits. They were going into a ship. I was the only one who had stopped."

"And before this, there was nothing?" Kaine asked. "You remember absolutely nothing?"

"No. Nothing. It was like I just ... woke up. Perhaps it was the voice."

"The ... voice?"

"Yes, it said 'Hello'."

"What voice? The Softsuit?"

"No. Not the Softsuit. The Softsuit was part of me, I understood that. It's a machine. The voice ... it was like a person's voice, speaking to me in the way you do now."

"In your head?"

"Yes, in my head. It was the first thing I heard when I awoke."

This baffled Kaine. A voice? In Mia's head, a voice like a person's? It made no sense.

"It told me to escape," Mia continued. "Told me to run, told me to fight. It guided me through the desert, into the hills, up high where I could access the Network through a satellite."

"So it continued to speak to you?"

"Yes. It helped me to find you."

Kaine was alarmed. The possibility that somehow, Mia had been hacked was worrying. Not that the Doctor had ever heard of a hacking like this, one that took the form of a voice, but even so ...

If someone was good enough to hack into a Softsuit, into an Orgbrain, who knew what they were capable of?

"Do you still hear this voice now?" she asked Mia.

Mia shook her head. "Not since I rescued you. But ... it was sporadic."

Kaine nodded, grim. The voice could have been a figment of Mia's imagination. The young woman's brain had been under unimaginable stress.

"Let me know if you hear it again. Immediately."

"Yes," agreed Mia.

She drank a little more of her tea, and the two women sat in silence for a moment, both lost in thought.

"What do you believe happened to me?" Mia asked eventually.

"I don't know," Kaine concluded ruefully. "But I believe it is something unique to you."

"Yes?"

"Yes. If it had been some problem with your program, I think more Softsuits in your batch would have been affected. I doubt you would have made it past the safety checks and into combat, which is obviously where you were headed on that ship."

Kaine drained her cup. Looked at Mia with a scientific eye. "Besides, if there were more rogue Softsuits out there, the chances are they would have tried to contact me, as you did. You're the only one I've heard from."

Kaine stood and collected both cups, though Mia's was still half full. "Perhaps if we looked at your birth data, we could find out something about you."

"My ... birth data?" Mia asked, as if the concept was quite foreign to her.

"Yes," Kaine took a breath. "With your biological scans, the ones I took when I removed the Softsuit, I can get birth data for you from the Network. Your name, your date of birth, where you come from ..."

"My name ..." Mia breathed.

Kaine smiled gently. "Perhaps it would help you remember."

Mia nodded.

She followed Kaine back into the house and stood, close and eager, as the Doctor put the cups away and tidied some of her tools.

"Would you like to do it now?" Kaine asked, hesitating. She didn't want to be pushy, aware that the information she had just imparted would take some digesting.

"Yes," demanded Mia.

"Come on, then. I'll input the scan into the home bothy and see what I can find."

Mia nodded, a smile on her lips.

Kaine picked up the tapewire she had used to connect to the boiler and pushed it into her comset. The hardwire connection port to the home bothy was in Timon's study.

Being a bothy, it was a secure connection, untraceable unless someone knew the precise Network coordinates. All military personnel had access to a private bothy; it was one of the ways Tenkatech kept the Network secure, even from themselves.

She led Mia into the study and sat down at the desk. Again, she was struck by how different things seemed in this house. When she had been here before, Timon's desk had been perpetually messy, a muddle of reports and comsets and day-old teacups. Now it was neat and perfect. Not like him at all. He really had been two different people, she thought.

She pushed the tapewire into the port on the wall and activated the bothy. Beside her, Mia started.

"The Network!" she gasped.

"Yes," Kaine concurred.

"We are entering the Network?"

Kaine shook her head, attention on her comset. "I only need a file analysis."

In the depths of her ruined Augbrain, she felt the Network take the file through the port.

TENKARECORDS:
ANALYSIS IN PROGRESS ...

The comset told her. It blinked. Blinked again.

RECORD CORRUPT

It said.

"Corrupt?" she said aloud.

Of course, the comset did not respond. She tried again.

RECORD CORRUPT

"What is wrong?" Mia asked, trying to peer over Kaine's shoulder at the comset.

"I can't get the file," Kaine explained. "It keeps telling me it's corrupt."

"Perhaps my records were destroyed when I became a Softsuit."

"Perhaps," Kaine said, but she was not convinced. Deliberately corrupting a file wasn't Tenkatech's style. If they wanted to destroy it, they would have erased it completely.

Mia looked worried.

"I could try to clean it," Kaine suggested. "I have some very good cleaning tools."

"Yes?" Mia asked.

"Yes. The only problem is, I uploaded them to my office on the Network. I'll have to hook up ... log in ... then I could use them. Try to fix this corruption."

"Is that safe?"

"Well ... we'd be going through a secure connection," Kaine reassured. "And my office is not exactly a public space. If we're quick, and keep our avatars walled, I think it's unlikely anyone would be running the kind of high-level scan needed to spot us. It's a risk, but I think we'd be okay."

Mia nodded, lips pursed.

Kaine uploaded Mia's file into one of the more functional sectors of her Augbrain. Pulled the tapewire from the comset and plugged it into her Mainstem.

"You, of course, can t-sync," she told Mia enviously.

Mia nodded again, silent.

Kaine closed her eyes and pushed her password through her Mainstem and into the bothy port.

Immediately, searing pain flared through her right eye. Her poor, damaged Augbrain needed more repairs. Quickly.

She endured it, gritted her teeth as the purple wave of the Network took her consciousness through the back of her neck, destroyed her and then rebuilt her, limb by limb.

CONNECTED

She stood inside the bothy, inside Timon's personal space.

Where Kaine's space was modern, a penthouse office looking over a cityscape, Timon's was rural and wild. Little more than a stone shack on a cliff edge, looking out at a fierce sea.

It was evening, and the shack glowed with firelight. Wind whistled through the cracks in the roof and rattled the loose, dirty glass in the windows.

Kaine felt a little ridiculous in her avatar's outfit of a sharp, black business suit and heels.

Next to Mia, however, she was positively sensible. Mia's avatar was completely naked, in that smooth, sexless way that avatars were.

Mia looked at her, confused. "You are taller," she said.

Kaine smiled, sheepish. "Sometimes that can be helpful in meetings," she said. "Besides, you're naked!" she smirked.

"I did not know it was possible to dress," said Mia defensively.

"Load Bothy Wardrobe," Kaine called. An interface popped in front of her, listing the options Timon had available.

He hadn't been very imaginative. Just a khaki uniform, very similar to the one he wore at the base. Always a soldier, she thought.

Still, it was better than nothing.

"Upload to avatar mia223939," she instructed the interface.

The clothes materialised on Mia's body, adapting themselves to the shape of her avatar. Mia looked down at herself, an eyebrow raised.

"This is preferable?" she asked.

"Yes," Kaine told her. "It is."

The Doctor winced again at the pain in her head. "We should make this quick," she told Mia.

Mia nodded.

"Connect to external hub," Kaine called. "Personal Office, user ksigg."

BOTHY CONNECTED

Kaine went ahead, pushed open the shack's door and stepped out onto the hub outside. Mia followed her, eyes gazing everywhere in wonder.

The door was ready for them on the other side, a standard, white Tenkatech Network door which read

DR. KAINE SIGG
PERSONAL OFFICE

Familiar, yet alien. Already part of another life. Kaine went through it, followed by Mia.

"Activate office wall," she called. The light on the door went from green to red. Now no one could follow them. No one could read who was inside.

Kaine sat at her desk. Crossed her legs at the ankle beneath it.

Mia straggled behind, gazing out of the enormous window.

"Prep file defrag and decode," Kaine called. "Utilise Orbitcode and NoiseAvoid."

An interface opened in front of her, resting on the leather top of the desk like a screen.

PLEASE INPUT FILE

it requested. The file emerged from Kaine's Mainstem in a thin, white stream. It went into the terminal looking rather grey and weak.

INFORMATION CORRUPT: UNABLE TO VIEW

"Clean," she instructed. Chewed her lip as the programs did their work.

Mia stood over her. Almost protective.

INFORMATION CORRUPT: UNABLE TO VIEW

Kaine let out an irritated breath. "That's ridiculous," she told Mia. "It can't be that corrupt, it's few lines of text."

"What does that mean?" asked the younger woman.

Kaine shook her head. "Something else," she breathed.

Mia looked confused.

"View corruption in static pattern form," Kaine instructed the interface.

The file displayed before her as a series of black bursts of static. Kaine studied them. Repeated them. Sat back in her chair.

"Yes," she said with a satisfied smile. "It's not corruption. It's encoding made to look like corruption."

"Oh?" asked Mia.

"Yes. See ... here ..." Kaine pointed to a particular burst of noise on the screen. "And here again. See how regular that is? It's encryption."

"Tenkatech have encrypted my data?"

Kaine shook her head. "You know, I don't think so. It's not done well enough to be Tenkatech. If I was going to encrypt something and make it look like corruption, I'd make damn sure no-one could spot it with a naked eye."

"Who did it, then?"

"The Citizens, I'd guess. It's about up to their standards."

"Why ... why would they do that? If I am a Citizen?"

"That's the question," Kaine wrinkled her brow. "It must have been to cover your identity for some reason. It's a crude disguise, but not something you'd see unless you were looking for it."

"They wished to cover my identity?"

"I suppose so."

"Why?"

"I don't know. But it's war; there are many reasons why your identity would need to be hidden. Perhaps you were some kind of undercover operative."

Mia stared at her for a long moment. "Can you decrypt the file?"

Kaine shrugged. "Perhaps. But I can't sit here for hours running decryption programs; that would be asking to get caught."

"You will try," Mia demanded. That look was back in her eyes, the same look Kaine had seen when the young woman had been inside the Softsuit. Desperate.

Kaine sighed. "I could give it a once-through DeAlgo," she suggested. It was a quick program, not too powerful but uncomplicated. If it recognised the encryption algorithm, a small file like this could be done in seconds.

Mia nodded. Jaw tight.

"Run DeAlgo," Kaine instructed the interface.

TENKATECH DeALGO v5.42
4210-2021-1205
REGISTERED TO USER: ksigg

"Decrypt file."

Mia held her breath.

DECRYPT UNSUCCESSFUL: UNKNOWN ALGORITHM

Kaine cursed. "I'm sorry," she said.

"Try it again," Mia pressed.

Kaine shook her head. "We can't risk staying in my office any longer, Mia."

Mia's breath hissed between her teeth in exasperation. "Unhook. I will remain here and attempt it."

"No. It's too risky."

"I don't care."

"Don't be stupid, you could expose both of us."

"I must know!"

Mia shook. Rage, adrenalin, desperation ... she looked strung out. Eyes huge and urgent.

"Mia, please ..."

"Run the program again."

"I can't."

"You can!"

"It won't make any difference."

"Run it again!"

"Mia, listen to me ..."

"No!" Mia slammed her hands onto the leather surface of Kaine's desk. "You will run that program again, or I will unhook and kill you!"

Kaine stood. As her avatar, in her high-heeled shoes, she almost equalled Mia's height. She stood eye to eye with the younger woman. She would not be intimidated. "If we are caught," she said in a low, firm voice, "I will be court-martialled, and you will probably end up back in a Softsuit."

Mia did not back off. Continued to stare Kaine down.

"Is that what you want?" Kaine asked.

"No," Mia was forced to concede.

"Then we have to unhook. Now."

Mia looked away. Jaw set and sulky. She nodded.

"I promise you, I will help you find out who you were. But this is not the way."

Behind them, the interface bleeped.

PARTIAL DECRYPTION AVAILABLE
VIEW? Y/N

Kaine looked at the interface. Looked back at Mia. Her mouth dropped open.

"Yes!" she cried. "View decryption!"

Mia froze. Hand clutching the back of the chair.

Kaine looked at the file. Swallowed.

"Well, you have a name," she told her companion.

Mia looked fearful.

"You want to know?" Kaine asked. Just to be sure.

Mia nodded. Her mouth opened as if she was about to speak, but nothing came out.

"Your name's Brett Viesturs," Kaine told her. "Not a bad name, I guess. Suits you."

"Oh," said Mia.

"There's nothing else. The rest still registers as corrupt."

Mia closed her mouth.

"Does it ... bring anything back?"

Mia shook her head.

"Maybe it will," Kaine reassured. Put her hand on Mia's shoulder. Mia's shoulder in Timon's clothes.

"Let's unhook, hmm?" Kaine suggested. "You could probably do with some more rest, and my Augbrain certainly could."

Mia nodded.

"Disconnect," Kaine told the Network. The familiar sweep of purple energy rushed over her, disassembled her avatar, and pulled her out of the Network.

Then she was sitting in Timon's chair, at the desk in his study once more. Mia stood beside her, clothed in her thin white robe.

Kaine felt warmth on her face and realised that her nose was bleeding again. She dabbed at it with her fingers.

"Just my Augbrain," Kaine assured the other woman. "I need to do a little more maintenance, I think."

But Mia wasn't paying attention. She stood, staring, lost in thought.

"Brett Viesturs ..." she murmured softly.


CONTINUE TO CHAPTER 17


Send me email

Return to the Uber Index

Return to the Main Index