Gunmetal Dark
By Angelina Vansen

RATING: NC-17 for sex and violence
CODES: Uber J/7
SUMMARY: Having captured the TSIS agent Kamila Zaworska, Mia (Seven of Nine) and Kaine (Janeway) must now interrogate her. To do this justice, however, you really should start from the beginning.


PART III: NEUROMANTIC


21.

Rain lashed against the acrylic kitchen door, the sky so overcast it looked like night.

Mia had her right hand back in the Softsuit, and it felt good. She had donned the cuff without hesitation, focussed only on the weapon it contained. Her only thought had been to save Kaine's life.

Yet, the moment her hand had slipped back into the cuff, she knew it belonged there. The Orgbrain had sung with pleasure as it had connected to the device, and immediately, Mia's mind had cleared. There was no more of the confusion that had clouded her since the removal of the Softsuit.

She felt whole. Strong. She had control.

Now, Kamila sat at the kitchen table, dirty and battered. The TSIS agent's face was swollen and streaked with blood and mud from her fight with Kaine, and her mouth set in an obstinate scowl.

Kaine herself stood by Mia's side, her back straight and her chin high. Despite her own injuries - a bloody nose and an ugly red handprint where she had been strangled - she looked strong, too. Bold.

The doctor searched her toolbox, rooting around with a furrowed brow until she emerged with a roll of clear tape. Biting off a piece, she slapped it roughly over the port on the back of Kamila's neck.

"Just in case," she said.

Kaine had surprised Mia. Previously, the young woman had thought Kaine weak and something of a victim. She would not have thought the doctor capable of fighting with such aggression.

Mia could not tear the image from her thoughts. Kaine against the grey sky, Kaine wet with rain, Kaine fighting for her life in the green grass. Bright blood and pale skin. She had looked magnificent.

Mia could not have let Kamila kill her, no matter what information the TSIS agent could reveal.

"I have files in my truck," Kamila offered, her voice dry and low. "I could get them."

"No," Mia said. "You will talk."

"All right," Kamila shrugged. "So what do you already know?"

Mia noted the way her eyes darted about the room: she was looking for opportunities. They glanced hungrily at the gun Mia held.

Kaine leaned forward. "She's not answering your questions." Her voice was stone. "You're alive to answer hers."

Kamila swung a contemptuous glare at Kaine, and the two women locked eyes.

"How do you know my name?" Mia demanded. She did not want the fight to start again.

Kaine backed away. Kamila returned her disdainful gaze to Mia.

"From the files," she said. "Your service record, your birth data."

"Why do TSIS have files on me?"

"After you deserted from the base, we were brought in to find out what happened. So, we were given your files to tell us all about you. I probably know more than your own mother."

"My ... mother?"

Kamila rolled her eyes. "It's a figure of speech," she explained.

Kaine sucked a breath between her teeth. "You know you can't trust her, don't you Mia?" she said. "Everything she says will be twisted to suit whatever TSIS want from you."

"Under normal circumstances, Sigg would be right," Kamila conceded. "But I've got no reason to lie to you. TSIS want the same thing you do. That's why I came here last night: to see if we could help each other."

"And what do TSIS want?" Kaine pressed.

Kamila flicked her gaze to Kaine without moving her head. "Cho Oyu," she said. "We want to communicate with it, to find out more, just as you do." She looked at Mia once again. "It's my opinion that you represent our best chance of doing that."

Mia swallowed. "Because it has spoken to me?"

"Exactly."

Mia nodded, feeling very grave. Her head swam: fears, wishes, uncertainties, remnants of programs that might have been part of the Softsuit. She felt sick.

Kaine was right: Kamila was not to be trusted. Obviously, the TSIS agent had not come here to work with them. She had come here and put a gun to her head. She had tried to kill Kaine.

But Kamila had seen files ... she knew Mia's name. She had information Mia would probably never find out alone, even with Kaine and the Network and time on her side.

She looked at the table. She looked at her hands. One hand was pale flesh, the nails short and trim. The other protruded from the dark bulk of the Softsuit's cuff, and clamped round the gun. That hand felt good and strong. That hand had the power in this room. She would not let Kamila forget that, whatever else happened.

"Very well," she said. "We will share information."

Kamila nodded, and she looked satisfied.

"I was once the woman named Brett Viesturs?" Mia asked.

"Yes, you were," Kamila confirmed.

"And I worked for Tenkatech Biosystems?"

Kamila seemed impressed. "Yes," she said again. "How did you know that?"

"From a document saved on the Network. Notes of a meeting Brett Viesturs attended with Twin Cities Drainage."

Kamila shook her head. "Third party filing," she tutted. "All records of you were supposed to have been erased."

"So how did I come to be in a Softsuit?"

Kamila laughed. "You're a very direct woman," she noted.

"How?"

Kamila tilted her head and smiled in the most captivating way. Mia almost gasped. Kamila was so beautiful ...

"Well, that," she breathed, as if she and Mia were the only two people in the world, "is the interesting part."

Almost against her will, Mia moved closer. She drew out a chair and sat. Between them lay the table and the pieces of the Softsuit.

"Tell me," she whispered. She lowered the gun, but kept her finger on the trigger, still aimed at the TSIS agent.

Kamila's smile broadened.

"It's a complicated story," she warned. "I'll need to start at the beginning."

"Go on."

"Brett Viesturs," Kamila began in that same slow, measured voice, "was sponsored through university by Tenkatech Biosystems Recruitment. Upon graduation, she was given a job. A good job on fast-track. One that's reserved for the brightest and the best."

Mia sat back.

"You're not a genius like Dr. Sigg here, but you're a smart woman. You worked your way up from PA to Under-Registrar in ten years."

Kamila fixed her eyes on Mia's once more.

"Now, as an Under-Registrar," she continued, "you had access to a lot of files. Top-grade clearance, in fact."

Beside Mia, Kaine started. "Top grade?" the doctor gasped.

Kamila nodded, slowly. "You knew everything," she drawled. "Everything."

For a moment, Mia did not understand. Then, the implication of "everything" hit her. She had worked for Tenkatech Biosystems. She would have known about the Softsuit, about Project MIA. About the dead Citizens from the battlefields being used as Tenkatech soldiers. Everything.

She felt dizzy. Could not catch her breath.

"You mean I knew?" she asked, because she had to be certain.

Kamila nodded.

"About the Softsuits ... Project MIA?"

"Don't worry ..." Kamila soothed. "At least you did something about it." There was an edge of sarcasm in her voice.

"I did?"

Kamila smiled again, an odd smile that Mia could not fathom. "I don't suppose you remember a woman named Laurn Lin?"

"I remember nothing!" Mia barked. "As I have already told you."

Kamila shrugged.

"Laurn Lin?" Kaine asked in a small voice. "I know who she is. She's a Citizen sympathiser. Quite a vocal one, I believe."

"That's right," Kamila nodded. "She's just a token figurehead ... Freedom of Speech and all that ... you know how it is ..."

"I'm starting to learn," Kaine said, almost to herself.

"Anyway," Kamila said to Mia, "Brett Viesturs approached her. It's not known how or where. But she ... or rather, you ... gave her documents that showed what was happening under the guise of Project MIA."

Mia gaped. "I ... I did?"

"Yes," Kamila confirmed. "Luckily, those documents were intercepted and Lin taken into custody before she had a chance to go public, but she transmitted them to the Citizens."

"Mia ..." Kaine breathed.

"Essentially, you betrayed Tenkatech," Kamila continued. "Sold us out. You told the Citizens that we were using their dead to power our Softsuits."

"So I was caught?" Mia asked. Surprised by how dispassionate she sounded.

"Unfortunately so. You didn't cover your tracks well enough."

"I was arrested, too, then," Mia surmised. She imagined Brett Viesturs' disgrace, her humiliation.

Kamila shook her head. "No," she whispered. Her whisper held something. Something dark and terrible.

"What?"

"No," Kamila repeated. "Lin's a public figure. She can be charged with treason, given a trial. A prison sentence. You were dealt with in-house."

"In-house? What does that mean?"

Kaine closed her eyes.

"Kaine?" Mia demanded. "Do you know what that means?"

"She's lying to you, Mia," the doctor shook her head. "I know what she's going to say. She's going to tell you that they killed you. That Tenkatech Biosystems, one of the most respected organisations in the world, killed one of their Under-Registrars and put her into a Softsuit and nobody did anything about it."

"Yes, more or less," Kamila said.

"That's ridiculous!" Kaine was shrill.

"That's what happened."

"No," Kaine insisted. "No way. That wouldn't happen, no matter what anyone did. This is Tenkatech, they don't deal with people like that, we're not ..."

"You need to leave the lab a bit more, Sigg," Kamila mocked. "Tenkatech's really not the all-loving bringer of justice they like to have us all believe. I thought you would have realised that by now."

"Yes, but ..."

"You know, that's the beautiful thing about TSIS," Kamila eulogised. She sounded serene. "I get to see past all that propaganda. Nothing shocks me any more."

"I'm pleased it shocks me," Kaine spat.

"Hmm," Kamila grunted.

"What happened to me?" Mia interjected forcefully. "I do not understand."

"She's saying that the punishment for your betrayal was to be put into a Softsuit," Kaine spelled out, saying each word carefully, almost gently. "That is what Tenkatech ... or certain people at Tenkatech ... did to you."

Mia felt her mouth fall open. A punishment ... a punishment for her betrayal ... She looked from Kamila to Kaine.

"You do not believe this to be true?" she asked the doctor.

"Well, Mia, I ... I don't know ..."

"No, you said so! You just said you thought it ridiculous!"

"I know, but ... a few days ago I didn't believe they would use dead bodies to power Softsuits, either. Out there ... that division of Biosystems is Honn and Kidder's private domain ... who knows what they're capable of?"

"I ..." Mia felt her face go hot, the words unable to form in her dead mouth.

She wanted to pick up the gun again, to shoot Kamila straight in the head. She wanted to pick up one of the heavy pieces of Softsuit and bludgeon her with it. She wanted to run outside in the sweet, cleansing rain, get into Kamila's truck and drive forever.

Somehow, it had been better when she had believed she was a Citizen soldier.

She swallowed. Straightened in her chair.

"This is true?" she asked Kamila.

"I've seen the footage."

"There's footage?!" Kaine gasped. "They took footage?! Honn and Kidder are out of control out there ... they need stopping!"

"I'm not disagreeing with you," Kamila said. "I'm telling you what I know. As I said I would."

Mia stood up again. "All right," she said. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." Kamila gestured towards the sink. "Could I have something to drink?" she asked.

"Why?" Mia snapped, thinking there was a trick about to be played.

"Because I'm thirsty."

Mia lifted the gun again. "You will not deceive me," she told the TSIS agent.

"No, I won't," Kamila reassured.

"All right," Mia allowed. "Kaine?"

"I'll get it," Kaine said. She got to her feet and selected a plastic cup from one of the cupboards, too light to be used as a weapon. She filled it and brought it back to the table.

"Thank you," Kamila said. She drank slowly, watching Mia over the rim of the cup.

Mia kept the gun aimed at her head.

"Now, you will tell me about the voice I hear," she said once Kamila had finished.

"If that's what you want."

"You called it Cho Oyu?"

"That's right."

"Why is it called Cho Oyu? Is that the name of a person?"

"No. It's a code name."

"A code name for what?"

"A computer. Cho Oyu is a computer."

"A computer?!" Kaine gasped.

"A computer is talking to me?"

"Yes. In a way. We think."

"You will explain."

"Again, it's complicated."

"Then you will ensure I understand perfectly."

"Of course. Do you know anything about the Network? How it is run?"

Mia shook her head.

"Well, it's run ... supported really ... by fourteen computers. Super computers, the most advanced that exist. They are all hidden in top secret bases, so secret that most of the people working in those bases don't even know they are there."

"I understand," Mia told her.

"Cho Oyu is the sixth of the Fourteen."

Kamila paused, seemingly collating her thoughts.

"It's different from the others. The others are built with standard technology, they're variations on a theme. Cho Oyu is not."

"I didn't know that," Kaine said. She sounded fascinated.

"You don't have clearance to the Fourteen, Sigg. That's why," Kamila taunted.

Kaine folded her arms.

"This version of Cho Oyu was only built a year ago, under the highly secret Project Gunmetal," the TSIS agent continued. "And like I said, it's not standard computer construction. It's built from components that were essentially found."

"Found?" Kaine sounded incredulous.

"Yes, found," Kamila said, clearly irritated by Kaine's questions. "In a wreckage site on one of the moons. That's where my clearance level runs out, I'm afraid. I don't know what moon, what wreckage site, anything more. I suspect it was a top secret experiment that went wrong, but I don't know. Anyway, they used what they found there to grow Cho Oyu."

Kaine sat forward. "They grew it?" she asked. "Like the Orgbrain, right?"

"Precisely. The Orgbrain is an offshoot of the same Project: in that case Gunmetal/Dark."

"Organic circuitry ... fast, efficient, infinitely clonable. I guess that's the future of Tenkatech."

Kamila laughed. "I'll leave that up to you Lab Rats," she said. "That's nothing to do with my line of work."

Kaine nodded in agreement.

"Besides, I think the technology needs some refinement," Kamila smirked.

"How do you mean?" Kaine's eyes shone; Mia realised she was genuinely interested to learn this.

"Fortunately, the sixth sector, where Cho Oyu acts as girder, is only support structure, nothing essential. It was a good test for Project Gunmetal, to see how it ran before the technology was rolled out across the Fourteen. It won't happen now, of course. Cho Oyu is out of control."

"It doesn't work?"

"It works beautifully. Fast, efficient, economic, does all the things it is supposed to do. The only problem is, it doesn't stop there."

Kaine shook her head, blank.

"Soon after it was installed, the scientists on Project Gunmetal noticed ... aberrations. That it was doing things it shouldn't be. Trying to push into surrounding systems, investigating files in minute detail. Creating new t-sync ports and transmitting messages to anything it could communicate with."

"Really?" Kaine was on the edge of her seat.

"And always one word. Always it kept transmitting Hello."

"That is what it said to me," Mia whispered. "The very first thing, when I awoke on the launch field. It said Hello."

"There was only one conclusion they could come to. The cloned tissue they built it from has intelligence," Kamila said. "It thinks for itself."

Kaine's jaw dropped. "How the hell did they do that?!"

"They didn't," Kamila said. "It was completely unexpected."

Kaine shook her head. She looked worried and excited all at once. "They can't exactly pull the plug, I suppose. Not with it supporting one-twelfth of the Network."

"That's not the issue. Any one of the Fourteen can run the Network by itself; they all back each other up."

"I didn't know that."

"There's clearly a lot you don't know, Sigg."

"I guess so," Kaine agreed.

"They can contain Cho Oyu at any time. They just don't want to."

"They want to see what it does, don't they. To see if they can use it somehow."

"Of course."

Kaine shook her head. "Typical."

"Why does Cho Oyu speak to me?" Mia asked.

Kaine and Kamila looked at her as if they had forgotten she was there.

"Your Orgbrain," Kaine realised.

Kamila nodded. "It's grown from exactly the same material as Cho Oyu's circuits."

"So it communicates with the Orgbrains, talks to the users?" Kaine asked.

"Not all of them," Kamila nodded in Mia's direction.

Kaine looked to Mia. "Only Mia?" she asked.

"So far," Kamila confirmed.

"Why?" Mia asked. "There are thousands of Softsuits, all of which are accompanied by an Orgbrain. Why does Cho Oyu not talk to all of them?"

Kamila fixed her with a penetrating gaze. "Mia?" she asked. "You call yourself Mia?"

"Yes."

"Mia, everyone else is dead."

"I know. In the Softsuits, they ...." She stopped. Thought about what Kamila was saying. "I am not dead?"

"No, you're not. I saw the footage of your punishment, remember? They punished you by putting you into the Softsuit alive."

"Oh, that's horrible ..." Kaine gasped.

Mia couldn't speak. She took a step backwards.

"Not one of the most pleasant things I've ever seen," said Kamila. "They didn't intend for you to survive the process."

"No!" exclaimed Kaine. "I took that Softsuit off her, and it's so radically different from my design ... attaching the brainplate alone ... I have no idea how anyone would have survived."

"It took TSIS a long time to figure out why you were the only Softsuit who responded to Cho Oyu," Kamila recounted. "But when we saw the footage ... well, it's the only hypothesis that makes any sense. No one else can hear Cho Oyu's voice because there's no one else alive who has an Orgbrain."

"I am alive ..." Mia breathed. She touched her face with her hand, feeling the skin there for the very first time. Its warmth. Its softness. Feeling the breath from her lips. She grinned at Kaine with a kind of maniacal happiness. "I am alive!"

Kaine smiled, too, but it was watery and weak.

"Yes, you are," said Kamila. She raised her chin and met Mia's gaze. "Now you just have to decide what you're going to do next."

Mia looked at Kaine, and Kaine looked back at her with strong, sweet eyes.

"I think I already know," she said.


CONTINUE TO CHAPTER 22 ...


How about sending a nice email to Angelina?

Fancy some more Uber?

In the mood for a little of the Main Index?