Paul knew the AI was looking at him through the cameras set in the room, and not out of the glowing yellow eyes, but he didn’t care. He liked having a face to talk to.
He faced the shaky hologram of IAN, the only person he had been eager to meet when joining the crew. Earlier that day, Paul had gone deep into IAN’s programming, looking for whatever had turned him off, but couldn’t find the key section of code that was broken. He knew he just had to find one line of code; that would let the other things fall into place. He’d tried some things, but they hadn’t seemed to work. Perhaps he just needed time.
“IAN, give status report,” he said.
“My vocal functions are working again,” he said. “You are Paul Seurat. Chief engineer of the ship Dormire.”
“And you are?” he asked, then held his breath.
“IAN. Intelligent Artificial Network. A clever acronym.” The light projection of his lips didn’t work perfectly with the words coming from the speakers, but he was communicating. That was enough.
“Yes, the scientist types like their jokes,” Paul said, looking at the connections hologram behind IAN’s projected face. “Are you working correctly?”
“I am far from optimal, but I am improved. I can see maybe thirty percent of my cameras.” He paused. “You are different. This is a new clone. How did you die? I don’t have that information.”
Paul felt his anxiety shift sideways as the past remained a black hole. “You don’t? So you can’t tell us what has happened in the past twenty-five years?”
IAN paused. “I’ve summoned the captain. I’ll need to give my report.”
Paul groaned. If he had been the one to alert the captain, he’d have been the hero. As it was—
“Mr. Seurat, kind of you to let me know that IAN was awake,” Katrina said coldly as she entered the server room.
“He just came online, Captain,” he said. “I was assessing his well-being before I called you so I could give a full report.”
“Well, now you don’t have to. IAN, what’s your status?”
The yellow face turned toward the captain. “I am online. The ship is functioning at about eighty-five percent, although it is missing a great number of logs. Actually it’s missing all of them.”
“We knew that much,” the captain snapped.
Paul felt a strange need to defend IAN. Instead he said, “IAN, can you tell us our trajectory and speed?”
“We’re off course but it looks like we’re in the midst of a course correction. Our speed is about five percent slower than it should be right now…No, five point three nine. We’re slowing down. And turning. The magnetic sail is rotating a different direction.” He paused a moment as if accessing internal commands. “Yes, we’re definitely heading off course again. That’s very strange.”
“This happened all of a sudden?” Paul said in alarm.
“Right when you accessed it. IAN, are you doing this?” Katrina asked. “We were doing fine with course correction before you woke up.”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so,” he said, doubt creeping into his voice. “I’m still unable to interface directly with all of the ship’s systems.”
“Can you sever your connection temporarily with the navigation?” Katrina asked.
IAN paused, and Paul thought he was taking a moment to follow orders. “No, Captain, I’m not allowed to do that. I can’t turn navigation over to the crew, even for an executive order.”
“We’re going off course. We’re slowing down. Again,” Katrina said, her voice containing her anger just barely.
“I will see what I can do to get us back on track,” IAN said.
“That’s what I just told you to do!” the captain said.
“Not exactly, Captain. I will work on it tonight as I try to self-diagnose the problems my software is having. I should have a full report tomorrow. You should get some rest.”
Paul wondered how many times IAN had ignored the captain’s orders in the past years. He was the ultimate authority, just in case those driving the ship got ideas that were against the mission.
The captain looked at Paul seriously. “We may need to find a way to shut him off again if we’re going to keep going off course.”
“Captain, he can hear you,” Paul whispered, his voice a little shaky. “Besides, he just died and woke up missing a lot of memory, exactly like we did. Are you talking about killing him again?”
Katrina didn’t make any attempt to lower her voice. “If that’s what we need to do to complete this mission, I’ll take out anyone I have to.”
Katrina’s Story
126 Years Ago
October 10, 2367
Hermès, I think,” Katrina de la Cruz said. “Perfect.”
Her maid, Rebeca, nodded and went to the closet where her wardrobe hung in temperature-regulated perfection. She returned with a slim black pantsuit in a plastic hanging bag. She presented it to Katrina like a sommelier showing a fine wine.
From her vanity, Katrina nodded, and the maid set to work on removing it from the bag and smoothing it. She left it on the bed for Katrina, who stood, slipped off her robe, and began dressing.
The black would go well for the formal dinner, and the pantsuit, a tuxedo for women with a feminine cut and a flare at the tails, would allow for maximum movement.
“You will need a mask,” Rebeca said. “Match, or contrast?”
“White domino, white hat, white blouse,” Katrina said.
“You will stand out,” Rebeca said.
“That’s the idea.”
Rebeca pursed her lips and helped Katrina get dressed.
Katrina didn’t need help getting dressed. She didn’t need much help doing anything. But when she hired Rebeca to help run her household, Rebeca had been a no-nonsense ladies’ maid, taking on everything from the cleaning to dressing Katrina.
Katrina was a decorated war hero, the first clone to become general of any armed forces branch on Earth. She had taken care of herself just fine in the American Southwest after Mexico sent in troops to help with the American water wars. She’d had no problem dressing her own wounds, and then dressing herself, when Mexico’s human-made offshore island was stormed by refugees seeking their desalinator.
But now she was retired. She could have gone on to be in the army with her new clone body, despite the trouble she may have had getting “older” soldiers of lower rank to respect her, but she had decided on a new course for herself. A more lucrative job. A general’s salary was not bad, but you could be hired by corporations to remove a business rival for a lot more money.
She had done some mob hits, but that felt too personal. Katrina preferred corporate assassinations. It was less messy, less permanent. It was only business, after all.
And after seeing how the corporations had meddled in the American water wars, she felt it was her duty to bump off as many of the hijos de perra as she could.