She was ready for him, though, and stepped out of the way, almost too slowly. He stumbled past her and she pushed him facedown into the dirt. She tried to pin him to the soft earth but he rolled over and punched her. Her head snapped back and she lost her grip, and he lifted his hips and threw her off him.
Fighting in stronger gravity than you were accustomed to was strange. Her body seemed heavy and slow, and Hiro was about her size. He landed on top of her and tried to slam her head into the ground, but the water had made the dirt soft. It hurt, but not as bad as he’d intended it.
She blinked up at him, his face hard. Above his head, a metallic insect buzzed by.
IAN’s eyes are awake, thank God.
“How did you know?” he asked through gritted teeth, his hands tightening around her neck. His voice had a familiar short and clipped tone, lacking the friendliness of the pilot he had been. “How did you know how to bring me out?”
She brought her forearms together to pinch his, lessening the pressure on her neck. She tried to throw him off her, but he had wedged his feet under her, keeping himself from falling off.
“You’re the one who said the magic word,” she wheezed. “I just encouraged you to come out.”
“Hiro and Maria, I’ve alerted the captain to the altercation. She will be here in approximately two minutes.” IAN’s voice sounded far away coming from the speaker on the dropped tablet.
Hiro swore and slammed her to the ground one last time before getting off her. Maria snagged his cuff before he could run off. He stumbled and kicked back at her.
“And what the hell are you?” she asked, pulling hard on his cuff.
“Oh, I’m still Hiro. I’ve just had the weakness stripped out of me,” he said. “Now let me go.” He raised his foot and stomped on her wrist. She cried out in pain and let him go.
She tried to get up and chase him, but her ears were ringing from the punch and the choking. She cradled her wrist against her chest. By the time she had gotten to her feet, he was gone into the gardens.
So. A psychopath. Someone took Hiro and stripped out his humanity completely.
“I’m sorry, Hiro. You don’t deserve a yadokari and you don’t deserve this,” she muttered. She went to the fallen tablet. “IAN, did you see where he went?”
“He’s in the orchard. I can’t see him but I can send the bees in.”
She glanced up at the gradually increasing light. “Is Katrina really on her way?”
“No, I wanted to see what he would do,” IAN said.
“So you just lied to get him off me? Don’t you think the captain should know?”
“Probably. And you’re welcome, by the way.”
She flexed her wrist and winced. It was badly sprained, but probably not broken. Her face throbbed from where he had hit her. “Fine, I’ll get her.”
“I alerted her, just not at the moment I told you. She’s on her way now,” IAN said. “Gosh, you’d think you didn’t trust me.”
“This is so bad,” she muttered, brushing her hair out of her face and taking a deep breath.
She didn’t know whether to run or keep an eye on Hiro. She wasn’t security. She backed up toward the door, craning her neck to find the orchard.
The garden was definitely an amazing place in the light. The lake was nearby, and she could barely hear the water recyclers churning away below. Flowers bloomed around the pond, interrupted by patches of green herbs. As she passed them, she snagged samples of each herb she found.
She finally spotted the orchard, far to the left, meaning he had run slightly up the wall to reach it.
IAN chirped to life again. “Don’t worry, the cavalry’s almost there.”
“I’m not worried,” she said. “I’m getting out of here.”
“Yes, but if I had acknowledged that, I couldn’t use my cavalry joke,” he said.
“You’re joking now? You sound like a human,” she said, nearing the door.
“I’m at about ninety percent recovered. Not counting the cameras that are out.”
“Good,” Maria said. She came up against the door. “When I’m out of here, lock the door.”
Locking him inside the largest area of the ship. That’s safe.
Joanna and Wolfgang planned on recycling the bodies that morning, but the alert from IAN interrupted everything.
“I should tell you that Hiro attacked Maria in the garden, moments ago, actually. She is injured, he is running away,” IAN said, in a pleasant, announcing-the-weather voice.
“Shit,” Wolfgang said, and they left the bodies in the hallway and ran for the ladder to the garden. The captain met them at the ladder, her jaw set and fury in her eyes.
Wolfgang didn’t like the garden. It was a lower level than their living space, but higher than the bottom floor so it could contain the necessary under-the-surface life requirements such as a deep lake and tree roots. So the gravity wasn’t as intense as it was on the lowest floor, but it was heavier than Wolfgang was accustomed to.
Still, he led the way down the ladder, going as fast as he dared even as each step made him heavier and heavier.
At the foot, they found Maria leaning against the yellow door, panting. The left side of her face was swelling, and she had red marks on her neck. She held her right wrist protectively to her chest.
“What happened?” Katrina demanded.
Joanna held out her hand. “Wrist.”
Maria surrendered her injured arm to Joanna’s inspection. “Hiro happened,” she said. She explained that she and Hiro had gone to talk in the gardens, and that he had lost his mind and started attacking her out of the blue.
“I think he had a yadokari,” she said.
Wolfgang wasn’t very fluent with languages. “Noodles?”
“No, an illegal implanted personality,” Joanna said to him, making a face. She focused back on Maria. “Those are very rare. I’ve never seen a legitimate one work as well as one would have had to work with Hiro.”
“It’s possible. I’ve done a lot of research on them,” Maria said. “And he confirmed it. I think he’s still Hiro, but with all the humanity stripped away.”
“Probably only doing that to get an alibi,” Wolfgang said, scoffing. He raised his voice to imitate Hiro’s. “I didn’t do it, it was my implanted personality! I think we have our killer.”
“Not necessarily,” Joanna said softly.
“You take care of her,” he said, ignoring Joanna’s contradiction. “Captain?”
Katrina nodded grimly. “Let’s go.”
Joanna took a shaking Maria back to the medbay and sat her down on the second hospital bed. She took Maria’s chin gently, tilting it left and right. “You’re going to have an impressive shiner,” she said. “Is your vision all right?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Maria said. “I’m more worried about my wrist.”
Joanna determined that Maria’s wrist was sprained but not broken, and got a bandage for it. She started wrapping the injury carefully. “When everything calms down, we can get a nanobot drip to help you recover faster.”
“Why don’t you use that on her?” Maria asked, jerking her head toward the captain’s clone.