Requiem (44 page)

'What makes you
think that?' asked the Doctor.

'It's hard to
describe it. It kind of felt like there was a hand inside my head.'
Seline held her own hand up to her head. 'Like it was grabbing hold
not of the memory but of the feelings and the emotions that were
connected to it. It was trying to understand something about me.'
She shrugged. 'Maybe it found what it was looking for and maybe it
didn't but after the memory there was a wall of noise.' she paused
and looked up at Sear then down to the floor again. 'Come to think
of it, there was the same noise just before the memory began to
play. I think they were voices; millions – billions or more of them
but I couldn't understand what they were saying. It grew louder and
louder until...' she sighed, 'it sounds stupid and I don't know if
I trust myself but... at the end there, I guess it was just before
the drone collapsed, the hand in my head and the voices... it
suddenly fell away, like whatever it was doing had been interrupted
by something and then when it said that it found me; it said it in
a single voice and it sounded exactly like my mother. No... it
didn't sound like my mother, it
was
my mother.'

No one spoke
for a moment. One of the machines thrummed gently behind her.
Another ticked and blinked a blue circle of light at her. The
Doctor finally broke the silence, 'It could be possible that it was
simply a hallucination'.

'I'm aware of
that,' said Seline. 'I know correlation doesn't mean causation but
the machine self-destructed the moment after my mother spoke.'

'It could be
anything. A form of wireless communication gone wrong. A hardware
malfunction of some kind,' said the Doctor.

'I'm not
speculating. That machine was talking to me in the voice of my
mother.'

'In a voice
that only you could hear,' said the Doctor.

'I know what I
heard.'

'Are you
certain it wasn't simply another memory? They seem to come to the
surface when you're particularly stressed,' said Sear.

'No. It felt
different. Of that I'm sure.'

'And what of
these other voices? Were they human? Ordonian? Could you understand
anything at all?'

'No, not
really. It was just a huge mess and it didn't last long. If there
were humans or Yurrick or Ordonians then I have no idea what they
were saying. My translator didn't register anything.'

'It's a pity
Tialus didn't let me install monitors inside your head. We would be
able to tell exactly what happened,' said the Doctor.

'Right,' said
Seline, unsure if he was joking, not really caring either way. She
wanted to sit up but the machine was still running its light over
her. 'What were you guys doing anyway? I couldn't really follow
anything.'

'I was almost
swatted by the door after it blasted its way through,' said Sear.
'After I recovered, I opened fire. I stopped firing when I saw you
stand up with your hand raised to it-' he stopped suddenly and
looked at Seline, there was something questioning in the look.

'What?' she
said. 'I don't think I really had a choice in the matter.'

'You didn't
have a choice? How about staying behind cover?'

'I dunno, I
wasn't really thinking.' She closed her eyes. She could still feel
Sear staring at her. 'That thing was in my head. It felt like it
was after me, personally, for some reason.'

Sear looked at
the Doctor. 'She has a point. It was heading directly towards her.
It had no interest in anything else as soon as it boarded the ship.
After it came through the dock, it headed straight towards us then
straight towards Seline.'

The Doctor
nodded.

'So it wasn't
just me then?' said Seline.

'Maybe
not.'

The Doctor
looked up from the screen again. 'I want to have the rest of the
crew in here and checked over before we start assigning special
snowflake status to anyone. Hypothesise all you like but I would
suggest you keep any full blown theories to a minimum.'

'That may have
to wait until the ship is in a serviceable state and any direct
threats have been neutralised. No doubt we will have to return
home. I'll speak to Tialus and suggest we message ahead for a
repair ship to meet us. Stopping on Sceril may be another
option.'

'Do you believe
me?' said Seline, directing her eyes at Sear.

'I don't think
you're lying,' he said. He looked away. 'Maybe we'll learn more
after we've had a look at the drone.'

It took less
than an hour with the maintenance drones and crew members working,
before the worst of the damage had been repaired. In the hours that
followed, the cruiser traversed the empty space between the systems
on its way back to the Tryil Gate. The Doctor had spent the
majority of the time running check-ups on the rest of the crew,
comparing their accounts of what had happened both inside and
outside of their own heads to the testimony of Seline. None could
attest to 'speaking' or communicating with the drone but all
observed its apparent fascination with Seline.

Seline had
waited in the med-bay under the Doctor's orders to ensure there
were no delayed effects from her interaction with the drone. When
the Doctor had finally released her from the lab she made her way
to the mess hall to find something to stop the growling in her
stomach.

'So what am I
looking at here exactly?' asked Tialus after Seline had left.

The Doctor
opened a holo-display. He brought up the scans from the brains of
the two Yurrick that had been killed aboard the scout ship. He then
brought up an adjacent image of Seline's brain, taken from the
biometrics in her suit.

'Even
accounting for the physiological differences in brain structure,'
began the Doctor, 'there is a similar pattern between what happened
to the two scouts and Seline.' He narrated the videos as they
played. 'The brain signals die off at first, then slowly return,
then burst into life, enveloping the entire brain, engaging every
single part of it.'

The Doctor
indicated towards the scans of Seline's brain. 'But this is where
Seline's mind differs from the scouts. Instead of following them
off the cliff, her brain pulls itself back. And at this stage,
looking at the scans, her brain function appears completely normal.
It does spark into life again at the end but then returns to normal
about the time the drone becomes inert. Somehow, she was able to
stop the drone from doing to her what it did to the scouts. She
fought it somehow.'

Tialus crossed
her arms. 'Seline's account may be more reliable than we'd first
thought. Do you have any idea as to what the reason might have
been? Or why it chose Seline in the first place?'

'I see no
reason why Seline would've drawn so much of its attention. As far
as I can see, her body and brain activity are relatively normal by
any healthy human standard so... well perhaps that's the
reason.'

'What? That
she's human?' said Tialus.

'Maybe.'

'Then why
didn't it go for Belameir as well?'

The Doctor
shrugged. 'Why would anyone go for Belameir?'

Tialus looked
directly at the Doctor. 'Both Seline and Therin mentioned the drone
hanging about the cockpit window like it was watching Seline so it
may just happen to be that it saw her first and so locked onto
her.' She paused and looked back at the scans. 'As for why it
self-destructed half way through whatever it was that it was doing,
I can't see any reason for it. All the EMP grenades and bullets we
threw at it, they didn't seem to have any effect. If it managed to
kill the scouts without trouble but couldn't manage it with
Seline...'

Sear was seated
on the edge of the hospital bed that Seline had been resting on. He
uncrossed his arms. 'The drone was more than willing to destroy the
scout's ship but not ours. Whatever its reasons may be, I believe
that it didn't want us dead outright – at least not Seline
anyway.'

'That seems to
be the only thing we can be certain about,' said Tialus.

'And what do we
make of the fact that Seline heard the voice of her mother?' said
Sear.

'You saw the
brain scans, that drone was inside her head activating almost every
corner of her brain. It's no wonder she described hearing those
millions of voices, including that of her mother's.'

'Seline thinks
there is some kind of relationship between that thing shutting down
and her mother.'

'Of course she
does,' said the Doctor, 'but there could be any number of much more
plausible reasons for that thing dropping dead.'

'The first
thing we're going to do when we get back to Saranture is have that
drone, that sentinel for Icarus, examined,' said Tialus. 'We need
to find out as much as we can about that thing and until then, I
don't want anyone touching it. We're running a big enough risk as
it is carrying it on board with us. It's given no signs of any
activity but damned if I'm going to trust it.'

'I wonder how
many of these 'sentinels' there are out there. There was enough to
cover the surface of the star completely, and that was a main
sequence star. There must be hundreds of billions of these
things.'

Tialus was
watching the live feed of the sentinel, sitting in the corner of
the armoury, inert and lifeless, but no less threatening. The
blackened lens where its iris had been was more worrying to Tialus
than when it was alive. There was something far too familiar to it
now. 'These things are moving through the Atlas Gates,' she said,
'and they're destroying entire star systems within weeks. We've
poked our noses out twice now so it's only a matter of time before
they turn their full attention to us. We need to get back home and
we need to start looking for some solutions.' She turned to the
Doctor. 'I'm going to run over the scans again. I want you to keep
me updated if you find anything.'

The Doctor
nodded and Tialus walked from the room. Sear watched the screen
with the image of Seline's brain scan while the Doctor continued
combing through the data that had been recorded from her
hard-suit.

'Zackry
Klondike?'

'Yeah. Whaddya
want?'

'I'm looking
for a girl.'

'Well you're in
the right place.' Zackry laughed and turned back to his game.

'I'm looking
for Seline,' said the Warlord.

'Yeah? Good for
you.' He shooed at him with a limp hand.

'Where is
she?'

'How the fuck
should I know? I fired that dyke weeks ago.'

The Warlord
took a step closer. The thumping beat of the music vibrated,
convulsed in the surrounding air. The players at the table were
constantly pushing glasses and bottles back onto the table to keep
them from falling off. He could see beads of sweat on the back of
Zackry's neck, shaking and fidgeting across his skin.

Zackry turned
to face the Warlord, looking him up and down as if guessing his
weight. 'Keep staring at a man like that and you're asking for
trouble.'

'Tell me where
the girl is.'

'What do you
want with her?' he asked.

'I need to
speak with her.'

He laughed.
'Someone who looks like you never just wants to 'speak' with
someone.'

'Where is
she?'

Zackry sat up
straight in his chair. 'What are you? A bounty hunter?'

'No.'

'Do you want to
be one?'

The cold,
glassy stare of the mask was the only response.

Zackry
shrugged. 'Well, shit. If you freaks wanna go around chasing that
bitch then that's fine by me.' He thought for a moment. His eyes
brightened. He raised a thin, worming finger towards The Warlord
and said, 'I'll tell you on one condition.'

The Warlord
stared blankly at him.

'
If
you
find her, bring her to me – alive – and I'll give you the bounty
NeoCorp are promising,
and
access to any of the girls here
for free.' He stared at the Warlord, waiting for a response. 'Do
you understand?'

The Warlord
wanted him to shut up, wanted to break that foolish grin in half.
'Fine,' he said.

'I'm not saying
you can't have a little fun with her,' said Zackry. 'Knock her
around a bit, take it to her friends, fuck her if you want but
return her to me in a serviceable state. That's all I ask. Do we
have a deal, Mr... what's your name?'

'It doesn't
matter. We have a deal.'

'Alright Mr. It
Doesn't Matter.' The Warlord almost cringed at the words. Zackry
pulled a polished metal case from his breast pocket. He placed it
on the table, opened it and took one of the cigarettes out. One of
the men sitting next to him immediately produced a lighter and held
it to the cigarette in Zackry's mouth. He breathed in and pushed
out a thick, congested cloud. 'She's with a Yurrick special ops
team,' he said. 'Don't ask me how the hell she wound up with them,
probably just some servant girl or somethin'. They took her out
past the Tryil Gate. Looking for some scout ship or somethin'.'

'And have they
located the scout ship?'

Zackry
shrugged. He took another drag from the cigarette. 'Ya know, word
is it was actually attacked by the Ordonians but that-'

'That's
doubtful.'

'… Yes. I was
about to say that.' Zackry eyed the Warlord, not bothering to hide
his disgust. 'The Ordonians don't have the fire-power,' he said.
'Either way, the ship went missing and all the Yurrick are saying
is that it may be related to the disappearing planets and stars
that were supposedly being reported. They haven't even said who
exactly went out to investigate it but I know for a fact that
Seline is with them.' Zackry took the cigarette from his lips and
blew another cloud of smoke at the Warlord.

The Warlord
asked. 'What do you know about the disappearing stars?'