Bianca D'Arc (13 page)

“Don’t you laugh at me. I can’t help my
size,” she teased.

He picked up a small handgun and held it up.
“Dangerous things come in small packages, sweetheart. Don’t worry.
I won’t underestimate you again, if I can help it.” He offered her
the cleaned and fully charged handgun. “This more your style?”

“For me?” She pretended coyness. It was good
to joke around with him before the potential battle. If it happened
now, they’d be as ready as they could be. Worrying about it
wouldn’t help the situation.

“All for you, milady,” he answered gallantly,
giving her a little bow of his head as he offered up the handgun on
the platter of his open palm.

“I’m flattered.” She took it, checked it
expertly and threw the safety on before tucking it into her pocket.
“I thank you for your gift, kind sir.”

“Use it well, if the time comes.”

All humor ended as their eyes met and
held.

“Chip…” she began. “My husband didn’t speak
often of his work.”

Chip’s eyes darkened at the abrupt change in
subject. She wasn’t sure he wanted to hear what she had to say, but
she needed to say it nonetheless. She’d been trying to tell him
something since he’d first told her about his cybernetics.
Something her husband had shared with her about his work. Something
theoretical that had made him hope those he worked on could evolve
to be one with their implants instead of merely using them as
tools. If anyone could do it, she thought Chip could.

Chip remained silent, so she found the
courage to go on.

“He never talked about specific patients, you
understand, but he did discuss a little of what he was doing in the
broadest of terms. I knew he was working with cybernetics. I didn’t
know the extent of his success, of course, but I knew when he made
breakthroughs, though I didn’t know what the breakthroughs were,
exactly.” She paused to think about how to express what she wanted
to tell him. “He always had this theory… this dream. He thought
that eventually one of his subjects would bridge the gap between
technology and the human body. He dreamed of achieving true oneness
between the implant and the person. As far as I know, he got close,
but he never really saw that happen.”

“I’m sorry for him.” Chip didn’t seem to know
what to say. “He was a good man.”

“What I’m trying to say is that my vision
leads me to believe that you’re going to be that person. You’re
going to be that success my husband was always looking for. You
have to join fully with your implant and let it join fully with
your brain in order to defeat the pirates.”

“I thought I
was
fully joined with it.
I’ve had it for years, sweetheart. If there was anything else to
learn from it, I think I would have by now.” He seemed puzzled.

“When the time comes, I think you’ll discover
there is more to your implant than you think. After all this time,
it needs to be part of you. Not a separate part, a fully integrated
part. You must accept it when it happens, and not fight it. Unless
you join with it and become all you were meant to be—all my husband
envisioned—we will not succeed.”

Chip sat back in his chair, dropping his
hands from the laser rifle he’d been cleaning. “I don’t like the
sound of this.”

“I’m seeing many possible futures. That’s why
I nearly blacked out. The human mind wasn’t meant to cope with so
much all at once. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does,
judging by past experience, it signals a tumultuous turning point.
We’re there. Right now. Like it or not, in several of the options I
saw, when you didn’t give in and allow the merger of mind and
machine, bad things happened. Really bad things.” She felt sick
remembering some of what she’d been able to sort out from the
vision that had nearly knocked her off her feet.

The lights in the bar dimmed briefly before
emergency power kicked in. They looked at each other, waiting for
what would come next. Sure enough, the station swayed as if someone
was messing with its rotation.

“I guess it was five hours.” Chip handed her
a spare power pack for the handgun and stood. “The bar has an
independent power supply that will last a few days at most. I’m
initiating full lockdown and sending out distress pings to
Winters.” He didn’t have to say he was doing it all via his
cybernetic implant. “Power to the rest of the station has been cut.
Anyplace that didn’t have a backup power supply is down. The
medical facilities and station police are still functioning, but
they have a shorter contingency power supply than I do. They have a
few hours at best. I’ll still have communication with the outside
as long as the bar’s power holds.”

“And if it goes on longer than that, there’s
Della’s place. She’s got dormant com systems with power backups
that can be activated in short bursts.”

“Nice.” His eyebrows rose but he didn’t
comment further. After a moment more of inaction, he stepped toward
her until he could take her into his arms for a quick hug, followed
by a searing kiss. It was fast, but that was all they really had
time for. The moment to act was at hand. He kept his arms around
her for a moment longer as he pulled slightly back to gaze into her
eyes. “The men are beginning to report in.” He tapped the tiny
earpiece he had been wearing since she walked in. “Can you handle
coms from the office while I delve a little deeper into station
systems to discover the extent of the problem?”

“Sure. What do you want me to tell the men?”
She pulled farther away, glad to have a job to do. It would help
her worry less if she was occupied.

“Get a location for each and any intel they
can report. Tell them to stay put if their location is secure. If
not, they should find a better place to wait until I know what
we’re up against. Expect action within the hour. The sooner we
strike to take back control from inside the station, the better off
we’ll be. The small fighter group is already launching. Keep track
of them if you can, too. I’ll be with you shortly.”

He patted her ass as he sent her off to the
com panel in the office. Lila went, not happy to leave him, but
knowing she had to in order to help their situation. If her vision
held true, the moment was at hand. He’d have to join fully with his
implant soon, or they were all doomed.

Lila had almost made it to the office door
when the station alert signal sounded through the halls. Every
compartment was required to have a speaker connected to the
station’s C&C in case of emergency. A special tone sounded over
that seldom used device, indicating an incoming message. Static
followed, then a gruff voice that Chip recognized all too well
after the weeks of surveillance. It was Bjornson.

“Attention!” Bjornson demanded. “The station
is now under our control. Remain in your compartments. Anyone who
resists will be killed.”

“Well that’s pretty straightforward,” Chip
commented sarcastically while he sent tendrils of his
computer-aided thoughts into the station computers. What he found
wasn’t good, but he put a brave face on for Lila’s benefit. He
didn’t want to scare her. Judging by the tremor in her hands she
tried to hide, she was worried enough already.

Bjornson droned on but Chip tuned him out.
His small team of vets had sprung into action. Reports of fighting
had broken out near several police stations throughout the rings of
the station. Chip sent his mind to each of the cameras near the
combat zones so he could see what was going on. So far the vets
were holding their own, but the small group of saboteurs they’d
already identified had been augmented from somewhere.

Dismissing that troubling thought for the
moment, Chip grabbed the rest of the weapons and jogged over to
Lila. “Slight change of plans. Lock us in.” He ushered her through
the hatch into the secure office with an arm around her waist. The
tangible heat and softness of her body through her clothing
grounded him to the bar while his mind was partially elsewhere,
taxing his implant.

“What do you want me to do?” Lila asked
quietly as he collapsed into a chair in front of the desk.

She went around the desk and brought up the
hidden com station. It was set in the center of the flat surface,
with several access ports so it could be worked from all sides of
the rectangular desk. Chip reached across, popping open a
compartment in the side of the desk while Lila tried to hide her
surprise, but failed utterly. She was cute when he managed to
surprise her. He hoped he’d live long enough to do it again.

She had locked down the office and switched
on surveillance while he was untangling wires. She would keep them
both as safe as possible in the confines of the bar. The office was
the next best thing to impregnable. The bar might be breached, but
it would take some serious skill to get into the office once it was
locked down.

“What are you doing?” There it was. The
curiosity she could no longer hide.

“Something you never saw. Top secret stuff.”
He found the end of the connection and plugged it directly into the
com console. The other end, he attached to a hidden port behind his
earlobe. It was tiny, but it would do the trick.

“Oh, wow. You can direct link? I didn’t think
they’d ever gotten beyond the prototype.”

“Honey, I
am
the prototype.” He spared
her a grin, glad she was taking this so well.

Only Winters and the medical team knew his
capabilities. They hadn’t been able to test this particular feature
much. Chip had gotten to a certain point several times in direct
link before his implant overloaded and they didn’t want to push him
farther. Too much juice could fry his brain permanently. He’d go as
far as he could, but to get into the core systems, he needed the
hard-wired direct link. The station wouldn’t let him in unless he
could convince it he belonged in its system.

“Keep track of Julian and the other flyers,
if you can. I was monitoring action around the police stations.” He
shunted the images he was viewing in his mind to the wall screen so
she could see them as well. “Hank and Freight Train have them well
organized. Most of the police near the core are free of their
stations. The pirates were trying to lock them in, but they only
trapped about thirty percent. The rest are working their way toward
C&C and fighting the pirates wherever they find them.”

The wall screen split into several separate
views of action throughout the station between Bjornson’s group and
heavily armed station police, augmented by a few familiar vets.

“At least one docked ship was full of
pirates,” Lila reported, her fingers flying over the panel,
gathering information. “Julian has a fight on his hands, but he’s
rallying the crews of a few other nearby ships to take over the
pirate vessel while their men are fighting elsewhere on the
station. Stupid of the pirates to leave their ship with only a
skeleton crew. Julian’s going to have it in another few
minutes.”

“Good. Can you monitor the fighting at Delta
Epsilon in Core Section Five? I’m going to try something.”

“Got it.” Lila brought up the images of that
area where a concentration of pirates was trying to hack their way
into a vital section of the core.

The saboteurs had knocked out core defenses
around C&C and while the small group led by Bjornson had
already taken over C&C, there were a few more vital, secondary
locations that would solidify the pirate’s hold on the station. The
station police and vets couldn’t cover them all. Section Five was
one of those that was relatively unprotected and under concentrated
attack.

Chip sent a command from his implant through
his direct link to the station’s computer network and into the
secure system surrounding Section Five. He transmitted a code that
was unique to the intel service. It was a backdoor that was to be
used only in the direst of circumstances. Chip had been given the
code only hours before his departure for
Madhatter Station
by General Winters himself.

Chip wasn’t one hundred percent sure it would
work, but if it did… well, the situation would be very different in
a very short time if he was able to get into Section Five without
having to break in physically, past the pirates who were intent on
blasting their way into the compartment that housed a very special
computer node.

“I’m in,” he reported to Lila, knowing she
was watching all the action he couldn’t monitor himself. Not, at
least, until this delicate operation was complete. “Lila? There’s
something…”

“What?” she prompted as his attention was
snagged by something unexpected.

“There’s someone else here.”

“Pull out, Chip. Pull out now!”

“No. It’s friendly. It’s helping.”

Deep inside the station’s computer, Chip was
facing something he’d never experienced before. There was another
sentient being inside the computer with him. He sensed its
presence, but who was it?
What
was it? He tried to
communicate with it.

“
I’m Chip,”
he said tentatively,
through his implant.

“
She calls you Charlemagne.”

Enigmatic, Chip thought. And how could this
other being know that?

“
Who are you?”

“
Madhatter.”

Either Chip was talking to the station itself
or someone with similar cybertech to his was playing a massive
trick on him. But to what end?

“
You are the station? I didn’t know
Madhatter Station
had Artificial Intelligence built into its
core.”

“
It does not. I am Madhatter. Not
artificial. I am me.”

Oh, boy. This was seriously strange.

“
You are sentient?”

“
Am I not speaking to you even as I repel
the pirates who would use me for their own gains?”