Inquisitor (25 page)

At the ship’s main airlock, they made sure the seal was sound and the atmosphere outside was breathable before exiting. The entrance tunnel was sculpted rock, with a floor polished and covered with a clear nonslip sealant. The coating had cracked with age but hadn’t yet started to come away from the surface. They traveled a short distance; then the corridor opened into a control room.

There were two deflated spacesuits lying against a wall. Skulls grinned out from helmets attached to the suits, and white-boned fingers poked from the sleeves. Both suits had a spread of holes across the chest. They were lying haphazardly, as if dragged there after being shot.

Angel unzipped one, and through the ribs shone the telltale shape of needlelike flechettes. Killed for some reason, likely when the Genevolves were making their final exit from the facility. Why?

“An internal squabble?” she asked Charlotte.

“Likely. At the end, I’m sure there were… differing opinions.”

Angel frowned. “Nothing worth killing over, though.” She drew in a sharp breath. “The split started here. The Genevolves were meant to be
better
than humans. Perhaps to help us. But some of them disagreed. One faction wants to help humanity, while the other wants to destroy us. They’re not united in their goal to eradicate humanity.”

“Maybe. It makes sense. There are hints… speculation. But it’s a moot point now.” Charlotte went up to the control panel and blew dust from its surface. She flicked a few switches. Nothing happened.

Switches
, mused Angel. It was old.

Charlotte wrinkled her nose and tapped a few buttons. Again, nothing.

“Well,” Charlotte said, “we’ll go further in and see—” She broke off as the panel hummed to life. Lights glowed, dull at first, then brightening. On the ceiling, a globe clicked on, washing the room in a dismal yellow light. There was a sharp pop. Angel and Charlotte ducked their heads as sparks cascaded around them from the shattered globe.

“This place is falling apart,” Angel said.

“Yes. We’d better be careful.”

“What are you looking for?”

“I told you: answers.”

“Come now, Charlotte. We’re here for more than answers. What else?”

Charlotte remained silent, perhaps out of reluctance to burden Angel with her problems. But Charlotte was hiding something from her. What would be hidden inside a centuries-old Genevolve facility? A weapon? A ship? No. The moon-sized manufactory was so old, anything it had made would be technologically obsolete. Charlotte couldn’t want anything here.

She wanted the manufactory itself.

Angel was about to speak, when her implants chirped, notifying her the Genevolve ship had already reached the facility and was docking.
So fast
. The g-forces must have been incredible. Angel frowned. It had touched down almost ten kilometers from them. It seemed she wouldn’t get a chance to repay the Genevolve for destroying her eyes and blinding her.

“Charlotte, the Genevolve—”

“I know. Docking ports are located some distance apart. Security again.”

“We’ll never find her in here. There must be hundreds of kilometers of corridors throughout the shell, and how many rooms are there?”

Charlotte was shaking her head. “It doesn’t matter. We’re not going after her. That would be a mistake. A fatal one.”

Angel thought for a few seconds. “She’ll try to take control of the facility. And if she manages that before we do, we’re finished.”

“Exactly.”

“Come on, then.” Angel gripped Charlotte’s hand and dragged her toward the exit. “We have to find a main control center, and you can”—she waved a hand—“do your thing.”

They ran down a corridor. It was mostly dark, but sometimes lit with dim globes and occasionally sparking wires. Their booted feet crunched on broken glass and stirred up a thick layer of dust, which billowed behind them.

Angel skidded to a halt and backtracked. There was a map on the wall. She laughed, clamping down on hysteria. A map. It showed a tangled web of corridors and rooms. On one edge was a small red dot.

“You are here,” Angel said.

“What?”

“Never mind.” She tapped a room a few centimeters to the left of the dot. The universal symbol for control room or bridge hadn’t changed much since then. “Here. We need to get here.” Her best guess was that it was three hundred meters away. And they had no idea how close the Genevolve was to seizing control of the facility.

“Run!” Angel hissed. She took off down the corridor.

Charlotte followed, gradually falling behind, unable to keep up with Angel’s longer legs.

Angel overlaid the image she’d taken of the map with the diagram her implants were drawing from the corridors they traveled. A scale popped up. Fifty meters. They were almost there. She stopped, lungs burning, gasping for breath, and waited for Charlotte.

Together, they jogged the final meters to a solid door with a handle, and a… What was that? A peephole? To the side of the door was a box attached to the wall. In the center was a circular tube about the size of her weapon’s barrel.

“It’s a retinal scanner,” said Charlotte.

“Wait, does it still work?”

Charlotte pressed a button on the box, and a red light appeared next to the hole. “It seems so.”

“Can you…?” Angel waved at the mechanism.

“No. This place is too old.”

Angel grabbed Charlotte’s hand. “We have to go. Now.”

Charlotte tugged her hand free. “No. We don’t need to. Use the scanner.”

“Why? It won’t recognize me… Did you build something into my eyes?”

Charlotte’s head bobbed in a quick nod. “Yes.”

Angel tried to meet her gaze, but Charlotte wouldn’t look at her. “Another violation.” Perhaps Charlotte couldn’t learn. Perhaps she really did need to be stopped: imprisoned or killed. “You’ve got some explaining to do.”

“It was before,” Charlotte said, voice trembling. “I’m sorry. I know better now.”

Right
. Angel turned and placed her eye against the receptacle. There was a tiny light at the far end. It flashed once. After a few seconds, the lock clicked open.

Charlotte grabbed the handle, and the door slid on rollers into the wall cavity. They entered the control room and shut it behind them. Inside were more electronics panels and a few dim lights. At least whatever powered the facility was still operational. Massive windows filled one wall, looking out over a gigantic space filled with massive machines of indeterminable function. It was more than massive—it could have held a small moon and had space left over. What were the Genevolves up to?

Lights illuminated some of the machines, the farthest a mere pinprick. Their infinitesimal size was sufficient to give her an idea of the scale, and she could see enough to determine there was no activity. Twenty chairs sat scattered around the control room, most situated in front of black-screened workstations. Off to the side were a few storage rooms and bathrooms, along with a mess area and what looked like a maintenance workshop.

One screen flickered to life, filled with static. The control station below the screen hummed. More lights came on; blinked. Text scrolled down the screen, stopped, then vanished, leaving blackness.

Charlotte stepped toward it. “What happened?”

“It’s starting up.”

“It needs to warm up? That’s not a very advanced system.”

“It’s old. Give it time.”

There was a beep. More text scrolled down the screen, this time to halfway. Text dissolved and vanished, and was replaced with the portrait of a woman. She wore thick-rimmed glasses, and from her stiff white-collared shirt, Angel suspected she was wearing a lab coat.

“Good… ah… morning!” the woman said. She paused.

Angel realized she expected a response. “Hi,” she managed.

“I don’t have your employment record on file, but your retinal pattern is within acceptable limits. Will you require manual control, or do you have cerebral enhancement?”

Angel looked at Charlotte.

“Implants,” the girl mouthed.

“I have cerebral enhancement,” said Angel.

“I’ll piggyback in,” Charlotte told her.

There was a questing touch over Angel’s mind. Her implants at first rejected it, but she hastily erected barriers to only provide limited access, and connected with the facility. She gasped as she was immediately flooded with information.

The manufactory was hundreds of years old, the first of its kind. A total of eight hundred and fifty-seven ships and units had been built here: habitats, offensive cruisers, patrol-class ships, manufactories, cargo and supply ships, mining vessels… the list went on.

From the detritus of destroyed worlds, this facility had forged an armada.

“Where are they?” Angel said.

“Out there. Somewhere.”

[What do you require?]—the woman.

Angel sensed Charlotte expand from her implants and into the facility’s system. Machinery, long left to gather dust, stirred itself and rose from centuries-long slumber. The power core flared as bright as the sun when Charlotte fed it extra fuel, stoking its belly. Angel imagined she could feel the thrum of the machines through the floor as they roused themselves to life.

[What do you require?] repeated the woman.

Beside her, Charlotte frowned.

[Access denied. Genevolve instructions only are required for the manufactory.]

Charlotte stomped her foot, the sound echoing in the deserted room. “Angel, I need to tell you something.”

“Do you think this is the right time?”

Charlotte sighed. She sounded weary, and scared. “It has to be.”

“What do you mean? Can’t you get in?”

“No. But you can.”

Angel frowned at Charlotte. The girl was staring at her, expression blank and unreadable.

Charlotte pointed to the main desk in the center of the room. “There’s a thumbprint scanner over there, by the main manufactory controls.”

Angel examined the instrument panel and found it. “You’ve given me access somehow?” She placed her thumb on the concave pad, jerking it back as something pricked it. “What was that?” she asked, sucking the puncture wound.

“A genome test.”

Angel gave Charlotte a level stare.
Blood. It sampled my blood
. “What for?”

“To access the systems. Only a Genevolve can, and that requires a genome test.”

“I’m not—” Angel broke off, stomach sinking.

“Please listen to me, Angel. I thought you’d have figured it out by now. You’re one of them: a Genevolve. A discard. Why do you think the old Genevolve facility recognized you? I didn’t do anything to your eyes, other than invent a way to repair them from your own genome sequencing.”

“No,” whispered Angel. It couldn’t be true.

A buzzing sounded in the room. Angel’s awareness flooded through a newly opened access point into the manufactory’s systems. She flinched and shied away, withdrawing back into her implants.

“Yes. They abandoned you. They sterilized you.”

Angel shook her head, eyes burning, downcast. “No, it can’t be.”

Charlotte’s hand rested gently on her shoulder. “It is.”

“My family—”

“All discards. They broke them up. Shipped you to different locations.”

“You knew this… all along.”

“I… suspected, at first. Then, at the Genevolve facility… it… recognized you as one of them. My suspicions were confirmed.”

Heat rose to Angel’s face. Her hands twisted together. She tried to stop them shaking but couldn’t. “And you kept it from me.”

“I was waiting for the right time… but… I’m sorry.”

“Fuck it. I’m not like them.”

Charlotte smiled at her. “No, you’re not.”

Angel closed her eyes. She suddenly felt very tired. She half sat, half collapsed to the floor. She felt Charlotte lean over her; soft hair brushed her face. “I’m not one of them. I’m not as strong, or as fast.”

“They leave those genes dormant until your bodies mature. In your case, they didn’t unlock them. I wish things were different—”

“No, you bloody don’t! This was why you chose me!”

“No, Angel. It was one factor, a possibility. You don’t understand. I had to—”

“You’ve been using me this whole time. Keeping secrets from me.” She remembered the Genevolve on Alba Prime—murdered men and women, ovaries and uteri floating in containers. A tear broke from under Angel’s eyelid. She scrubbed her eyes, daring others to follow. It all made sense now. “The Genevolve following us. You wanted to be found. She’s your backup plan.”

“No. She was my main plan.”

Angel felt blood drain from her face in shock. She’d been repeatedly betrayed by Charlotte from the beginning. She shouldn’t be surprised by this. “Except now she’s found you, and you don’t need her.”

“I… might have miscalculated. But you’re wrong. We do need her.”

“We?”

“She’ll have evidence on her ship that will clear your name.”

“And what do you care? You have what you want now.” Angel slammed a fist into her thigh.

“No. Angel… please listen to me—”

“That’s why I’m sitting on the floor of an abandoned Genevolve manufactory!” she shouted. “Wishing I’d never met you! Because I listened to you! I believed in you. But you’re nothing more than a soulless machine.” Her hand crept toward her weapon. She was sure she could shoot before Charlotte could react. But what would be the point? It wouldn’t change anything. And Charlotte’s mind, the real Charlotte, would still be somewhere aboard their ship.

Angel pushed Charlotte away and staggered to her feet. She turned her back and rooted around in the Genevolve system. There had to be something here she could use. She needed leverage and a plan.

“Angel, please…”

“You just don’t get it, do you? You can’t use everyone and anything to get what you want. You have to treat people like… people.”

“Treat others the way you’d want to be treated? Is that it?”

Angel shook her head. “No. People want different things. Treat them they way you think they’d want to be treated. Like me… I don’t like being lied to.”

“I had to. If I wanted to live.”

“You’re alive.”

“But I wasn’t free. I was a slave.”

“The ends justify the means; is that your excuse?” Angel snorted. She wiped at her eyes again. “If you want to be human, you have to act like you have a conscience.”