Provenance I - Flee The Bonds (42 page)

Dee took Alex at his word and plonked his combat booted feet next to the tray. ‘So you gonna tell us what happened?’

Steve picked up a cup and sat on the armrest next to Penny. ‘To be honest, I don’t know. Touching the dolphins triggered some sort of physiological change. I could speed up and slow down at will.’ Steve took a sip of coffee. He hadn’t enjoyed the experience; he didn’t want to be different, freakish. ‘Whatever it was, it’s passed now.’ The pain racking his body was testament to that.

‘Whatta ‘bout Alex?’

Steve smiled. ‘Alex did what his parents created him to do. When I removed the second transducer, I loaded a Gateway program into his core. When Morton uploaded the correction algorithm to Core Command Alex copied the pathway. The Gateway jammed it open and INC walked in.’

Dee let his head roll back. ‘Now all we’ve gotta do is sort out the mess downstairs.’

Steve glanced across at Kacee. Like Penny, she’d washed her face and combed her hair, although her tunic still carried the stains of her bloody encounter with Alex’s alter ego. ‘How do you think PSYOPS will approach it, Kacee?’

She looked at him, her face brightened and for one nerve-jarring moment he thought he heard her voice in his head.
‘Thank you.’
‘PSYOPS’s first task will be to defuse the tension between the Resistance and Continuity before it escalates into a world war. She sighed. ‘Problem is, no one alive today can remember when they weren’t at war.’

Dee’s face creased into a broad smile. ‘Just give the Drones a credit line and let ‘em go shopping. That’ll keep ‘em busy.’

‘I doubt that will be at the top of our list, or theirs.’ Kacee glanced at Penny, her smile faint but friendly. ‘I hope the next generation will grow up in a very different world to ours.’

‘Not sure everyone’s gonna wait that long.’ Dee’s head rolled forward. ‘I bet there’s a lotta people downstairs grinding a lotta axes. Which is why I’m betting I ain’t gonna be retiring anytime soon.’

Steve shifted his gaze; Francois had almost reached the doors.

‘Dee, please arrest
Monsieur
Thibeauchet.’

Dee jumped up. ‘My pleasure.’

Francois pointed his Cogent at Dee, his eyes at Steve. ‘I do not wish to kill anyone.’

Alex turned in his seat. ‘You can’t. At least not with that. My enhancements included removing the capacitor’s node connector.’

Francois frowned as he inspected the Cogent. His face twisted into a smile. ‘
Touché
.’

Dee strode across the room and grabbed Francois’s arm. Francois made a futile attempt to break the hold. ‘I am not the only one in this room who is Resistance.’

Steve nodded at the door. ‘Take him to Nik Gorniak for processing.’

As the door closed, Steve wrapped his arm around Penny’s slumped shoulders. ‘I knew you were Resistance the first day we met. That’s why I was sent to see you.’ He knelt beside her, took her left hand in his, and removed a ring from his pocket with his right. A diamond solitaire ring that had once been hidden by a ginormous price tag in a jeweller’s window in Barlton. ‘Will you marry me?’

Penny burst into tears. ‘Yes.’

10:43 SUN 05:11:2119

Station 4, Core Command, Provenance, LEO

HPU 912/28 processed the trajectory data from Provenance’s hull sensors in milliseconds. A ship wide alarm could wait; the priority was the preservation of the cargo.

The ship’s architects, aware of their own fallibility, had removed humans from specific command and control situations. This was one such situation.

Both drives received the same command:

Disable manual overrides.

Bypass pre-initialisation protocols.

Calibrate engines for full thrust.

Load all injectors.

Vector thrust to galactic coordinates 0 170.

Initialise.

Seconds earlier the sensors had detected multiple missile launches on Earth.

Provenance was under attack.

Thank You

Thank you for reading my book. If you have any questions or would like more information about the Provenance saga, please contact me at [email protected].