Devana Files: Chapter 37
Fall from Grace
This is the Thirty-Seventh chapter. We are in the home stretch, with about forty chapters in all!
You may find earlier chapters here:
Space 2074: The lunar colony is the new Wild West. Sheriff Kate Devana goes off-colony to wrangle a fugitive con artist who bilked retirees for billions and is trying to escape to Mars on a deep space supply shuttle. But back home, robots are glitching, killing people, and she is the target of a corrupt Federal Agent looking to avenge the death of his former partner. Bodies are piling up faster than she can get home.
On the moon, Kate Devana is the law.
While this is the 3rd novel in the series, each is designed to be read independently.
For accessibility, there is a voiceover for each chapter.
Fall from Grace
APRIL 13, 2074
LUNAR SURFACE. LPS: UNKNOWN
Outside the door, spider drones chittered past. Jin closed it, looking back at the unconscious form of Tiahna tied up on the bed.
“How long until she wakes up?”
He didn’t know where to direct the question—to the android hovering over him, or the wall monitor? Until now, he hadn’t appreciated how much talking to an AI was like talking to a ghost. It could interface with him anywhere—through this android or a different one, through a spider drone, through the monitor on the wall, even through the keypad on the door lock. Most of the time, they were limited to a few interfaces, like a tablet or the hub in their office. But that was by design. There was no real reason for it, other than maybe to protect his sanity.
“Ten-fifteen minutes. I told you no big hero stuff,” the android answered. “So whatever you are thinking, don’t.”
He didn’t have ten minutes.
“Just small hero stuff. She has information in that wet brain of hers, and we need it.”
“I am already searching the temple files for Axio. There are seven candidates with default avatars. Six are inactive. The seventh, number 140460, is marked Training. If that’s Axio, it does not say where they plan to hold him. I will keep looking.”
“She’ll know where he is.”
He searched her scrubs and came up with an unlabeled vial of clear liquid and a syringe. The vial was full. He figured there had to be a way to counteract the sedative, and that’s what was in the vial. They had used some kind of antidote or anti-sedative or whatever the pharmabots called it to yank him back from the brink of death after he was accidentally darted twice. He figured she’d be carrying it because they were being extra cautious. They didn’t want to kill him. Not yet, anyway.
He poked the needle into the vial and suctioned. The liquid looked and ran like water. If it were, injecting her with it would do nothing. He had no idea what the dosage was, so he filled the syringe all the way. He didn’t know what the consequences were of overdosing on an anti-sedative, either. But it wasn’t a very big syringe, so she’d probably be fine. There was also the possibility that the vial contained sedative meant for him. That would mean giving it to her might kill her. He swore under his breath. Weren’t they supposed to label vials or something?
He pulled the needle out, flicked the syringe, and pushed a little of the liquid out to remove any air bubbles.
“Live by the needle, die by the needle,” he muttered, thrusting the needle into her neck and thumbing the plunger.
He decided to only give her half a syringeful. He didn’t know why. Hedging his bets, he supposed. He removed the needle from her neck, capped it, and pocketed it along with the vial.
The black tablet on her chest slowly rose and fell with her shallow breathing.
He grabbed the artifact from the android’s grasp. This was a really stupid plan. “You said you think you can possess one of the humans wearing an artifact?”
“I said it’s like no controller interface in my database. I’d let you know when I figured it out.”
He draped the artifact around Tiahna’s neck. This was a crazy, stupid plan. But he was desperate. “Here’s our test subject, so start figuring it out.”
Tiahna’s eyes moved. She woke, eyes darting around. Before she could scream, his hand was clamped on her mouth. She struggled, trying to free herself from the bed straps, but halted when her eyes settled on the black cube around her neck.
“Tell me what I want, and I will let you ascend.”
She nodded, red-faced and eyes bulging. He cautiously removed his hand.
He held up her tablet. He messaged the spider drone through his neuroface.
Jin: Can you get a picture of Axio on this tablet?
The spider drone chirped in his neuroface.
Jin-avatar: This plan isn’t going to work. The interface on the artifact has no tooltips. I don’t understand any of these function calls.
Jin: Shut up and get me a picture of Axio.
Jin-avatar: There is no picture of Axio in here, I told you.
Jin: You’re an AI. Do some AI shit. Draw it from memory if you have to.
The tablet blinked on, showing a selfie of Tiahna on the beach on the lockscreen. Despite the loud crack on the floor, it appeared that it still worked. He pressed her thumb to it. It unlocked, and a spinny wheel appeared. After a moment, an image of Axio appeared. He turned it to show her.
“Have you seen him?”
“That’s Jayla’s candidate. We never—”
“Do you know where they’re holding him?”
“I do but—”
“Cooperate, and I will let you ascend. Don’t cooperate, I will use this thing to erase your brain.” He pointed to the cube around her neck.
“You can’t—”
“If it can download data, it can upload data. I will turn you into a babbling carrot.”
Jin-avatar: I have no idea whether I can do that or not.
Jin: Try something simple. Send her a picture through the artifact.
Jin-avatar: If I try sending her an image, I might electrocute her. Or boil her brain. Or it might translate it to some kind of weird alien porn.
Jin: Two of those things I can live with. Just do it.
He stepped back. He didn’t know what was going to happen. But the artifact was glowing blue, and he didn’t want to get zapped.
Tiahna suddenly gasped. Her mouth opened like a largemouth bass and her eyes blinked rapidly.
Jin-avatar: I just tried sending a picture of Axio through the artifact.
Jin: Did it work?
Jin-avatar: How should I know? Maybe I just deleted her childhood memories. Or maybe I just gave her an orgasm. I suggest asking her.
If he asked her, ‘Did you just see Axio or weird alien porn in your brain?’ She’d guess they were just bluffing and didn’t really know how to use the artifact.
He glared at her and repeated his question. “Have you seen him?”
She looked at him, at the android, at the spider drone on his shoulder, and then back at him. After a moment, she composed herself and nodded. “I don’t know the exact room. But I can take you there.”
“Just tell me where he is.”
“I will take you to the boy. But then you will take me back to the colony.”
Jin-avatar: We can’t take her. I told you we don’t have enough seats.
Jin: You said it was a three-seater. Find me a way to hide from the guards.
Jin-avatar: I already have a plan for that.
“We don’t have the space,” he said.
“If you go by the registry, you probably think Escape Velocity is the fastest ship in the bay. You’ll want to take Outer Rim instead.”
“What’s wrong with Escape Velocity?”
“You’ll see.”
Jin: Look up Outer Rim.
Jin-avatar: On it.
“FBI Special Agent Barret Anders…you said he smuggled something to the colony. What was it?”
“He pledged thirty million dollars to the temple. I ascended his Ra.”
“That’s not what I asked you.”
“I asked myself, where does an FBI Agent get thirty million dollars?”
“It’s the bounty on my boss’s head. And five minutes ago, you were ok with his genocidal plan.”
“Oh, you won’t stop him. Of that I am sure.” She looked away. “They are not going to let me ascend, are they? Not now that you’ve corrupted me.”
His ex-girlfriend June would always complain after her makeup parties that she didn’t sell enough.
“I hate to be the one to break it to you, but they were never going to let you ascend. Not unless you came up with the kind of simoleons Anders did. Cults, churches, multi-level marketing scams, they’re all the same. You buy your way to grace.”
“But…they are real. I’ve seen what they are digging up down there.”
“Once they start asking you for money, that’s usually about the time it stops being about the truth. Once they start putting up barriers to your salvation, and those barriers involve money, well, they’re just a consumer product like everything else.”
Jin: What’s below the basement?
Jin-avatar: There are floors and access stairs, but no cameras, so I can’t see anything. All the files are encrypted. Whatever it is, it’s as big as the temple itself.
“I don’t want to die here.” He felt her hand grasp his.
Dammit, somehow she’d wiggled free of one of the straps. He didn’t have time to fix it. All the others looked secure.
“Tell me what Anders is planning, maybe I can help you.”
“Take me with you, then I’ll tell you.”
Jin-avatar: We don’t have time for this. This is a trap. The worst kind, too. A boring one. She’s stalling and will try to talk you to death. We need to go.
Jin: Did you find the Outer Rim?
Jin-avatar: Yes. But Escape Velocity is a faster ship.
Jin: Can you fuel Outer Rim and put it on standby?
Jin-avatar: I already did.
He pulled his hand away. “Tell me where Axio is. I will come back for you.”
“You won’t. You’ll leave me here to die. Probably by dehydration, because no one will look in this room. I will become a withered—”
“Have a nice life.” His avatar was right; she was stalling and wasting his time. He started for the door.
Jin-avatar: I’ve hacked the ID process. You are invisible to the system. Your face will register as one of Anders’s processes.
Jin: What about the rifle?
Jin-avatar: The rifle shows up as a rifle. He carries one, so it won’t flag anything. I checked it out in his name.
Jin: Can you find out what he’s doing and where he is? Maybe he’s with Axio.
Jin-avatar: He has eight processes going, all with unique encryption and access levels. I’d have to hack one of those, or maybe all of them. He’d be alerted to our presence.
Jin sighed. He opened the door and peeked outside. This was not going to be easy. Traipsing through the hall without cover or concealment was very risky. What he needed was a good armored mech suit. What he had was a blue tunic and sandals.
The immediate hallway was clear in both directions.
“Wait—” Tiahna called out when his foot was out the door. “Make a right and then another right at the intersection. Three passages down, make a left, and then a right, and follow the passage around the corner to the second passage on the left. That’s where we boot the new candidates like Axio.”
He wondered whether he would remember all that. “If you’re lying, you’ll wish I would erase your mind.”
Jin-avatar: Don’t worry, I recorded all that. You’re welcome. You should sedate her again before you leave.
Jin: We might need to come back and ask her more questions. Plus, I am not sure it will work now that I gave her the antidote. Can you conjure a second android?
Jin-avatar: If I possess a second android, the system will notice the bandwidth drain.
Jin: Then we split up. Have the android go down to the sub-basement and investigate. I want to know what they are digging up. Have it meet me back at the spaceport.
“I am not lying. You’ll see,” she said as he stepped into the hall.
The android followed him out, shuffling left. He went right, rifle at high ready.
He flattened himself against the left side of the passageway at the junction, while watching the hall to the right. There was a cool breeze coming from a vent above him. The air smelled clean, like the ozone they pump into the casino. Somewhere, he heard the far-off clicks of spider drones on stone tile.
He checked the corner behind him before he stepped into the hall and then scurried right. His sandals flip-flopped on the tile, making more noise than he wanted. There were a lot of doors in these halls, with plaques numbering them like a hospital.
He jigged left, through a short passage, then turned right again, always careful, checking his corners and watching for traffic.
Around the corner and halfway down the hall, he passed a door labeled SECURITY ONLY, and then halted and backed up. It was identical to the security room door he’d seen before (was that a dream, or was it real?). He couldn’t remember the numbers on the doors from his dream, if that’s what it was. There was no sign he’d picked the lock. Had he been here? It was hard to say. Like a corn maze, all the halls looked the same, but all the halls looked different, too.
Before he could message his avatar, the security panel blinked green. Maybe a side effect of the system associating him with Anders: it unlocked doors.
The lights came on when he pushed through the door. This room was similar to the one he’d seen before, with one exception. It had two levels of metal cabinets around the walls, all large enough to hold EVA suits or other large machines, and all padlocked like before. On each side, it had a rolling triangular staircase to reach the second level. There was a gun safe on the far wall. Intact. Not the one he’d smashed (or they fixed it). Like the one he’d broken into, this one held enough rifles to arm a platoon.
The key difference between this room and the one he’d been in before: the standing army of androids in the middle of the floor. Twelve abreast and at least that many deep. As robots went, androids were the least efficient of all the war machines. Their two-legged humanoid form made them easy to destabilize. Most animals walked on four legs for a reason. Three points of contact provided stability; the fourth was redundancy. These models carried rifles and tranq guns like humans and had to equip body armor like humans. Tanks with miniguns were more efficient killing machines, or armored spider drones with twin 360-degree gun turrets. While an army of androids was very good at killing people, they were more designed for intimidation and submission. Or, they could put down their body armor and rifles and try to blend in for surveillance, as if a two-meter stack of silicone rubber and metal could ever really fit in.
There were one hundred and fifty androids. That was a lot of intimidation. If they had more rooms like this, and he guessed they did, they had enough androids to police a small city.
Fortunately, these looked like they were powered down. He closed the door, trying to act casually, and audibly exhaled when the lock clicked.
He continued down the hall, coming to a short passage on his left. He flattened himself against the wall and glanced around the corner.
Stationed ten meters down the hall, just beyond a T-junction to another passage, two androids, both holding rifles. Shit.
Jin: I have two androids here. Armed. They are guarding a door. I think it’s Axio’s door.
Jin-avatar: They should recognize you as Anders.
Jin: I don’t like the word should. What does that mean?
Jin-avatar: Nothing is ever one hundred percent. None of Anders’s processes are on this floor right now, except for you. There is a ninety-seven percent probability they will recognize you as Anders. Just walk in.
Logically, he knew he was essentially invisible to the system. He could just walk up and walk by. And those were great odds. His limbic system, however, was overreacting to the three percent chance he’d get riddled with holes the size of basketballs from those 50 caliber coilgun rifles. His adrenal glands were dumping, his heart racing, and he was sweating.
Jin: Can we do better?
Jin-avatar: You could try shooting the guards, but then they’d detect you weren’t Anders. Anyway, the humans will still see you normally and recognize that you’re not Anders. So stay away from them.
He wasn’t invisible to the humans. Fuck.
He took a deep breath. Shoulders square, head high, and rifle at low ready, he sauntered towards the robot guards. They didn’t look at him or react at all until he was near the door. Then they parted to let him through. Stepping between them didn’t relieve his anxiety. Now he was trapped. Goosebumps shot down his neck and spine.
The room was a larger version of the one he’d awoke in. Lavender walls, sparse furniture with rounded edges, a table, and a bench-style chair. Axio was in bed, sedated and restrained. He had an oxygen mask and an IV. The artifact dangled around his neck. His breathing was slow and shallow. His hand felt cold.
Jin unbuckled the restraints and then removed the oxygen mask, pulling it over Axio’s limp head. The artifact wasn’t glowing blue. He removed it and pocketed it. Next, he gently removed the IV. Blood dribbled, but stopped quickly. He pulled out the vial of anti-sedative and the half-full syringe, hoping that Tiahna didn’t have any diseases. He injected Axio. It was unsanitary as hell. What choice did he have? There was nothing in the room to use to clean the needle, nor any new syringes, and he damn well wasn’t going to alert a nurse.
He didn’t wait for Axio to wake up. He bent forward, tossed Axio over his left shoulder, and pivoted for the door.
Outside, the robot guards looked at him, but again didn’t react. He walked straight on without offering any explanation. He figured Anders wouldn’t give one, so he shouldn’t either. The guards didn’t follow. He pulled his rifle stock into a low-ready position. He'd have to aim one-handed.
Jin: I have Axio. Headed for the spaceport.
He made a left, deciding not to go back the way he came, and then a quick right. In his peripheral vision, he saw the blur of blue scrubs. He immediately ducked into a passage on the right. At the end of that passage, he turned right again, speeding towards a stairwell door marked EXIT.
Jin: I think I’ve been spotted.
Axio started to mumble. He was waking up. Then he heard the clicks of spider drones behind him and robot footfalls.
He started jogging for the stairwell.
Jin-avatar: You have. Run.
You try running with a sixty-kilogram sack on one shoulder and a coilgun in the other. He didn’t respond. The sarcasm would be lost on an AI.
Halfway through the stairwell door, he heard a crack and felt the hot sting of metal spall on his forearms. He slammed the door shut. The thin walls didn’t protect him from the bullets. He scrambled up the stairs three at a time, dancing around the sparks and pops of slugs ricocheting off the steps.
Jin: Shooting at me!
And missing. Androids never miss.
Jin-avatar: I put a virus in their ballistic algorithm, but they are already trying to scrub it out.
They’d send humans soon, too. Humans who were immune to computer viruses.
He swiveled at the top of the landing in time to see two androids shoving through the door, single file. He didn’t even try to aim. His rifle cracked three times. The first slug hit the front android in the head. It piled up limply in the doorway. The second android stumbled over the heap and fell into his second shot. It hit the droid in its chest battery pack, sending showers of flames into the stairwell. It collapsed forward on top of the first android. The third slug missed, ricocheting off the stone floor beyond the threshold.
Above him, he could hear clicking and chittering. Spider drones. He was surrounded and totally fucked. But to stand still or go down meant death, so he climbed as fast as he could. At the next level, he emptied a few rounds into the stairwell door, not waiting to see what might come through. He heard something heavy collapse behind the door. He didn’t know whether it was android or human, but he didn’t care. He kept scrambling up the stairs two and sometimes three at a time, chest heaving, lungs burning, thighs aching. Lunar gravity may have been one-sixth Earth gravity, but he still felt the force of running while being shot at.
Two more flights up, something hammered Jin’s kidneys. He thought he’d been shot. Then he realized Axio was kicking him.
“Hey! Put me down!”
“If I put you down your Mom will be pissed at me. We’ll both wish those androids had killed us.”
“I can run just as fast as you.”
“You were sedated—”
Jin froze. The stairwell door creaked open one floor up. The clicking and chittering became white noise, like a mob of crabs over rocks or a massive waterfall.
And then he saw the swarm. There had to be hundreds, maybe thousands, of spider drones pouring over the stairs like a horde of scorpions.
They couldn’t bite or sting. But they could worm over him and try to immobilize him, or climb into his mouth and try to suffocate him.
He couldn’t go back down. But if he went up, he needed to go through them.
Axio took advantage of Jin’s hesitation and wiggled himself free. He landed on his feet and then ran through the swarm, crunching them underfoot. Their crushed metal carapaces disappeared under the swarm.
Amazingly, they didn’t attack him. Instead, the swarm parted, like a river around a rock. It passed them both harmlessly. What the hell?
Jin: Is that your swarm we just stepped through?
Jin-avatar: Good news. There are three androids at the spaceport entrance.
One flight below, the swarm climbed all over itself, becoming a giant undulating ocean of scorpion drones, forming a barrier. It was absolutely terrifying. He was glad he didn’t have to fight that.
Jin: You didn’t answer my question. And how is that good news?
Jin-avatar: Because there aren’t a hundred and thirty of them, and astonishingly, they haven’t deactivated my ballistic virus yet. I am just that good.
Axio was going to run headlong into the androids guarding the spaceport.
“Axio! Get behind me!” He shouted up the stairs, but Axio was already one flight up, racing through the stairwell door and…
He heard the crack of rifles. There were six shots in quick succession, and then thuds. He clambered the final flight, panting, and then pushed through the door. He halted, looking left and right. Sweat stung his eyes. It was a careless entrance. He forgot to check and ready his rifle, but he didn’t care. He’d rather die in a hail of bullets than explain to Rae that he’d rescued Axio only to have him die at the spaceport because he lost control and stupidly froze at the wrong time.
Despite his carelessness, the hallway was clear. To his right, it was empty and ended in another stairwell. To his left, there were three androids piled up on the floor. One was spouting flames from its chest.
Axio stood over the androids, grinning, holding one of their coilgun rifles. He knew there was no way Axio had downed them by himself, but he’d have to get the full story later.
Jin jogged towards the metal carnage, unsure how he felt about seeing a baby-faced thirteen-year-old with peach fuzz, a rifle at low ready, holding it the way Devana taught him, and standing over scorched androids. It reminded him of the young boys that militant groups recruited. He’d had to shoot them on deployment. He had no choice: it was kill or be killed. Thirteen years old was old enough to aim a rifle true, but too young to understand the consequences of taking life. For now, at least, it was only machines. Axio wouldn’t have nightmares about those.
Behind him, the stairwell door slammed open. Axio raised his rifle. It cracked twice. Jin ducked. The bullets whizzed over his head. He swiveled to see an android aflame and crumpling to the ground. Another android stepped through. Jin fired, missing. Axio’s rifle cracked again, and the android fell into a mangled heap of silicone rubber and metal.
Jin caught up to Axio in the doorway. “Good shooting.”
“Nah. Connect the red dot to your neural interface. Can’t miss.”
Shit. You could do that with these rifles? Why didn’t he think of that? He examined the rifle and the red dot on top. It wasn’t obvious how to connect to it. He decided he didn’t want to fool around and break it in the middle of a fight.
The spaceport hangar had five ships. The first one was Escape Velocity. It took him only half a second to see that they were absolutely not taking it.
Jin: We are taking Outer Rim.
Jin-avatar: What’s wrong with Escape Velocity?
What wasn’t wrong with it? He was in a blue tunic. Axio was in scrubs. They had no pressure suits, and there was no way they could fly it.
Escape Velocity looked like a stubby cigar-shaped tube resting horizontally, supported at both ends by thin A-frame ladders. They’d have to climb one of the ladders and walk across the narrow walkway at the top of the tube, which looked precarious as hell. In the middle, there was an extra-long banana seat with a few saddlebags in the back. A banana seat on top of a booster rocket. That’s all it was. It was more dangerous than a circus contraption. He didn’t even see any seat belts. The idea of them riding it three thousand kilometers was ridiculous.
Jin: It’s a fucking space motorcycle. I hope there are pressure suits aboard Outer Rim.
Jin sprinted through the hangar. Axio followed. Outer Rim was a small ship, not much bigger than a box truck, with three elongated chemical engines, one on top and two on the side. The rear door swung up, like the liftgate on a suburban SUV, opening to a short ramp.
Shit. He skidded to a halt, shouting, “NO!”
“I told you, you are taking me with you.”
Tiahna stood in the cargo area, the right half of her hair singed, in sooty blue scrubs, and holding a rifle pointed at her feet.
Jin was speechless. His jaw might have been on the floor. Axio skidded to a halt beside him, his rifle aimed at her.
“If it weren’t for me,” she said, “those three at the door would have unalived your precious cargo.” She chin-nodded towards Axio.
Jin put his hand on Axio’s rifle and pushed it down.
The decision was made for him as a bullet whizzed by his ear and metal sparked to his right. He didn’t have time for an argument. They all scurried aboard. Jin shouted for Axio to drive. He yanked the rifle from Tiahna’s grasp. He cleared it, chucking it aside but pocketing the ammo. He would take her, but he wouldn’t risk being shot in the back of the head. She pouted and huffed, but ultimately didn’t try to retrieve her gun, instead pivoting to pull a pressure suit off the wall.
A column of androids filed through the hangar entrance, marching towards them. He stood at the liftgate, rifle barking at the onslaught. He hit as many as he missed, slowing them but not stopping them. Sparks cascaded from the metal all around him. It felt like an endless mob of silicone rubber zombies pouring through the door. A swarm of spider drones crawled through the door and attacked the androids at the rear.
The engines whined, powering up. Was his avatar’s android coming, as promised?
Jin: We are leaving. With or without you.
Jin-avatar: Ten seconds.
The spaceport klaxon sounded. The red warning light on the ceiling flashed. The android at the front of the column swiveled and started mowing down the others. Flames shot in the air as battery pack after battery pack exploded. An oily column of smoke drifted towards the ceiling. The door closed, and the androids stopped filing through. He heard the solenoids clunk, sealing them in, and then the whirring of fans and the hiss of air evacuating the hangar. The forward android that had been mowing down the others dropped its rifle, turned, and ran towards him.
Jin-avatar: Don’t shoot. That’s mine.
It ducked as it scampered aboard. A black button on the wall closed the liftgate. It groaned shut.
He used the nylon ceiling loops to pull himself through the cabin and into the copilot’s chair. The rifle rested on his knees. He didn’t bother with the restraints. Tiahna had already slid into a pressure suit and was clicking her helmet sealed. Axio wasn’t wearing a pressure suit. He only had an emergency oxygen mask on. Outside the cockpit window, the hangar door was halfway up, opening to the obsidian darkness of the lunar surface. The flashing red siren reflected off the thick glass.
All the gauges were green. Fuel good. Hydraulics good. Volts nominal. Interior pressure stable, at one atmosphere. He wondered whether they’d been hit. If they were, it didn’t show on the control panel.
“Buckle up,” Axio said. “I don’t do countdowns.”
Axio was Rae’s kid. But he heard a lot of Devana’s influence in those words.
He strapped in, donning his emergency oxygen mask. He’d get in the pressure suit later. When the hangar door was three-fourths open, Axio started the ignition sequence.
He heard a loud bang behind him. A gauge blinked yellow, and then back to green. A spiderweb grew on the hangar door. They were still shooting. Hopefully, they were still missing, too.
Thrust drove him into the seat, startling him. The chemical engines were a dull roar outside the ship. The hangar's massive plate glass door rushed straight at them. They were going to crash into it.
They cleared it by centimeters. Outside the cockpit, the sky was aniline black and starless.
“Jesus,” he said. “You fly like your stepmother.”