Point of Origin (War Eternal Book 4) (4 page)

Had she ever done the same?

She believed that she had. In fact, she could still feel the hurt of losing them. The Tetron killed her mother.

Except Tetron were machines, weren't they? Intelligent machines, they were able to think and reason for themselves, and yet they didn't feel. They had no emotions. They operated on probabilities and data models, not on gut and grit and feelings.

She was different that way. She was sure. She knew she had come from Origin. She knew Origin was gone. Only bits and pieces remained. Loss. Sadness. Those were feelings she didn't want, and she removed them from herself.

She was only sitting there for a minute when the human configuration of Watson returned. His face was red and angry, and he kicked at the burned corpse, yelling and screaming and crying while he pummeled it with his boots. The absurdity of it made Kathy smile. Tio had gotten the last laugh in the end, saving Asimov from certain destruction and locking the Tetron out of its control systems.

They would remain in hyperspace for days.

It took Watson almost an hour to begin to calm down. Even then, his large stomach heaved, and his face dripped sweat. He wiped a strand of coarse hair from his eyes.

"You won that one, Mr. Tio," he said. "The question is, where is she?"

Kathy knew that Watson knew she had been the one to set the Knife free. The rest of the crew was accounted for; either dead, imprisoned, or under his control. Her job right now was to make sure that he never found her.

It was an easy task at the moment because he had only recently subjugated the configuration that was Goliath and it would take time to synchronize. His need to regain control of the main system commands would also slow him down. Once he had accomplished those tasks it would be difficult to stay hidden. He would build machines to search for her. Maybe he would send the crew. They were probably already searching for her.

She was dangerous, and he knew it.

He wouldn't suspect she would be so close, hiding in a dark corner less than a dozen meters away. It was illogical to remain so near to the last known location.

Watson put his hand on the core, closing his eyes.
 

"While I'm on the subject, I should go and retrieve it, shouldn't I?" he asked, talking to himself out loud while also interfacing with the secondary child. "He wouldn't have destroyed it. That wouldn't make sense. It was leverage."

Kathy creased her forehead. She didn't know what he was talking about, and it was unexpected. He should have been trying to override the commands and get the ship out of hyperspace, not looking for something.
 

What was he talking about?

"So stupid of me to have waited this long. Well you know, I've been preoccupied with the data upload and the search." Was he talking to himself or his secondary? "Yes, yes, we'll break the Knife's encryption soon. I need the neural chip. No, not for that. I don't need that anymore. Something the parent left me. Something we have been working on for a long time." A twisted smile cracked his face. "Something fun."

Watson removed his hand. He looked down at Tio one more time before a tendril dropped from above, wrapping around the ankle of the corpse and lifting it out of sight. It would be broken down, the raw materials processed for reuse.

Kathy didn't see it happening. She had already slipped away from the core.

She had to get to Mitchell's locker before Watson did.

Steven caught up to Mitchell as he left the meeting room, breaking off a side conversation he was having with Calvin Hohn to catch up to his brother.

"Mitchell," Steven said, coming up beside him.

Mitchell kept walking without looking at him. "How did you know I wanted you to follow me?"

"Lucky guess. So where are we going?"

"Tio's home. Thomas told me Tio has some equipment there that will help us search the data for Kathleen Amway. The whole thing is supposed to be secured, but apparently Tio never had a chance to lock it down. He and Millie were in the middle of using it when Watson went rogue."

"I barely had a chance to tell you how sorry I am about Millie," Steven said. "How are you feeling?"

Mitchell bit his lip and shrugged. "I appreciate that you care, Steve. I'm okay. This isn't the first time I've lost someone I've cared about to conflict. It sucks, but I know how to deal with it."

"Do you?"

Mitchell stopped walking. "What do you mean by that?"

"I can see how pissed you are. I know it's eating at you."

"Yeah. So? What am I supposed to do about it? I talked her out of killing Watson months ago. This is my fault."

"Come on, Mitch. You have to know how stupid that sounds. Like you could have known he was a Tetron?"

"It wouldn't have mattered. He was a frigging pedophile, and I didn't let her airlock him."

Steven didn't say anything.
 

"Keep trying to defend me," Mitchell said.

"You were on a ship of criminals. What else were you supposed to do? Kill all of them? You did what you thought was right."

"The road to Hell," Mitchell said.

"Fine. If you want to glower and beat yourself up for not knowing the future or being able to sniff out a bad guy, keep hitting the buffet at the pity party. I'm sorry she's gone, Mitch."

Mitchell sighed. "Me, too."

They passed a few techs in the corridor leading out to the large, open chamber that served as a false outside area, where most of Asimov's inhabitants lived. It had done poorly in the attack, over seventy percent of the buildings destroyed by the mech Watson had taken control over, and a few more damaged in the fighting that followed. Tio's large home near the center had remained relatively unscathed, as Watson had wanted to take him unharmed.

Steven let a few silent moments pass before bringing up the next topic.

"So, Mitch, we just had this whole meeting, and we talked about a lot of stuff. You mentioned Katherine and the Construct. Why didn't you say anything about the information you were given there?"

"What's the point of adding yet another variable?" Mitchell said. "Right now we need to find Tio's brother before Watson does, or whatever Origin left might not help. Besides, even though I'm not in favor of trying to out Tetron, it isn't because I don't think there may be more of them hiding among us. Can we be sure everyone in the meeting room was human?"

"You're saying you don't want it to be common knowledge?"

"Not at the moment. We have a mission already. Without Goliath, we have almost no chance of taking out the Tetron. Not unless the Knife's brother did create them, and unless he can do something to shut them down. Talking about it is only going to open us up to getting screwed by it."

"How do you know I'm not a Tetron?"

Mitchell glanced over at him. "How the frig would a Tetron know about Dawn Cabriella?"

Steven laughed at that. "Good point. I can see where you're coming from."

"But?"

"But I don't think we're going about this the right way. There may be something out there that will help us get Goliath back, or at the very least help us fight the Tetron without it."

"You think we should send a team to check it out?"

"Yes."

"And you're volunteering because you know I trust you."

"Or you could go yourself while I take care of things here."

"I can't leave," Mitchell said. "Tio's people trust me because Tio supported me. They don't know you and they might not follow you. You saw what happened during the fight against the Tetron."

"So I'll go. I can take a jumpship and see what's out there."

Mitchell thought about it for a minute. The idea had an appeal to it. At the same time, he didn't want to break up his forces again.

"We can't stay on Asimov. As soon as we get a lead on Pulin we're going to evacuate and be on our way. What happens when you come back, and we're gone? How are you going to share whatever it is you find when you won't know where we are?"

Steven rubbed at his beard, thinking. "How about this? Give me the coordinates and I'll find out how far it is to make the jump. If it's close and I can be there and back before you might leave, we're good. If it's further out, we can see if we can work out something that sits well with both of us."

"You've always been a good negotiator," Mitchell said.

"And you haven't," Steven replied. "You can't stop me anyway, you know. I'm the Admiral here."

"I know. I appreciate that you're following me on this."

"It doesn't help anybody for me to be shaking the starship over rank. Tio's men follow you, and they outnumber Alliance ten to one. Besides, you made sure to brag about your scores to me. I know you've always been capable. The only question was whether or not you would rise to the occasion."

"You were always happy enough that I didn't."

"I've always been jealous. You're better looking, too."

"I won't argue with that. I love the beard by the way. It suits you, especially when you wear your Admiral's hat."

"You've never seen me wearing the hat."

"I can picture it in my mind."

Mitchell and Steven shared a laugh. Mitchell was grateful to have Steven with him. It didn't matter that they had drifted apart over the years. When the shit hit the repulser, he knew where Steven's loyalty was.

"In all seriousness," Mitchell said a moment later. "Do you think I've risen to the occasion?"

Steven stopped walking, turning to face Mitchell. "You shouldn't need me to tell you that you have. The last time I saw you, I saw an arrogant, cocky, immature Marine jock who would rather get laid than visit his family. Now, I see a leader. A man that soldiers look up to and respect. A man that they're willing to follow to their deaths."

Mitchell froze, unsure how to respond. He hadn't given much thought to his actions while he was taking them. He was doing as he had seen the people he respected do; that was all. To hear that Steven had noticed it, to have his brother praise him for it was enough to leave him speechless.

"Don't worry," Steven said, saving him. "I'm sure you're still an asshole when the uniform comes off."

They reached Tio's home a few minutes later. The door had been shredded by gunfire, hanging from its hinges as a mess of punctured metal and slag. Just inside the entrance rested two of the machines Watson had built to attack Asimov - simple four-legged things with an assault rifle mounted on top and a mechanism to carry and change the magazines. These two were in pieces, torn to junk by rifle fire, though there was enough battery power and functional parts that they twitched and skittered in place on the floor.

"Freaky," Steven said, watching them move in a repetitive motion. "I think I saw a horror stream once that was kind of like this."

"I think I saw that one, too. Who ever thought it would turn out to be a documentary?"

Mitchell felt his stomach clench when he saw the drips of blood on the floor beyond the machines. Thomas had told him how Millie had fought her way out of the house, losing enough blood that he was sure she was going to drop any second. That she survived for days after only proved how tough she had been.

"The study is this way," he said, leading Steven through the home.
 

Watson's machines hadn't gotten the chance to destroy the equipment Tio used to query the data he had collected over the years, which was good for them. It was a second bit of luck that the system hadn't locked when Tio never returned to it. He could only imagine Tio didn't bother with anything like that because he never forgot to lock it.

Except when he was under attack and his daughter's life was at risk.

Of course, the system would detect them as unauthorized users. The good news was that Digger knew the key code to get them through that bit of security.

They entered the room in silence. The whole house was still dark, with only emergency lighting active anywhere on the base. Watson's efforts had burned the reactor down to dangerous levels, and without supply lines running to refuel them they had to conserve until they could get off the site.