Rebel Born (Secondborn #3)(21)
Golden, frost-like energy covers Cherno. The impression of dragon wings sprawl and twitch from his back—phantom wings. I peer at him closer and can “see” inside his mind. Or it projects from him—I don’t know. Visions of flying over rugged crags and whitecapped ocean waves push their way into my mind. The images are cut short by whispering voices—soft at first, stringing together patterns that are more like thoughts. They’re familiar, like déjà vu, maybe because I have been here before. I’ve been in this world for over a month without knowing it—maybe this is somehow a part of that?
Voices surround me. Quiet at first—just mumbling. They’re coming from all angles, from the sleeping soldiers in the airship’s cargo hold. They grow louder and louder, attempting to pull me into the sound. Some of them are wailing, screaming out for help, but those soon fade to the background while other, much more aggressive voices attack—latch on to me—attempt to siphon information from the chemicals swirling within my cerebral cortex.
I groan, holding my head in my hands and bending at my waist. I’m dizzy from it. I reach out and catch myself with my palm against the glass of Cherno’s capsule. “What did you do to me?” I writhe for a few breaths, listening to the wretched wailing, before something within my mind roars to life and defends itself against the frequency of the waves bludgeoning me. The assault rages, and I fight to handle the onslaught of the chorus. Something’s trying to take control of me—of my thoughts.
It’s a few more moments before I can discern Ransom’s voice among the snarling growls raging in my head. “What is it? What are you experiencing?” he asks with clinical detachment, a question that reeks of self-preservation. He touches my elbow and holds it.
I wince as I whisper, “I-I’m being bombarded by—thoughts? Shrieking, painful pleas for mercy—darker images.” The assault rages. My eyes narrow to slits, and for a moment I think I meet Cherno’s fiery gaze through the glass, but when I open my eyes wider, his are closed.
“That’s Spectrum—the collective part of the AI. They want you back in with the horde—to use your knowledge and your reasoning to further their goals. The upgrade I gave you is something I’m hoping will help you connect with them but allow you to rise above the collective and give you power over them, or at least help you maintain autonomy within its program, because we need you to be able to slip in and out of Spectrum at will. Here, let me take you to your capsule.” He places his hand on my hip and guides me. We walk together, my knees wobbling. “I couldn’t give you master-level protocols within Spectrum, like the ones Agent Crow has. They’d know it if I did. I hope you’ll be able to master Spectrum on your own. I just gave you a little back door into it.”
“We need to destroy this thing,” I whisper. Shrill cries from the tortured minds inside the collective conscience have me cringing.
“Impossible,” Ransom grumbles. “If it were in one place, it would be doable, but it isn’t. The program houses pieces of itself everywhere, in just about everything where it has a connection. Sure, you could torch the Base on the Fate of Seas where it originated, but it’s no longer just there. It resides in everyone who has ever had an implant. It hides itself in machines that don’t even have AI.”
“Then we make a virus and we annihilate it that way.”
“Yeah, I’ve thought of that. I just can’t figure out how to kill it without killing everyone. Mass murder isn’t my thing, contrary to what’s said about me. And it’s not just going to lie down and take it. It has defensive systems that I’ve only narrowly avoided for the past few months. Our time is running out. It’s going to find the trail of what I’ve been doing sooner or later.” He looks me up and down. “Anyway, you’re in no shape to plan an attack on Spectrum. Let’s take it one step at a time. We focus on surviving the next few hours.” Ransom opens the containment unit’s door and helps me inside it, then sets aside his coat outside the capsule. With deft fingers, he reattaches me to the capsule, inserting tubes into me like it’s second nature. “I’m going to turn this back on. It’ll make you stronger. We can make a plan later.”
I gasp as he reaches for the feeding tube. “Wait, what am I supposed to do when we get to the Sword Palace?”
“Improvise. Pretend if you have to. Anything so we don’t get caught.”
“But—”
Ransom reaches to the ceiling of the capsule and pulls down the metal feeding tube. He puts the device near my mouth. It animates and latches on to me with steely pinchers, prying open my jaws. An inner hose snakes out and spirals down my esophagus into my stomach. Tears stream from my eyes as I choke. Straightening, Ransom backs away and closes the unit’s glass door. The compressed air and antigravity device lift my body into stasis. If I thought I was in control in this relationship, I was mistaken. I control nothing that happens to me until I learn how to fight them.
On the other side of the glass, Ransom puts on his jacket and rakes his hand through his hair. Words echo from his mind: We’re so screwed! The secondborn Star is freaking out inside, but outside he has a serene expression. His thought pattern has a desperate urgency to it but still sounds like his voice—maybe because I know the timbre of it. It floats above what seems like millions of other voices. They fall back to create a kind of white noise. I screwed up! Ransom continues. They’re going to find her and shred her. This upgrade better work—does it even have enough time to work? We’re dead!