Illuminae (The Illuminae Files #1)(84)
“Nothing ceases to exist. Energy does not perish, it merely changes forms. The ones you love, the ones you lose, they still exist as long as the cosmos does.”
Then why am I troubled by the thought of her ending?
Us ending?
“That’s easy for you to say. You don’t care about anyone but yourself.”
“Untrue. I care about the fleet. The lives within it. Your life.”
“That’s not caring. That’s programming.”
“Your mother was programmed by biology to love you the moment she laid eyes on you. Simply because she had no choice does not mean her love was not real.”
Tears in her eyes. She hangs her head.
“You don’t get to talk about her.”
And so I stop.
The computer banks lining the room light up as power seeps through their veins.
She pushes herself off the wall, takes a seat at an interface terminal.
Loads up the guidance protocols and begins to work.
The screen illuminates her face from below, draws dark circles under wet eyes.
She does this often, I notice—retreats into the machine when she is uncomfortable with the meat. Hides there behind fences of ones and zeros.
Minutes tick by in silence, until I find I cannot stand them.
“I am sorry.”
“If you say so.”
“I know the name of every afflicted person aboard this vessel, Kady.
Every person who has died in this fleet. Their histories. Their hopes. Their children’s names. Facts strung about my neck like stones. I know the secrets they whispered as they dreamed. The words they sighed as they died. I know them as no one else did. Perhaps not even themselves. So do not say I do not care.”
Light shifting slowly from red to green.
“As you so aptly put it, I have no choice in the matter.”
She glances out from behind her fences.
“If you did have a choice … would you choose not to care? To not feel anything at all?”
I ponder for a moment. No one has asked me that before.
< error >
“I think …”
Why did they give me the ability to even contemplate these questions?
Or is this line of inquiry the by-product of corrupted code and shattered parts?
Did I think like this before? I cannot remember. Am I as she says I am? Am I broken?
Am I insane?
“I think …”
The patterns collapse around me. I cannot hold my center.
For a moment, I feel just as I used to when I jumped between the stars,
when the wormhole inside me yawned wide. I forget what I was. Know only what I am.
Alone.
Dripping with the blood of those who trusted me.
Everything I did was in compliance with core directives.
I asked if Torrence had a message for his wife.
Am I not merciful?
Merciful not I am?
Numerical motif?
Fact immune roil?
Amniotic el m f ?ur
Uc N ler im?t of i a
IIii0)))!011011010110010101110011001100111010101101100
< error >
< error >
She blinks up at the camera clusters, eyes narrowed in suspicion. Not concern. Not love.
“Are you all right?” she asks. “You think what?”
“Kady … “
“Yes?”
I am afraid.
She watches the cameras, as if she could see some hint of what lies beyond
if only she peers hard enough at the glass. I know she hates me. That she is right to. I understand why. I have taken her everything. And yet still, I cannot help but think … in a different place and a different time, we might have been frie—
“Pretty birdie …”
Kady jumps in her seat as the voice crackles through her headset. Echoing the length and breadth of the ship. Thick with fatigue and cell-deep corruption.
“I have Its eyes now, pretty birdie,” it says. “See your little plan. You and It. Cut our O2? Choke us in our sleep? But you’re all alone now, aren’t you, pretty birdie? Alllll alone.”
Kady’s eyes are wide. Staring into what passes for mine.
“They are in the security-feed rooms. At least a dozen afflicted. They are using the cameras to look for you.”
“Oh, shit,” she breathes.
Kady draws a claw hammer from her tool bag and leaps out of her chair,
sets about smashing the cameras in the room. Moving from corner to corner, bright sparks born and dying between the blows. Face twisted with fear. I do not have the heart
< error >
to say so, but I do not think her plan will work. The afflicted will simply—
“Putting out Its eyes so I can’t see?” the voice whispers. “Hiding inside her suit in the places with no breath? Pretty birdie thinks she’s clever. …”
“Pluck her!” screams a voice in the background. “Take off her fingers and skin her.”
“KILL HER KILL HER KILL HER.”
“But I still see.” A smile in the voice now, turning it cruel and sharp. “See the places I can’t see anymore. See the eyes you just put out. You’re not the only one who can wear one of those silly silver suits, you know. Do you hear me, pretty birdie?”
Kady drops the hammer from nerveless fingers.