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Careful, Jake leaned the android against the wall. 921-Y didn't talk anymore; Jake hoped that the reason for that was something mundane like rerouting data stream or something like that. It wouldn't be very much fun to be stuck here without their friendly neighborhood AI. They had reached an elevator, but it didn't open from a distance; Utara slowly returned to activity.
"Now what?" Jake asked.
Kirindi shook her head. "I don't—huh?"
Shadhahvar lunged for the cyborg limb. Clutching it in both arms, she jumped ahead. Odygos tried to grab her leg, but missed her by an inch.
"Don't worry!" Shadhahvar yelled. The drone ran after her, only to be hit full force with the frosters.
Shadhahvar wasn't, though.
"I don't get it," Kirindi said.
"Maybe the station's low on ice and deemed the drone the bigger threat," Jake said. "That or the scanners don't work."
The drone got up and barged after Shadhahvar, and the frosters shot on at once.
"First one it," Jake said somewhere below the shrieking.
Shadhahvar stopped and fumbled with the arm. He knew she'd try to use it to shoot and that he couldn't trust her with unfamiliar weapons. On reflex he darted for her, but the queen chimera's claw grabbed his leg. He smacked face first into the ground as she dragged him.
The drone thrashed around in pain, its tail flaying around. It sunk it he might've been skewered. Not that that made being treated like a rag doll any better.
"~ Jake, I think this is working. What should I shoot? ~" Shadhahvar said, but without sound.
"~ The ice thingies! ~" Kirindi called. "~ Let me help you aim. ~"
Jake caught some of what she pushed at Shadhahvar, it wasn't so much images as sensation and direction. Seamless, Kirindi took Shadhahvar's perception and calculated from it, like she herself stood there. In this at least, Shadhahvar's simply mind was perfect for coordination. They shot it all to smithereens.
The drone slumped down in the middle of the hall and stayed there till the queen chimera stepped by and prodded it to stand up. Jake helped Y-921 walk to the elevator, then held Shadhahvar back from shooting the elevator door.
The android got the doors to open, somehow, and they cramped in with the massive queen chimera.
Aside of the part where they had to sit on a giant mutation's legs and try not get get burned by her blood, the slow ascent of the elevator was oddly comforting. Absurdly normal, compared with the battle they'd walked away from.
What would become of them now? Where would they go? Neither of the girls — they were children, he couldn't get around that when sharing minds — looked in a good state to fight much more. What if the android and his people had other plans? She couldn't read their minds and find out.
Shadhahvar's hand had been caught in the ice, she now held it close and tried not to cry. The detached cyborg arm lay over her lap.
921-Y was probably in the worst shape, like he'd collapsed into himself. He was also the only one he couldn't tell of how he was doing, so he asked, prepared not to get an answer.
"I could be better," the android said without any expression, or even adding tone to this voice. "I needed to reroute some things. Are we ... still up?"
"Yep," Jake said. "Y'know ... I think that drone distracted the system. Like he made it look like he was an animal, but ... the queen chimera didn't pull him and Kirindi knew what was coming. They're smart, but is that the drone too?"
"It was his idea," Kirindi said.
"Or a queen's," 921-Y muttered. He tested the movement of his arm, but otherwise stayed still.
"Something like Kirindi's sister here?"
"Yes," Kirindi said. "I think so, but she's hard to reach."
"Ah," 921-Y said. "Can he guide is to where the other hosts are?"
"He's hurting right now. Wait a bit."
"Kirindi, please ..."
"Wait a bit."
At a level that seemed random to him, the android shut down all his energy and toppled over, Shadhahvar caught him just in time. The elevator stopped, but did not open.
When the android moved again, he said, "Just had to put all my energy in my modem. Some of my viruses are still active, but the best I can do is say the hosts are on this level."
They had to wrench the door open, and Jake had to admit he woefully fell short in strength compared to even Kirindi.
Behind it was another dark hall lit by sparse blue light, though it was much warmer here.
Shadhahvar bounced out, smiling as she whispered, "Heat! Finally!"
Jake rolled his eyes, but managed a grin anyway. Leave it to Shadhahvar to pull off glee in this hellhole.
921-Y needed help getting out before the queen chimera stumbled out, whose patience ran low. Barely had they clear the spot or she burst out, tripped over her shaky feet and scraped her corona against a wall before find level. Shadhahvar nearly got skewered by the tail, but didn't even notice.
Their guide pulled himself out of a messy heap, stood still for a few seconds, then led the way to the impregnation chamber. He'd be born there just a few hours before, right?
"We're not going the quicker way," the android said a few corridors down. "Kirindi ..."
Jake noticed before she answered : a friend was here. Sarah.
They found her huddled in a cornered, covered in blood. Everything Jake noticed of her through Kirindi indicated she'd be sobbing, but her physical form just stared ahead with glazed eyes.
Kirindi tried to mentally prod her, but Sarah barely responded. Jake walked over and softly shook her arm. Now he saw some traces of tears in the weak light.
"Hey, miss, how are you doing? Is the blood yours?"
Kirindi told him no as she crouched before Sarah. She'd lost the full out connection upon finding her sister, who swarmed her senses. Now she needed some effort convincing the queen chimera that Sarah was worth attending to. When the sister relented, her vast mental space helped clean away some of the clutter in Sarah's mind.
The woman let go a deep breath and looked around till her eyes settled on the drone of all people.
"So there you went," she muttered. The drone somehow said yes, but Jake couldn't tell how. Sound? Knowledge? Memory?
The queen chimera dropped her face from below her corona, so Sarah and her could lock eyes.
"You came for her, didn't you, Kirindi?"
It hadn't been a real question, just the obvious.
"And you're an android," she said to 921-Y. "God, you've been through worse than I just did, right?"
Jake was about to object, but realized she probably could measure pain now that minds were linked. He wasn't sure whether he liked the attitude that caused.
When she pulled herself to her feet, she ignored something that Jake couldn't decipher, and had no business to either. Kirindi poured around private information as she deemed logical, but that didn't mean he got a license to pry.
"You're here for the other people. Follow me."
He still had the option of asking, through. That should've been his first impulse.
"Who's the blood from?"
"Scientists." She paced away from them, the drone right on her track, letting her lean on him.
"Yeah, but ..."
"I got ideas, first to join Kirindi, but I couldn't get to the lower levels. I had to go free people, but ..."
"~ You are of no world. We will be of all worlds. Have trust. You do not need the emotion of fear. ~"
It seemed to comfort Sarah, but left Jake uneasy. One didn't just advocate the loss of useful emotions, right?
According to both Kirindi and the drone, their instincts were superior to emotions.
The door to the impregnation center's control room had been burned away, the drone could pull it off its hinges with ease. Bone splinters and blood covered the room; these newborn had eaten whatever they could find. This wasn't typical xenomorph behavior, right?
Even Kirindi was curious, but not curious enough to dwell on it for long. The drone claimed they'd been bored and had seen enemies still, and the directions of their mother were a little vague. That was good enough for Kirindi.
Jake helped 921-Y connect to a port in the corner, while the others went into the hall to load the sleeping hosts onto a carrier — one meant to dispose of the corpses later.
A sound behind him drew his attention. Turning, he saw an orincubix.
The spidery thing skittered across the floor and slipped into the hall, ignoring Jake altogether. Kirindi pushed a very strong sense into his mind he was to remain quiet. She wanted to have this one for herself.
"Jake?" the android asked.
They'd use a dinosaur for host, she told Jake. This did ease his worry, but ... a dinosaur?
"Eh, yes. Sorry, got distracted. It's very ... in here ... I could have ended up like one of these people. It just sunk in."
Once all containers were on the carts, a silent procession upwards began.
They encountered nobody else. After crawling absurdly spacious ventilation shafts, cutting powerlines, dodging cyborg, fighting monsters and having his world views crashed in the span of a few hours, this seemed eerily peaceful. He'd half expected to have a dramatic show down with the leader of the station or something, or fight some final monster, yet there weren't even any of the drones that had been born from those scientists around.
921-Y said something about conflict between the main system Utara, which wanted to do a safety lockdown, and Nuitar, a secondary system that wanted to keep the queen chimera around at all costs. It didn't make sense to Jake, what exactly even threatened Utara now?
Not that he complained about the lack of hostility. Whatever went down in cyberspace allowed them the peace to load the other humans into the Philidon's cargo space.
The queen chimera got her first life experience away from mud and science halls. To her, even the simple carpeted hall they led her into was positively novel, and since it was her way out she slung an absurd amount of happiness at carpets. He might've laughed, and Shadhahvar actually did.
The simple happiness enraptured Kirindi and she wanted to share it, which was when she noticed Sarah hadn't come onto the ship.
She was still on the dock.
Jake set 921-Y down in the pilot cabin and ran for the entrance.
The drone had placed himself between Sarah and the ship. Kirindi had arrived a moment before Jake and already pleaded that he let her pass. When she tried to pass him, he threw her back with his tail.
Sarah didn't make a single move, aside of shivering. Jake could see fear in her eyes and feel it through Kirindi. Sarah wanted to know why, but a clear answer didn't come.
She'd walked off on some impulse, and almost back into the station on some distant sense she had to get Jonah, but had realized it didn't make sense. Away from rescue? Why? What did they want?
Why, why, why, over again, more to herself and whatever distant entity compelled her. Kirindi asked them same, but hers was directed at the drone.
The drone only knew to follow the order that this human should not board the ship. She was to stay here.
Kirindi tried darting past him again, but he reared and grabbed her under an arm. Keeping his head in Sarah's direction, he walked backward into the ship and took Kirindi along.
Sarah took a step forward, and without hesitation he spit at her. It landed right between her feet, the floor instantly melting away.
With a gasp she stepped back. The drone raised his head a little, the silent promise he might hit her legs the next time, and a little regret. Regret!
If Jake had had a weapon, he might've shot the drone, but Shadhahvar had taken the cyborg inside and refused to come out. Of all times, now she was scared to fight a monster.
A door opened beyond and two more cyborg stepped through, weapons locked at once. Sarah turned just in time to see the array of bullets that hit her.
This time, the blood soaked her clothes was her own. She fell down and that was it, her mind vanished.
Kirindi panicked and tried to bite the drone's arm, but found it ineffective. While holding her down, the drone approached the door's controls and typed the code to shut them.
Jake's dodged behind a wall until the door blocked the bullets, and there he stayed, trying to figure out what had just happened.
Kirindi wailed in a soft, kittenlike voice. Her brow was furrowed down and her mouth wide open, revealing her lethal fangs, but she didn't attack the drone anymore. He gave her no explanation, no reason.
Why leave her, when not the others?
"Kirindi, what did just happen?" Jake finally asked.
No answer came. Like it as nothing, the drone wandered off to inspect the for him novel ship. Kirindi and Jake stayed on their spot, drained.
Though the girl wanted to cry, she couldn't. Jake had long ago learned not to cry in his profession, but now he did on her behalf.
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The ship took off and Jonah didn't really care to stop them. Who cared? Oh, some, but not him.
Jonah peered down at the dock, at a dead Sarah. The memory of past life had not died with her, even if he didn't feel anything anymore.
Sorrow turned out to have a component beyond emotion, though.
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