XIII.
Carolina won.
The director announced it, at the final selection that Wash had predicted would never happen.
It was early morning, everyone shuffling except Wash who of course still walked like he was in a parade. CT followed him, sleepy eyes easily gravitating to the yellow shoulder plate on his right side and following it instead of looking at the hallway. She was frightened too, thoughts digging at the back of her mind: If the director is going to reveal me he wouldn't do it in front of everyone. If he's going to interrogate us all I have my answers ready.
She did; her parents could vouch for the fact that she had been in touch with them sometimes but after considering it briefly she had decided that she did not want to involve them, at least not enough that they could be considered complicit, because they were not, and their ignorance compared to the crimes they would be convicted of were so vast and unjust that CT couldn't stand it. They wouldn't work for long as a distraction anyway, especially since the director would have already had to single CT out. Instead she invented ID codes for the people she spoke to. She did not know how to fabricate government records but she could create digital ones that would pass an initial test. She had made people up like storybook characters, writing names and addresses and thinking about occupations and families before discarding them, knowing that she was not here to lose herself in imagination.
She watched her view of the hallway bob up and down with Wash's shoulder.
The director brought them to a classroom that CT had seen used before, but not often - not the same one that Alpha had been in. The ship was not a school, no matter how often it operated like one; there were not many of these lecture rooms, but there were enough for the multiple teams of Freelancers that the director had had at the beginning, and CT wondered whether Georgia or Maryland had sat in this room as she stood in line with the rest of her team at the top of the aisle.
The director raised his right hand. The board glowed to life on one of the screens as if the director had held up a light, also illuminating the counselor lurking near the back of the room. He straightened up from where it looked like had been checking some of the electronics.
The Freelancers looked around at one another. The hair on the back of CT's neck prickled and she had the feeling that the others were feeling the same thing, a team-wide goosefleshing of anticipation. In that moment they all knew, and any eyes that had not been locked on Texas's name at the top of the board from the moment that it had appeared were there now.
The director waited while the Freelancers looked around. "Should we sit?" Wash muttered. It was the sort of thing he usually said, a little bit of nervousness revealing itself, but here with their comm settings on external the director heard it immediately and answered in a strong voice.
"You do as you wish, Agent Washington."
Wash flinched, and CT thought that he was looking at his own number six.
I'm not on there, she thought. He won't even pay any attention to me.
The director said, "Agent Carolina, step forward."
She didn't have to push through: Freelancers parted for her. CT leaned around the side of Wash's shoulder to watch the shorter woman pace down the aisle, her ponytail swinging. Instead of standing in front of the director with her back to her team she faced him with her side to them, staring evenly at his face.
CT looked around, into the shadows at the back and the side of the classroom, but Texas wasn't there.
"Congratulations, Agent Carolina," the director said evenly. "As one of our top agents, you will be the first to bring us into the next stage of the project."
CT stood still. It was strange to her that none of the others knew what was coming next.
The Director said, "You have had your special abilities for some time now, but no way to run them without power routed from this ship. Now, you will always have that power and that responsibility. Each of you will be assigned, in turn, an artificial intelligence program to augment your armor. Carolina." He inclined his head. "Will be the first."
"Thank you, sir." Carolina saluted, her spine straight, her hand a blade. CT glanced at York and watched him watching Carolina, wondering if York was seeing the same tension that CT was.
"But, sir, wait." She stared straight ahead at him. "Agent Texas is number one on the board. Why doesn't she get it?"
For the same reason there won't be a Beta, CT thought.
"Texas's role has been arranged already," the Director said dismissively. Carolina's eyes narrowed.
The director continued as if he hadn't been interrupted. "Your AI will speak to you, interact with you, enhance you."
Inside his next pause, Carolina said, "Sir. I want Maine to have it."
The director's brow furrowed. "Agent Carolina?"
"Maine can't speak. If he gets implanted with an AI, it will help him to communicate. It'll make him a functioning soldier again."
Maine had been in recovery since the heist. There was talk that he would go home. An Insurrectionist had shot out his throat. It was, people said, a miracle that he was alive.
But Connie was taken aback. Carolina wasn't supposed to be this gracious, this considerate. Surely she was just trying to control the others, trying to form them into the team she had made - but that was a good thing in Carolina's eyes, and it would have been a good thing if they had been fighting for a good cause. CT could not hate that - and she wanted to, she hadn't realized until now how part of her anticipation for this moment had come from how much she wanted to hate Carolina for winning. Because it would have been simple then - a win and a loss, as in part of CT's mind it was. If Carolina had been smug, if she had gloated, that would have been easier.
The director also seemed taken aback, but only for a moment. He didn't show it on his face, or in his hands at his sides. "It is your decision."
"Maine needs it."
The director nodded. "So it shall be."
(Did CT see a smirk, a curve, a twitch of his skin under his graying beard? She wasn't sure.)
Regardless, Carolina descended the aisle.
The director moved closer, more central to the Freelancers: he clasped his hands behind his back while the counselor made notes on a tablet. "The rest of you will be assigned according to the order," the director said, still calm and stentorian.
What about me? CT wanted to ask. What do you plan for me? But she didn't need to, and wouldn't have even if she was planning to stick around that long.
The director told them that he would give Maine the news himself. Other implantations would come over the next few days.
"This is gonna be awesome," York said on the way out. "No one else has this."
CT stared at Wash's shoulder piece and thought, and none of you wonder why.
There was no news of Maine's implantation that day, although they all drifted in and out of the medical suite looking for news. York had gotten to know all the doctors when he was in for his eye, but that didn't help him get any more information than the others. CT watched and listened. Carolina pushed them all to follow their schedules with more than the usual aggressive reliability.
Everyone had been asking her how she felt about giving up the AI - South, mostly, after York learned that she would get quiet and Wyoming that she would snap at him. Wash and CT hung back, both not sure what to do with this change in the status quo.
Carolina and CT had had an uneasy silence between them for months and had not been in the habit of being in their room at the same time: both didn't spend much time there except to sleep, both because they were too busy and CT because she felt that if she stayed in one place too long she would leave too much of a trail. The night after the explanation of the board CT had to try, though. She was curious about Carolina's reaction at the same time as she begrudged it.
She was lying in bed with her blankets pulled up against the cool recycled air. Carolina pulled herself up from where she had done pushups against the floor, her knuckles red and her face flushed.
When Carolina turned back her sheets CT said, "I was surprised you gave that up."
"Maine needed it more."
"Are you sure that's even what an AI does?"
"The director didn't say no."
"But you wanted one so badly."
A pause, while Carolina laid down. "That's not all I wanted."
"What else?"
"Why wasn't Texas there? She should have been there, if she was number one on the board. She just...left us alone."
Tex is different. "She's different."
"Yeah. That's the problem."
"What can you do."
"I can train harder."
"You won't always make it, you know. It's not all about how you train."
"No. There's something I'm missing. If I'd worked harder, Tex would be there. Maybe she's on another mission. Maybe she's got an AI already. And this is all a consolation prize."
CT said, "Maybe."
Carolina was silent.
She still thinks she lost, CT thought. I can't do any worse to her than she's already done to herself.
Isn't that convenient?
Maine was put on a heart monitor that ran in the recovery room, bored techs leaning swaybacked away from him.
He remained there for a few days after Sigma was implanted. No one was allowed to see him - them. All of the Freelancers were curious. York and North stood outside the door, both of them talking with their hands - what will it be like? What will it do? Will it be a child or a wise old man or a calculator? Will it be, York joked, a blue woman wearing only the circuitry set into her skin?
"I dunno. I heard that's what they looked like."
CT stood there too. Wash hovered between North and York, leaning forward. CT knew that the creature being lashed to Sigma's mind a fragment of Alpha: she should have felt more anger toward the director or passion for her mission, but instead she just felt sorry: for the fragments, for Carolina, for Maine.
"What do you think's gonna happen to him?" York muttered, sounding like he'd been punched.
North said, "He's going to speak."
Carolina walked quietly down the hallway behind them. In armor like the rest of them, she seemed to sneak and hunch, like she had just woken up.
York turned, glanced at her. "Hey boss."
"Has he come out yet?" Carolina said.
CT shook her head. York started to say something, but then the door opened. Four heads turned to look at the mdic, a small, nervous man.
"You can come in now," he said. "He's stable."
Carolina and York rushed in, North following more slowly and Wash and CT trailing him.
The recovery room was bright lit, although the walls were dark, naked metal colors: Maine was sitting on a bed in full armor, one leg dangling off the edge as if he had been about to stand. The AI was immediately noticeable. It floated in the air next to him, not blue like Alpha but the colors of fire - so very much like fire that it looked fake, like a man shape cookie-cuttered out of a picture of flame. It had a mouth, like Alpha, though, and a quiet voice.
"Hello."
"Hello," said Carolina, and the other Freelancers looked around while Maine was staring ahead, as if wondering whether they should let Carolina alone to talk to the AI she had lost. But maybe she had spoken to him - them - already, because the next word out of her mouth was the AI's name - "Sigma."
So far along in the alphabet, CT thought. She couldn't remember what she'd read about Sigma.
Carolina said, "Hello Maine."
"Agent Maine is glad to see you here," Sigma said. Maine doesn't talk like that, CT thought. He doesn't think like that. "The implantation was quite successful."
"I see that," Carolina said.
Maine growled lightly and nodded.
"You sure you're all right, buddy?" York put a hand on Maine's shoulder, and Maine nodded. Wash leaned toward them as he had wanted the answer to the same question.
He's trapped, CT thought. Whatever Maine knows about the first AI is never going to be spoken.
Because of course Sigma had his own mind, like Alpha did - but the other Freelancers still had to test that out.
"How's it work?" Wash said.
"I speak for him, Agent Washington. Whatever Agent Maine wishes to convey, I say it." There was almost a shrug, a casualness in Sigma's voice.
"Is he okay?"
"Yes. He is no longer in pain."
"Will he be fit to return to field work?"
"Almost, Agent Carolina. Almost."
Carolina nodded.
"He wishes for revenge, Agent Carolina. Have you made progress against the Insurrectionists that hurt you?"
CT flushed. Carolina spoke without hesitation. "Not yet. But we will. Now that we have you."
"It was your choice to give me to Agent Maine," Sigma said. "I speak to you now as myself."
"They can do that?" Wash said.
"We can do that," Sigma said.
"There are other AI?" Wash said.
Carolina interrupted. "Are they stronger?"
Wash and York looked at Carolina, surprised by the vehemence of her words. CT thought, It's not over. Carolina hasn't felt any recompense because she was charitable. She still feels the same, and that makes it all worse. The director's magnanimous decision had not given anything to Carolina - he had only taken away.
"They are different," Sigma said. "Each has his own talents."
"Like what?"
"I do not know," said Sigma. "Maine does not know."
Maine raised a hand, growled again.
Sigma said, "Maine wants to talk about when he will get out."
Maine did not talk much, so the visit was over soon. Sigma was polite and disarming - not like Alpha. Carolina backed off to allow Wash, Maine's closer friend, to talk to the orange figure and through it to the white-armored one.
CT glanced at Carolina.
Treachery showed in the small things first.
CT's refusal to acknowledge Carolina's unhappiness became a snide glorying in it. Carolina had won the rigged game and was still unhappy. Good. Then CT ( who had been Connie then) had been right all along to begrudge the Freelancers who were at the top of the board, to build up strategies against wanting a place in lights. But there was quiet pity, too, that watered down the anger. If these AI were all fragments of Alpha, they were sure to talk about him soon. Everyone would know that she was right, then - and the director would be more likely to know that she had learned faster than expected.
She talked to Joshua once more during Maine's recovery. It was quick, and she felt like Wash was going to appear over her shoulder at any moment. She sat in the hydroponic garden, not on the patch of grass she had used before but deep into the maze of food plants, with her tablet propped on her crossed legs and her headphones on.
"You need to get out, Connie. It's getting too late."
"I know. But I think there's still things I need to do here."
"Are you attached to them, Connie? You can't do that."
He sounded angry. The worry only peeked through, but she could ferret it out. Of course I'm attached, she thought. I've been living with them.
She said, "If I leave they'll suspect you immediately."
"If you don't they'll suspect you."
"Give it time," CT said. "I know what I'm doing."
She wondered, Do I? She so rarely had before.
"Listen, next time we're close you need to come to our ship. We can take you to safety."
"Next time. When will that be?"
"I don't know. Can you find out?"
"Can you approach us?"
"We can't attack unless we have heavier armament than the Mother of Invention, and right now we...it's unlikely."
"Then I'll let you know our next movement."
"Good. And Connie?"
"What?" She had turned away, picking up the pack in which she had brought the computer equipment she had used to patch into the comm in a different way than the last times.
"Be careful."
"You too," she said, and cut the line. The formality of their goodbye lingered in the air.
A noise startled her. Someone was walking a few rows down - armored, clanking and creaking. CT held her breath.
She heard two more footsteps before they stopped, replaced by the background noise of air scrubbers and water dripping like an IV feed. Her heart jumped and her head felt congested, like she was blushing or being physically changed by the chemical urge to run.
CT cursed to herself.
She crouched below the racks of plants. Green sprouts overflowed with tiny leaves and outlandishly large, genetically modified fruits that would later be chopped up to make jam or bread or soups. The footsteps creaked through the air again, sounding like someone walking up stairs - the irregularity of the acoustics confused her, and could have come from behind her by the small door or ahead where the room opened out but the plants got bigger, destroying the orderly pattern of the walkways with their branching fibers.
CT was unarmed, and had only the pack, hastily swung over her shoulder, and her datapad to hold at her hip like a pistol.
Maybe if she had revealed herself immediately she would have been able to come up with a story another Freelancer would believe: that she was enjoying the plants, that she was sad or angry but not trying to hide. The person had seen her, though, she was sure: the footsteps had stopped when she had moved.
The director already suspected her, and he would send someone to drag her in front of him if he got an excuse to do it. She couldn't make this worse herself. Only escaping would make it better.
Staying in a crouch, she eased along the row of plants, placing one foot in front of the other toe to heel. She wasn't wearing armor, and was glad of it: the black pants and black t-shirt program's more casual issuance were much quieter. If the person was armored they could still see her IFF beacon, though, from where it sat inside the AI port at the back of her neck. She had never dared to look at that technology. It was beyond her - would have required a neuroscientist - and was only actively feeding information to the Director when a Freelancer's armor was on. She had checked that early, fearful that any subterfuge would be impossible if the Freelancers were all chipped. The port was less a tracker than a communication assistant, no matter how often the army as a whole used it for both, and if she had been going to be caught that way it would have happened by now.
But someone in armor could ping her IFF.
She reached a junction, looked both ways along the ranked greenery, and hurried along the other branch. Rustling joined the footsteps - someone was following her into the more thickly planted plants she saw a rounded shape, dark gray or black. Tex? Wash? Someone else in armor, or just bulky and tall?
At nearly the end of the junction, she ducked under a rack of plants. The atmosphere nearer the dirt smelled rich, over-saturated with oxygen. Looking both ways she saw only the dark hallways. The footsteps had stopped, leaving her own sounding loud. There should be a straight shot from the end of the hydroponics garden to the rest of the ship from here, if she could just skirt the walls.
She took one step out from under the hanging garden, straightened up, and turned left.
She slammed into something. A moment later more information registered: her forehead had hit armor. She could feel the geometric patterns where the chest plates came together.
A hand grabbed her arm, and she looked up to see Maine standing there, helmeted and huge but familiar. "Maine!"
"CT," Sigma said, and her shoulders jumped from the unexpected voice. The AI was no where to be seen.
When she backed up, Maine let her, releasing her arm. She knew he would ask her what she was doing, so asked him instead. "What are you doing here?"
Maine himself, not Sigma, coughed something that might have been a word.
"I doubt you were here to look at the flowers."
Sigma manifested like an opening bloom himself. "Agent Maine was surprised to see someone back here. He thought you were a tech. He was going to ask you...what this room is for."
"It's where our food grows."
"Of course it is, Agent Connecticut."
"Is that your commentary or his?"
"Mine," said Sigma.
"What does Maine say?"
"Sometimes it is...difficult to translate his impressions into words. This does not offend him. You were not very talkative before, were you, Maine?"
A massive head shake: no.
CT shrugged her shoulders. "Could keep at it then," she said, directing it to Sigma.
Sigma cocked his head, bent his thin arms to put a blurry semblance of hands on his orange hips. "We will let you get back to what you were doing, Agent Connecticut."
"Okay."
She turned, shoulders still hunched but her breathing back to steady as her thoughts instead caught and shuddered. She looked back a few times to find that Sigma was not watching her: he had turned toward Maine and, with a hand on his chin, seemed to be in thought.
She trudged toward the common room, repeating to herself over and over that Maine and Sigma had not been looking for her - Sigma would have no more need to be loyal to the director than she did. (Although loyalty did not necessitate need: the Alpha did not need to stay, he simply did not know better. The Freelancers did not need the director - maybe Wash did, needed someone to tell him where to go.)
Denying that one of the AI's tasks might be to track her would not keep her from being tracked, though so she resolved to go back into the camera systems the next chance she got. With Wash and the director on high alert, and now maybe Maine and Sigma watching her, it would be increasingly difficult. Maybe Joshua hadn't been all wrong about extracting her.
She kept glancing back, but Maine wasn't following her.
How sad it was that Maine couldn't express his opinion himself. She wondered what he would have said, before.
But although "before" to Sigma had probably meant before the heist, it also meant before the AI to CT. Back in the classroom, what felt like days ago but was in fact hours, Carolina had won the game.
But CT had, for a long time now, been playing a different one.
Author's Note:
I've gotten a couple reviews about my portrayal of the Insurrectionist Leader - namely "Somehow I can't bring myself to hate him even though I did in season ten" - and because my intention wasn't really to get anyone to like him I wanted to talk about him a bit and how I write him and why.
It's important to note that I'm wrestling with my own opinions whenever I write him: I really dislike the character's existence and the way he was used, but had to pluck some personality from canon if I wasn't just going to ignore him (which I was tempted to do.) From his dialogue I could tell he had pretty clear or basic strengths and weaknesses: he was compassionate, but so much so that it could get in the way of his work. I endeavor to write him as someone who isn't a parody - I don't want to end up writing him just to bash him, because that can feel shallow in the writing and also I'll regret it five years from now. Instead I write him as somebody just doing his job, who probably got roped into the Charon company as a janitor or something and worked his way up the ranks with the kind of tenacity that eventually lead him to detonate nukes on top of the guy who stole their alien. But he always really wanted to get out of the war and would be much more comfortable running a farm or something.
The Leader is quite sympathetic as a soldier if you look at the Insurrection/Charon missions as a just cause, but that's not entirely useful to a story about Freelancers.
In my mind CT sees him as soft, as someone she can use. She also has to like him a little bit for canon to work, though, and I think it makes sense that she'd gain an emotional attachment to him since he is the one she can confide in during her stressful machinations before her escape. I'm not comfortable writing him as the attempted tragic figure he was in canon, the one who butted into CT's story because what this story about a spy was missing was some manpain, but I'm trying to make him make sense, too.