Page 7 of Defiance (The Intersolar Union #7)

I left the clinic around sunset, so jittery that my fingers felt clammy and numb. Only one colonist had come by needing an antiseptic spray and I’d managed to launch the bottle out of my own hands twice. I’d somehow worked myself into a froth by pacing the clinic alone, reading dry papers from public journals on the internet archives to try to distract myself when instead it stirred up the butterflies in my chest.

Purely professional butterflies about salmonid spawning conditions and definitely not at all about the alien man I’d meet by the river soon.

As I hiked up the hill towards the tarmac, I took a deep breath and stretched out my fingers. I’d gone on a few dates after John by using a dating app. Most were duds, but a couple had been enjoyable. Those were the only ones I ever invited back to mine.

Novak didn’t have to be any different just because the whole thing was an arranged scheme. Imani said he wouldn’t even bring it up. I could swipe right if I wanted to or just let our sniffing rendezvous end there. No harm, no foul.

I nodded to myself, hitting a purposeful stride in the late day heat. It was just a blind date with my bodyguard. I’d print us some food, set up a place to eat on the riverbank, and get to know him. The familiarity of the ritual soothed my racing pulse as I leaned my head into the open maw of the hangar.

“Hello?”

I called, catching my breath. The baritone lilt of a cello played inside, haunting the domed ceilings with muffled echoes. The stringed instrument, however, turned the corrugated tin into the stones of a cathedral. I closed my eyes, relishing the nostalgic weight of it in my ears, how it reminded me of the millenium of human legacy we’d left behind on Earth. I wasn’t well-versed in classical music, but the sound made my heart ache regardless.

I mustered some courage and rolled back my shoulders. Somebody was a fan of the classics, but definitely not the pilots or engineers. Every day with them was a feud between classic rock and indie pop. Imani had told me to talk to the security team’s biognostics after I was done at the clinic, and I couldn’t imagine I’d find them anywhere but here.

“Hello? Anyone home?”

I called again, making my way towards the engineers’ lockers where overhead lights glowed through the cluttered industrial shelves.

Rounding the lockers, I came upon a lone black figure with wide shoulders. His spine cut a divot down the center of a back stacked in muscular facets and cable ports, and as he turned to face me, his hips whirred gently. He had five lenses rather than eyes, and each appeared specialized in some way, moving independently as they adjusted focal length and aperture. Two on either side and one in the middle of his forehead that ran on a track up the center seam of his mask.

No, that wasn’t a mask. It was his face.

“Ms Charlotte Halloway,”

he said from a speaker somewhere in his chest or jaw. It was hard to tell when he didn’t appear to have a mouth.

“I was told to expect you. I am Jharim.”

Jharim’s voice was smooth and commanding, if monotonous. Like Hannibal Lecter, the mixture of such an emotional instrument as the cello with his stoicism suggested someone who influenced the orchestrations of the universe, regardless of individual lives. His presence was monolithic, intimidating.

“Wow,”

I breathed, finding it hard to draw in air under the pressure of his stare.

“Yes, I’ve seen you on the village red.”

The Europeans had taken to calling the playfield that rather than the village green. I wiped my sweaty palms on my pants, feeling out of sorts.

“Sorry. Afraid my manners are shot. You can call me Charlie, though. Nice to meet you.”

Jharim’s optics rotated thoughtfully as his facial facets arranged themselves in a vaguely human way with brow plates and the bridge of a nose. A jaw-like seam split his face in two where a mouth and ears might be. He blinked the two lenses set on either side of his face like human eyes.

“Is this a more comfortable arrangement? Your vitals are elevated.”

“Feck’s sake, I’m sorry,”

I groaned, ashamed of myself for staring.

“However you look is fine. We just haven’t met properly and today’s been a bit of a shock altogether.”

He kept the new facial features, but didn’t bother to mimic blinking again.

“Ah yes, the arms master mentioned that you experienced a system crash this morning.”

I rubbed my forearm, remembering the distinctly naked feeling. The reasons for my visit hit me hard. Was I really doing this? The war I’d been waging against myself all day rose back up. I was a normal middle-aged woman, not some teenager with a destiny complex. I’d be full of shite to think I could pull off a clandestine mission.

But I was responsible too. All of us in Renata had a duty to keep each other safe. Rosy had violated that—maybe even sold my data along the way—and now the stakes were steeper. If I could contribute by being a glorified tourist, I had to take the leap and believe in myself.

Jharim looked at my chest right where my heart punched my sternum like a boxer. He tapped lightly on his casing, directing my eyes to the spot where his heart would be if he were human.

“It must have been distressing,”

he said, motioning to the table.

“Please. Sit.”

“Thank you,”

I said, finding my voice. I hopped up on the ledge like I was sitting on a medical exam table. My blood pressure spiked on cue.

“The arms master would like for me to conduct routine maintenance with your verbal consent.”

“Of course. Yes.”

Jharim nodded.

“Then allow me to erect a privacy perimeter.”

He set a black puck on the table and it hummed, vibrating the table until a dome of light shook out of its seams and surrounded us in a three meter radius that rotated lazily.

“Apologies,”

he said in a smooth tone, “but I’ll need to turn off your system again. You might experience temporary sensory loss.”

I stretched my back and took in a steadying breath, palms flat on the table to keep me from swaying.

“I’m ready.”

Jharim’s thick chest whirred, then jolted with a deep, visible thunk. Just like last time, I felt like something had slammed into my skull, but at least I was prepared. Though my ears rang and my eyeballs felt heavy, I didn’t lose equilibrium like a drunkard.

“We can speak freely now, Ms Halloway. Since you’re here, I assume you’ve agreed to assist Agent Gaul.”

Agent Gaul…

Jharim held out his palm, gesturing to my hand. I extended it towards him and he leaned one hip against the table, running his matte fingers over my holotab’s bionic graft. His demeanor had changed. He was more animated. Even his shoulders rolled forward into a posture that was relaxed and natural.

“Right. You’re sure we can talk about it?”

One of Jharim’s lenses rotated up to meet my bewildered stare while his head was still bowed over my hand.

“Yes. My bodily systems are a closed network, we are in a blue-level privacy perimeter, and your bionics are off.”

I breathed a sigh of relief.

“Finally. What is with all the secrecy? Is the colony in that much danger?”

He found whatever he was looking for, pressing down on one of my metacarpals until my fingers curled.

“It has always been in extreme danger, Ms Halloway. Why else would you be in an undisclosed location on a remote, scarcely populated moon with the galaxy’s deadliest operatives as a security detail?”

I pursed my lips. I’d never quite let myself think that hard about our living situation.

“Well feck me.”

Jharim trained all his lenses on my face, pausing. The cello music stopped, but he made no move to choose a new track, letting the silence press in on us.

“Not my task, unfortunately.”

Embarrassment boiled through my cheeks. Biognostics could…? They wanted…? I stammered, completely caught off guard by the flirtatiously dark tone.

“I didn’t mean it literally.”

Something like a low, scorching chuckle worked its way through Jharim’s chest casing.

“I will survey your linguitor and transitor now.”

He brushed back my humid curls, pressing his thumbs into the underside of my jaw and the meat of my neck. He pushed on the side of my trachea and kept one finger in place there. The other traced a line along my cheek beneath the eye, settling on my tear duct. His touch carried a light, fuzzy static with it, making things beneath my skin heat up like a precision laser.

“What exactly are you looking for?”

“Delicate wiring. I must perform the actual diagnostics so that your systems log the data.”

He held up his finger tip for me to look at.

“I have a power meter here that will tell me if any established bionic synapses have started to decay. In rare cases, integration may also result in an antihistamine response.”

I raised my brows.

“People can be allergic to their own bionics?”

Jharim whirred in confirmation.

“A bionic is a foreign agent, so yes. Humans are especially sensitive to foreign bodies, as I understand it.”

He dropped his hands from my face and neck, and took a step back.

“Your bionics are in perfect health, as expected. I will reinstall your holotab’s operating system and fabricate the logs to show a software conflict between the SnapStor app and your local printing queue.”

“Thank you,”

I said, hopping off the stool. Jharim didn’t step back any further, setting a tinted glass cylinder on the table between us. A black ferrofluid somersaulted inside like the contents of a lava lamp.

“I’m afraid I have one more task, Ms Halloway.”

I looked up the chrome plates of his collarbones and throat to the unnerving calculations behind his eyes. Jharim’s otherness was still cold and calculating that close up.

“You can call me Charlie,”

I insisted woodenly.

Suddenly, Jharim’s stare shifted and the vial disappeared into his forearm. He pushed away from the table just as the side door to the tarmac opened and closed. Female voices murmured, one of them a child, as they turned the corner into the lounge.

A Chinese woman cradling an electric cello in her arms stopped short when she saw us. A girl with shadow black features bumped into her leg. She placed a protective hand on the girl’s head as little red eyes peeked out from behind her shorts.

“Miss Liu,”

Jharim greeted her with his signature head bow.

“And Aelia. Good evening.”

“Sorry, we didn’t mean to bother you,”

the woman said.

“Don’t be daft,”

I said, pointing to her cello with a smile.

“That was you? You’re brilliant! Brought tears to me eyes, hearing music like that again.”

Miss Liu ducked her head with a warm glow.

“Thank you. Aelia helped me piece it together. It’s not quite the same, but we’re making progress.”

“She’s teaching me to play for para,”

Aelia said proudly, popping out from behind her. The girl was a venandi with tall, elegant spires developing above her plum-colored forehead.

“So he’ll hrum again.”

“Well, I’m sure your da is already proud of how hard you’re working,”

I told her.

Jharim and Miss Liu shared a look, and she ushered Aelia back behind her again.

“He is. I just wanted to say that we’re done for the night. I thought Mr Fareshi would be here.”

“I will lock up,”

Jharim assured her. She bowed again, pushing on Aelia’s head to also remind her to bow, then shuffled them both out the side door once more.

I creased my brow in confusion.

“Who’s her father?”

I wondered.

“Vindilus is the only venandi in the colony, isn’t he?”

Jharim listened to them retreat, talking and laughing quietly. Only when their voices had receded did he respond as if I hadn’t asked.

“Agent Gaul has excellent instincts. I am pleasantly surprised.”

Heat crept up my cheeks.

“For choosing smelly humans, yes indeed.”

Jharim withdrew the aero-syringe from the chamber in his forearm.

“Your enthusiasm makes people feel comfortable, and they tell you things they should not.”

I looked after Miss Liu and Aelia with a stitch in my brow, wondering what he meant, but he continued on.

“In the event of your abduction, Chairman Ferulis has authorized me to share a sample of my own bionic systems with you. It is called a parumauxi swarm.”

He tapped the glass so that the fluid tapped back.

“Though what I’m giving you won’t be near enough to call a swarm. Perhaps a party. A squad? I leave the designation up to you. If anyone somehow discovers them, however, they are from Roz-02.”

I creased my brow, watching the globule sway in its vacuous aero-syringe.

“What does it do?”

I murmured as if I were in a library, afraid that speaking too loud might break through the privacy perimeter.

“Many things,”

the bog said fondly.

“Record sensory data, supplement the immune system, and participate in cell regeneration. Most importantly, they’re untraceable. Their code is too old for modern scanners. One might call them ancient technology now.”

He picked up the tube and popped the cap off the aerosolized grate. “May I?”

I bit the inside of my lower lip in thought. Part of me squirmed as the droplets broke apart and reformed. The parumauxi looked alive. Like a flock of starlings moving as a single mass, even though when I looked closely, I could tell each one was smaller than a grain of black sand.

“Alright,”

I decided, stashing my fingers beneath my thighs to keep me from backing out.

“It will tickle.”

Jharim pressed the aero-syringe against the divot behind my collarbone. I expected him to distract me like a phlebotomist drawing blood, but he simply pressed down on the release and broke the vacuum seal. A great puff of air, a hiss, and then tingles that fizzled through my flesh and disappeared. He held still like no breathing creature could, then nodded his head once.

“It is complete.”

“What do I do with them?”

I asked, brushing my fingers over my collarbone.

“Nothing,”

he said, pushing away from the table.

“They will keep your bionics private and gather more complete evidence, should the opportunity arise. You may see or feel them if they congregate for such a task or choose to send me a signal. Think of them as your own privacy perimeter and a passive failsafe in the event that Agent Gaul is incapacitated.”

Failsafe, evidence, agent… The reminder of how dangerous my little research-and-revel mission was made my stomach lurch anxiously. I cleared my throat seriously and stood up, wiping my hands on my trousers again out of nervous habit.

“Understood. Craic to meet you, Jharim, but I should get going.”

“To Agent Gaul, correct?”

Agent Gaul, Agent Gaul, Agent Gaul. There it was again. The inescapable absurdity. My guts tied themselves in knots. To me, he was just a date. Harmless. Had to be. Nothing special or noteworthy here except for the lingering guilt of a liberated woman with an Irish Catholic upbringing.

“Novak,”

I managed, my voice a little too high to be casual.

“Mind his tail for him,”

Jharim told me.

“He will forget, and it is important.”

What the ever-loving wisened old wizard shit?

I took a deep breath, forcing myself to take his words seriously. Jharim was no Gandalf the Grey, but maybe calling him a wizard in our new normal wasn’t entirely wrong either. He certainly had an eerie sense of charisma for a sapient machine.

“I’ll mind his tail,”

I promised, my brow creasing.

“And I won’t tell anyone about the swarm.”

Jharim gave me one last nod, and I went barreling down the footpath towards my flat to shower and pack a midnight picnic.