Chimera 🌈 [ONC 2024]

6: Enigma

Leanne intensely regretted her outburst. It was not in her manner. The BASE had drilled professionalism into her from a young age. As a child tailing her parents then all the way into her adulthood as a legal liaison, she had learnt how to behave, how to act, how to speak. In these days of political trouble between Earth and Mars, a single wrong comment could spark disaster. Nerio had made no secret of its intensifying secession from BASE control; it had formed its own committees and boards and Krasnoyarsk feared it would be entirely independent in the coming years. One day, there might even be a Martian Space Agency to rival theirs.

Leanne considered all of this as she sat in Malinowska's quarters and mopped the blood from her face. When the worst was off, she undressed and examined every bruise and scar Phaethon had marred her with. It could have been far worse. She could have died, could have had her throat slashed open by those awful barbs. Ryan, the insolent Nerio astronaut, had saved her. And now the Martian must be cursing her name for how Leanne had spoken to her.

Embarrassed, dreading the interaction, Leanne climbed down from Malinowska's quarters and ventured to the cockpit – this time, through the main corridors and not the vent system. She heard Ryan's voice as she crossed that stomach-rolling clear tunnel into the bridge. Leanne thought the woman was talking to herself until the crisp tone of Valkyrie responded.

"I can't see anything wrong with him," Ryan said. "His circuits aren't fried, the wiring is intact, apart from where I disabled him. Nothing malfunctioned internally."

"The signal came from outside Phaethon," Valkyrie said.

"Certainly not from Imperium. I've been working solidly with him to try and isolate it."

Leanne stopped in the doorway, arms crossed over her chest. Phaethon was laid out on a central deck, metallic legs splayed and antennae laying on the floor. Ryan searched its artificial innards, poking around indelicately and hacking away at synthetic connections. To Leanne's surprise, an image shifted on a screen nearby, displaying Phaethon's insides like a bizarre ultrasound.

"The signal came from inside this ship," Leanne said. Ryan turned to her. A curl of hair bounced into her eyes and she blew it away.

"Ziegler, I didn't hear you come in," she said.

"Me and Cliff both heard it," Leanne continued, stepping closer but still keeping a wide berth from Phaethon. She did not entirely trust that it would not spring back to life again, or that Ryan wouldn't shock it to do so. "There was interference on our lines and for a brief second, Mandala registered that the signal came from inside this ship."

"From in here?" Ryan straightened and flicked the probe in her hand towards the ceiling. "That's your area, Valkyrie."

"I have no record of any signal, Ryan," Valkyrie said. "Perhaps it was human error."

"Human error," Leanne scoffed. Had Malinowska been reading 2001 or had Valkyrie? It sounded more and more like HAL with every word.

"Humans make more errors than computers," Ryan agreed with Valkyrie. "It's why we're run by Imperium and not by some committee back in Krasnoyarsk."