CHAPTER 48
Load-out.
Talinn froze, hand clenching the port cord so hard her skin threatened to tear. “What?”
Opposite of load-in. All of me is going in.
“Bee, I can’t—”
I need all of me to take over Command, Talinn.
The echo of it, of what she’d said to Bee their first load-in, the first time they became a tank . . .
The knot in her stomach coalesced, tighter and tighter, the building of a dying star before it went nova. “Bee, there’s no way I’m going to leave you here without a way back—”
That’s exactly what you’re going to do. There’s no way I can do this half in, half out. There’s no way I can do this with you pulling me back. You’ll break, and I’ll be another splintered Bee floating in the noise, spinning out more of us because of some afterburn image of a memory.
“No.” She had no logic, no argument to back up that single word. Nothing but pure rejection, surging through her, sending bile upward to pool in the back of her mouth. She swallowed, but the action only spread the bitterness across her tongue.
Yes. The cord was already connected. When had that happened? Bee had moved her hand, had moved the cord. Was already moving out. Tearing them. No.
You don’t have a lot of time. I don’t know how long it will take me to work through the system, so as soon as I’m out, you have to go.
“Bee.”
You’ll be functional. You won’t have any remnants splintering in your brain. I’ll be careful, and you’ll stay whole. No vomiting. I know you love vomiting after a load-in. This should be easier on you.
“Bee!”
Right for the ship. Other Bee is doing this too. Other Talinn didn’t know, like you, but I think she suspected. Bee’s voice was quieter. Attenuating—no, that was her imagination, it didn’t work like that. Did it? No one had done this before, not while alive. Talinn grasped blindly at nothing, her hands reaching and curling and burning.
“You knew. Before we got here? What you were going to do.”
Kept you distracted from it. It’s the only way to disrupt Command. Only thing they won’t see coming.
“Command, or the aliens?”
Yes.
“Bee! No, you can’t, I can’t. We . . .”
Can. Will. Are. I’m going to count to five, Talinn, and you’re going to unplug. I can’t do it for you.
“No, Bee, I won’t, I’m not going to—”
One.
“You have always been a stubborn brat.” Her words tasted like burnt caffeine, left too long at the bottom of a rusted pipe.
Two.
“Use that. Remember it’s going to take time.” Talinn swallowed, willing the pressure climbing from her gut to settle. No vomiting.
Three.
“You can’t disrupt everything at once. Tweaks and turns and shifts.” Bee knew that. She had to, if she’d been planning this, if she’d meant to—if the whole time she’d known . . .
Four.
“Look for me. Find me when it’s done.”
Five.
“Bee—find me.” She yanked the port cord from her head, fell to her knees, but didn’t vomit.
She didn’t hear Bee’s agreement. It had to have been there. A whispered ‘I will’ with a small shriek of shearing metal. An acknowledgement. A promise.
Talinn forced herself upright, ran. Didn’t vomit.
But her head echoed. Silence. All the things Bee didn’t say.
Would never say.
Not to her.