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CHAPTER 30


“You think . . . Bee and I are combining, like your Bees?” As functional as she’d been feeling, this staggered Talinn’s thoughts directly off course again. She wanted to grab at a solid surface and hold herself upright, but all she had were the shiny printouts and her own future face, expecting something, waiting, staring at her.

Her stomach folded over, and she cleared the resulting grimace with effort.

“We’ve had reason to believe it’s possible, with enough load-in errors. Or time in load-in. We haven’t had a lot of room to experiment.”

But they’ll use us as a test case.

“No, the only outcome of too much load-in is brain death.” That was hammered in during training. At every assignment. It was what usually took Eights out, near the end of their service. “There aren’t other options.” The thin edges of film curled into her recently cut palms, and Talinn carefully slid them onto the console, though she didn’t pay attention long enough to see if they stayed put or fell to the ground.

“Anything Command wants to be absolutely, positively, beyond a shadow of a doubt sure that we know, deserves a whole lot of questioning.”

This wasn’t something she wanted us to know when we learned about load-in? You do a better job of getting to the point than she does.

Talinn couldn’t quite take the compliment. Bee’s anxiety was evident in the pace of her words, faster than usual, and it matched her own perfectly.

“You think there’s some secret reason they want us to be careful of load-in time, besides the obvious. I’ve seen brains break—shit, I’ve come awfully close to it myself. It’s not a made-up space gremlin to keep us on their tight docking course.”

“I’m not saying it is. Talinn, if you decide to learn only one thing with us, let it be this—so few things in our lives are either-or. It’s a whole lot of ‘and’—usually not in a fun way.”

“So load-in can kill us, all at once or over time, and possibly it can kill us by combining AI and human?” Talinn crossed her arms, using the gesture as an excuse to wrap her hands around her sides for a tiny measure of comfort.

“Merging isn’t death, you’re still there, it’s . . .” Otie tapped the console with one hand, the other still grasping the length of thick cable. “Your body is the permanent server for the AI. The operating systems function together, rather than as two separate units, but they are still both in existence.”

“Given all the theoreticals, that isn’t as reassuring as you think it is.” Talinn rocked her weight on her feet, then forced herself still. “Jeena was worried about my brain, said there were abnormalities caused by all the recent load-ins, and the stress it puts on the organics. We’ll do what we have to do, but I don’t want to be a test case—”

“No, no, I’m not talking about leaving her in there until you break or combine, or break and combine. I want to see what’s going on in there, the sooner the better. Can we?”

You know what, I want to wait for Jeena. This you is a little too excited about whatever she’s about to do. That weird finger twitch? That’s you restraining yourself from showing it.

“My fingers don’t twitch.” Talinn spoke first for only Bee, then shot a glance at the motionless door. She continued aloud, because while she too would prefer to wait for Jeena, no graceful way to stall came to mind. “Tell me what to do and I’ll do it.” She reached for the cord, and relaxed slightly when Otie didn’t hesitate before handing it over.

“It’s not a load-in, so plug into your port first, don’t twist it, then plug in here.” She pointed behind the panel she’d opened, so Talinn wrapped her fingers around the cord and stepped around the other woman to get a clear view.

Ask her about what Jeena told you, Bee interrupted again, less sanguine than Talinn, and Talinn twined the port cord through her fingers.

“I’m guessing your Bee has a relatively dense program matrix.” Either she didn’t do as good a job sounding casual as she meant to, or Otie understood immediately what direction she was pushing, as the other woman tensed. It was a series of small motions—a tightening of the shoulders, a dip of the chin, a pulling around the eyebrows—but enough for her to catch. “Jeena said the inconsistencies with my Bee stem in her unusual density. More than the few bits of information you sent us. To the best of my knowledge, she hasn’t merged with any other programs.”

Or you. Still feeling very separate in my corner of your brain.

Otie didn’t answer, and Talinn dropped her arm, the cord trailing toward the floor. After another moment, she swung it, indicating her lack of urgency to move on to the test Otie wanted. Finally her silent stalling paid off, as Otie twitched and glanced to the side.

“We sent you pings before we made contact.”

“Pings?”

“Small packets of information. Your Bee picked them up passively through her sensors.”

“What kind of information?”

“Nothing harmful—”

“You say that now, after glitching our sensors sideways, faking attacks, and now having that move turned on all of us by a mystery AI?” Talinn hadn’t meant to blurt it, hadn’t intended to get angry. She’d told herself to remain still and quiet until Otie had said whatever needed saying, but instead heat flushed from her gut to the top of her scalp, intensifying under the unfamiliar blanket of hair.

“It couldn’t have hurt Bee. It was Bee.”

“What?” The word slipped out after its predecessors, without Talinn’s volition, because her mind had already jumped ahead, playing out the implications. Bee not able to differentiate any changes, the errors Jeena couldn’t quite speak to, Bee having access to information she didn’t know she knew. They’d known there’d been at least a transfer of information, theorized what had happened, but . . . How much was there? Was the Other Bee replicating in her own Bee?

“I understand this might be tricky to process, but remember you’re still load-in, and your emotions might be intensified.” Otie opted for brisk rather than comforting, and it made for a smart choice. Talinn didn’t have a sudden urge to swing at her, though her hand tightened on the port cord.

“I’m sure that’s why it bothers me that you’ve been attempting to alter my Bee. Because I’m load-in.” She didn’t have to coat her tone in sarcasm, she only had to speak with deliberate slowness, and saw from the small wince her point had landed exactly as she’d intended.

“My Bee has had the most success in attempts to infiltrate Command. We are fairly sure it’s because she’s two Bees, when it comes down to it, and so we’ve been working on ways to multilayer AIs.”

“So it’s not that Lei and Ziti showed the most progress getting into Command, it’s that they’re the ones you had doubles of already. Are those program strings replicating?” She tilted her head to the side, casual, as though her knees hadn’t gone loose underneath her.

“It’s not—”

“And?” Talinn twisted her wrist, flinging the end of the port cord up into the air between them, then pulled it back again. The cord made an audible snap, and probably she shouldn’t treat a delicate tool so roughly, but better the cord than a neck.

“What do you mean ‘and’? That’s what I’ve done to your Bee, if you can call it doing anything.”

“No.”

“No?” Otie rocked back on her heels, her eyebrows halfway up her forehead. That tension hadn’t eased, if anything it had deepened, and Talinn knew herself well enough to understand there had been no relief in confession. Whatever Otie had allowed Talinn to know, it wasn’t something she considered nearly as much as a threat as whatever she was holding back.

Talinn jerked her head to the side in negation, demonstrating to Otie she was ready to wait this out too. Maybe the defense array was coming for them, and they’d simply dissolve into atoms while attempting to out-stubborn the other.

“There’s another way to layer AIs.” Otie’s tone shaded toward defensive, so Talinn restrained herself from reacting. “We can kill off the human components, gather in the broken-off fragments—it’s what happened with my Bee, reason stands it could be replicable with the proper distance and timing.”

“Threats?” Talinn laughed—it likely sounded as forced as it was, but so be it. “You should have done that first, if you were going to do it. Our AIs wouldn’t see it as an accident now, no matter how clever you were, and I have a feeling it wouldn’t be as neat a process with unwilling participants.”

“Then if we can be about the test, please.” Otie extended a hand, reaching for the cord or Talinn herself, and it locked into place.

“The merge.”

“What?” Otie’s weight shifted so quickly Talinn reflexively braced for an attack. The other woman almost immediately shifted again, leaning against the console with every evidence of polite inquiry. Talinn’s laugh this time wasn’t forced at all.

“The merge. You want a human and AI combination. You think it will do more than a layered AI. You’re introducing code and snippets to encourage a full merge, even though you can’t possibly be sure how to make one.”

“No. No—Talinn, something is going sideways in your brain. Please plug in so we can see what’s clicking in there.” The concern felt real. Otie’s eyes—Talinn’s own eyes—stared beseechingly into her, and she was tempted to give in.

“I’m not that good of a liar, am I?” She meant the question for Bee alone, but her voice emerged full volume, and Otie’s eyes widened imperceptibly. “I’m not going sideways,” she continued, deciding to push on as though she’d meant the other woman to hear. Her voice dropped, roughened, a pitch-perfect impression of Otie’s slightly different cadence. “I’m understanding, and that is worrying you. It shouldn’t—you should be glad I’m smart enough to understand, to realize we’re being sabotaged by some other AI, that we are just—”

“Talinn, where’s Bee?”

Talinn didn’t realize she’d been ranting until Otie cut her off, and it was such a ridiculous combination of realization and stupid question she snapped her mouth shut. Where was Bee? In her head. Where Bee always was. Curled up and quiet to make space during load-in. Considerate.

“What does she have to say about all this?”

Another stupid question, and Talinn reeled at the idiocy of her older self. Trying to distract her? What did Bee think? Obviously Bee thought . . . 

Talinn fumbled, then blinked repeatedly. No. No, everything had been clear, so clear. This wasn’t load-in scrambling her brain. This wasn’t some theoretical merge and she wasn’t . . . she wasn’t . . . 

She wasn’t standing anymore, for one.

She wasn’t alone with Otie anymore, for two.

Bee had gone quiet, more quiet than load-in would dictate, and the hot flush of anger had long fled against some cooling numbness she was only now aware of.

Because she was fading, vision, clarity, and consciousness all, and sinking into the floor.

Jeena standing over her, expression too stricken to be unreadable. Grieving.

Sammer? Talinn asked, but her mouth didn’t move.

Jeena? Talinn asked, but the tech only looked down at her, sadness emanating in a wave Talinn recoiled away from, though it hit her anyway.

Bee? Talinn asked, but Bee didn’t answer either.

Talinn, aware the tech must have drugged her, somehow interrupting her connection with Bee, had time for one last thought, and she was fairly sure she managed to say it aloud before everything stopped moving under her command.

“Getting real sick.” Her mouth slackened, but she forced the rest of the sentence out. “Of this shit.”


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Framed