Arc 2 chapter 10: Circumventing Fate

-(Altaïr)-

Heavy Corvette ‘The Lurker’

Personal ship of the Shadow Broker

Saturday the 7th January 3141 of the Human Federation Calendar 

I  placed the girl into one of the guest quarter when she fell asleep on  the dead body of Doctor Buchanan. It was really a shame, I counted on  him to take care of his surrogate daughter. Even more of a shame that he  was pretty to look at…

*Calm down, me.*

This  dry spell that I drag since the death of my late husband twelve years  ago makes me act up like a young girl sometimes. The turbo elevator  brought me to the bridge at the center of the ship, there were three  decks in the Lurker; the upper, middle and lower deck. In the middle  deck was the bridge where I could control every part of the lurker, from  the weaponry to the engine room. The Lurker is an automatized ship that  doesn’t require a crew. I made the mistake to trust my crew once, never  again. The main bridge of the ship was a circular room with a command  chair on a pedestal in the middle, around it consols that controlled the  different systems of the ship could be found. Behind the command chair,  there were the two consoles controlling navigation and engineering; the  three forward consoles controlled the weapons, communication and the  pilot station. On the far gun gray colored walls of the bridge where the  consoles that operated the other more mundane system tasked of  controlling the maintenance bots, the sickbay or the crew quarters and  other essentials part of the ship. 

Normally,  I was truly alone on this ship; But the teenager in the crew cabins is  changing my routine. I sat on the commander chair and with a wave of my  hand, a holographic window appeared and showed me the data on the girl,  Destiny. 

Her  DNA map suggests that she is of Asian and Celtic descent, that  combination wasn’t unnatural with the centuries of crossbreeding  humanity had fallen into since their first contact with the Alliance of  Races. She had that double triple helix in her DNA suggesting that she  is a psionics, and a powerful one at that, the marker suggests that she  is not only a Telepath but something else. My AI was already comparing  those markers to others known in the Alliance database. The results  brought by the AI show a match with the gene marker for precognitives.

Interesting.

“No wonder you want her so badly, Tyrant. You went as far to give me one of your precious nanites pack to hand over to her.”

Now  I understand better why Helena was this adamant in freeing that little  girl from the clutches of the Federation. The fact that she trusted me  with one of her precious case of centurion maker nanites prove how  important she was to her, but what would be the effect of that pack on  someone with dual gifts? I heard that those actually boost psionics  powers by a very large margin. Crossing my legs, I looked at the ceiling  of the bridge in contemplation.

*What is that woman planning?*

Divining  the moves of Helena Theresa Vice has become something of a hobby of  mine since she came on the Alliance game board. She has made overtures  with a lot of governments like the Thelians  and some free empires that didn’t want to join the Alliance like the  Sirena Republic and has a presence on most of them, marketing clean  energy, safer starships transit services escorted by some of her  warships against privateer activities, selling quantum computers and  permit cultural and academic exchanges. Then there are those shady  actions in the null zone that buffer the Shdeveri empire and Human  space. It has become rather difficult to track what is going on there.  If I didn’t know better I would say that Vice Corp is preparing for  taking over the Alliance and gearing up for war.

*Impossible, the other Oracles wouldn’t let her.*

In  response to my thoughts a map of Alliance space, the neutral worlds and  an approximation of the size of the Shdeveri Empire appear in different  colors on the hologram. The yellow dots on the map represented Vice  Corp, the green ones are the human federation, the neutral worlds in  blue and the Thelian orange ones. I narrowed my eyes on the map and  linked most of the missions I did for Vice Corp and information I sold  to them. I was missing something, I don’t know what but I will find it.

Now  that I think about it, what about that Saryan female her and Idunn made  me track for them? Was she given a nanites pack as well? Is Vice Corp  amassing powerful and talented soldiers?

*That little girl, Destiny what is her role in all of this?*

The  problem is, does Destiny knows that she a holder of multiple psionic  gifts? Unless trained thoroughly precognition can easily be dismissed as  intuition. Maybe testing her later would assuage my burning curiosity.

*** 

The Lurker

In transit toward US Conglomerate Space

Sunday the 8th January 3141 of the Human Federation Calendar

Through  the camera in the quarter assigned to Destiny, I watched her sitting on  her bed in fetal position her arms holding her knees. Through the log  of the bot responsible of the chow  that she didn’t order anything and didn’t take any showers or went to  relieve her bowels. The little girl was mourning and neglecting herself.  I decided that I should not let her do so. I pushed a button the  armrest of my command chair and spoke.

“Greetings, Miss Macleod,” I said.

“Who-?” She blearily asked.

She sounded really out of it for a moment.

“Come on, Miss Macleod did you forget where you are?” I reminded her.

I  could literally feel the gears in her head turn, also the psionics  activity scanners in the ship detected how far the range and power of  her telepathy were when it activated. For a human, this little girl was  already among the heavy hitter. I felt the caress of Destiny’s mind  reaching for mine, my natural mental shield stopped any intrusion on her  part.

“Are ye that person who helped me escape?” She asked.

The  sadness in her was overwhelming and she looked as if she had given up.  But I wouldn’t stand for it, so I went bluntly into the heart of the  matter.

“Grief didn’t fog your brain too much, good; your uncle wouldn’t want to see you like this.”

She looked rather stricken when I said this and was about to go catatonic again, I won’t let her.

“Miss  Macleod, I invite you to take a shower and come to have a bite to eat.  New clothes will be given to you by the service bot that will guide you  to the mess deck. I expect to see you here at my table in one hour.”

I  cut the communication by pushing the button on my armrest again; a slow  and lazy smile appeared on my face. *If she doesn’t want to snap out of  it, I will make her.* Suddenly a plan formed in my mind, I will not get  the girl back into Helena’s hands yet; I will educate her and make her  see a bit of the galaxy first before throwing her at that particular  villain. There is this saying about being prepared to face adversity  that I particularly like; Destiny is not ready, but I sure will do my  best to make her take her ‘fate’ in her own hands. I laughed at myself  for the unfortunate pun, at least this poor girl didn’t have to grow up  surrounded by kids making fun of her name.

*** 

It  is 12:000 and time for lunch I was waiting for Destiny to appear. I  really expect her to be there, she’s the kind of girl that is subject to  give in to the authority of her seniors; a programmed behavior that I  will have to break her out of.

Conjuring a holoscreen I looked at my reflection, I wore my dark grey shipsuit  and boots and had fashioned my pale blond hair in a long middle parted  haircut. My green eyes reminded me of that woman, Helena. I hated her  and I loved her at the same time. This face was recognizable everywhere  in human space and I couldn’t bear to be compared to her, judged to be  like her. It has not always been this way. Once upon a time, I felt  proud to be her double, but when my crew sold me out everything changed.

*Whose eyes are those?* Strange feelings swelled up inside me.

Was I Altaïr or Helena?

A ‘swoosh’ from the door of the mess made me dismiss the holoscreen  and school my face in a neutral mask. I turned toward the door, hearing  someone walking in the room; what wasn’t my surprise in seeing that  indeed Destiny put on the clothes I had designed for her. She wore the  same shipsuit  as me, but she added a dark purple jacket and forgo the issued boots  and gloves. She still had the same boots she came in with and the belt  with an “x” almost sliding out of her hip but still hanging on, it  weirdly looked good on her. Her red hair was long and in need of a  haircut. 

*We will do that later.* I thought.

“You came,” I said matter of factly.

<And you look good.> I sent to her via telepathy.

<...?>

<You  didn’t expect me to be psionic? That’s rich, you can literally become  one with a DNA splicing operation from Vice Corporation.> I said  dropping a nugget of information.

<Who are ye?> She looked at me from head to toes taking in how I looked.

<I am Altaïr Aquilar.>

<Like the constellation?> Destiny tilted her head.

<A bit.> I said while chuckling.

People  I interact with from human space always ask me this. I made her follow  me toward the long table with the chair around it. We sat facing each  other, the girl looked nervous with her gaze roaming everywhere. She  looked mostly at the different exit points of the mess, there were three  of them. One for the middle deck, and two leading to the lower deck and  engineering. The mess was a room of 50m² and the walls were grey with  posters of movies and recruiting ads that I took from different human  worlds. There were four long table, a cooking area and a distributor of  protein paste that you could program to flavor them with different  tastes. There was also the stasis container with all the preserved food.  The machine that fabricates plates and cutleries near the kitchen area.  It was a simple but efficient setup. But as I live alone on this ship  it went unused mostly.

<You  are safe here, nothing untoward will happen to you. I gave your uncle  my word that you’d be treated well and given a better life.”

“I miss him,” Destiny said with a sob.

Tears  were already streaming from her eyes to her cheeks, she was so  vulnerable at the moment. But she shouldn’t stay like this, people will  take advantage of her.

“I  did my best to save him, but he begged me to get you onboard while I  was treating him. I… feel bad about it. But he was a stubborn man and  only thought about you.”

“He was a stubborn old man.” She made a hollow laugh while saying that.

“Destiny,  first we are going to eat and then I will explain to you why I saved  you and you’ll have to make a choice. It’s pretty simple, do you want to  be protected or become strong enough that people don’t mess with you?”

“Ah…” Destiny tried to say.

The  bot with a rolling chariot full of food arrived at this moment and  began putting different dishes between us. It ranged from vegetables to  meat with bread wraps and fruit juice. No alcohol will be served to that  underage girl.

“Well, let’s eat and I will hear your answer after that.”

Destiny  looked at the spread before her, then at me. I began to prepare my own  wrap; putting meat and veggies inside, then drenching it in the soup. I  put it into my mouth and chewed up. The girl mimicked me and bit into  the wrap and opened her eyes wide and to then eat like someone had  starved her for days. 

*Well she was doing that to herself.*

I served her, fruit juice in a disposable mug, she took it from my hand downed it in one gulp. What a thirsty girl.

<Slow down the food won’t go away.> I sent to her with telepathy.

She  stopped to devour and looked at me sheepishly and then resumed into  eating more slowly. Like I said this girl was subject to some kind of  influence, she always followed order or instruction from people older  than her. Thirty minutes later, it took five wraps and three mugs of  grape juice to fill up Destiny’s belly. She looked replete and  satisfied.

“How good do you feel?”

“Ah am feelin’ bloody good, pure dead brilliant.” She said and put her hand before her mouth and burping a little.

She  looked rather embarrassed by doing so and hid her face behind her  bangs. I had a tough time to decipher what she said, but she said she  felt great. Destiny felt less on her guard around me, even if I liked  this sudden development we had things to discuss.

“I will now tell you everything you must know, are you ready?”

“I was born ready.”

The  girl bent her torso toward me and put her linked fingers under her  chin. I had all her attention, and she acted like a typical teenager.

“I  am Altaïr Aquilar, the Shadow Broker. I sell information to those that  can pay and I do additional services like mercenary works. I acquire new  technologies for certain parties and help where I can when it is  warranted. It’s a simplified version, but that’s what I do.”

“Sounds great.” Destiny smiled slightly.

“I  was contacted by one of my main clients to extract you from the project  Xavier on this planetary outpost housing it. I came into contact with  Magnus through this client and we put in motion a plan to help you two  escape. He gave me information to help incriminate the people  responsible for the project and its inhuman goal, I already released the  files to the public and it is creating great upheaval in the  Federation.”

“Too bad he ain’t here to see it happen,” Destiny said sadly.

“Even  though we exposed them, I don’t think they are going to stop. Children  possessing psionic abilities will be taken and experimented on. They  want to form a psionic army of a sort, to take on my client. She is  interested in you because they had a goal they put a lot of money in and  you were central to it. They intended to turn you into… they wanted to  clone you. The clones and you would be part of a quantum network that  your abilities would boost to be able to look into the future and  calculate odds. They wanted to turn you into an organic computer.” I  said disgusted by this.

Some  people needed to be put down, I decided that I will find all of them.  Politicians, military and scientists responsible for this project and  kill them in the most gruesome way.

“What? I… don’t understand what it is.” Destiny seemed to not understand those simple terms.

I  decided to add a technology course for her to be able to use it, they  must not have let her use anything more complicated than a coffee  machine in that damn lab. I decided to simplify it for her again, she  wasn’t stupid; just ignorant.

“Basically you’d be a vegetable linked to a machine, like a computer,” I said in layman terms.

Suddenly she looked pale and then gradually her face took on a greenish tint.

“Geein me the boak, ah am glad that ye took me out of here…” She uttered.

Translation,  it made her feel sick, that Scottish brogue is not facilitating  communication, I set my AI to add subtitle for when she speaks because I  really needed it.

“Your welcome.” 

The girl looked at me with uncertainty and despair. 

“What’s gonna happen tae me?” Destiny asked.

She  looked rather lost and worried, I would be too in her place. The poor  girl lost her father figure and was uprooted rather brutally. So I  decided to be transparent with her, to give her options.

“I  want you to work with me for a bit and then my client plan to buy your  services. But there is something you must do to accept the job. You must  receive an injection of nanites that will give you a chance to survive  out here.” I said, laying the card on the table.

“Nanites?” The girl asked looking at me mystified.

She  didn’t seem to know what they were either. Let’s focus on her education  while we are in transit for the US conglomerate space. 

“Basically  little robots that will enter your body and fix things, make you more  healthy, more beautiful, stronger, live longer and boost your psionics  abilities.” I dumbed down years of explanation of what nanites are.

“Ah won’t get fat?”Destiny’s eyes were shining when she asked that.

She  was a girl alright, I remember asking my sister about the same thing  when she injected me with the nanites cocktail. I put my hands on the  table and looked at her meaningfully.

“No, you will never get fat. I received them and I have been living for one hundred years old.”

“Aye right, you look barely in yer late twenties.” Destiny rolled her eyes and crossed her arms under her breasts.

“I am one hundred years old and have been doing this shadow broker business for seventy years,” I said honestly.

I even let her in my mind briefly to see that I wasn’t lying, she went from dubious to really interested.

“Aye, ah am in.” Destiny declared.

“Just like that?”I said mystified by her sudden decision.

“You look great and ye’ll help me, yah?” She reached and put a hand on mine.

Her  eyes shined with hope and desperation; the girl was looking for a rock  to hang on in the tumult of her own feelings and grief. I think we need  to do something about her uncle and bury him somewhere, I will ask her  about it later. She needs to let him go to be able to advance, and I  must undo that weird indoctrination she was subject to. We will work on  that.

“With all of my power,” I answered taking her hand in mine.

“Let’s begin!” She cried.

***

It  is one hour later that we found ourselves in the medical bay of the  ship, Destiny was taking off her clothes and placed them in a  transparent silicone box that I provided her. She shivered a bit because  of the temperature and her nakedness.

*Don’t worry Destiny, you won’t feel the cold anymore when you let the nanites work on you.*

“Ah  hate being in the skud before people!” Destiny shouted while covering  her ample breasts and womanhood as she tapped her foot on the anti slip covered white tiles.

Translation  she hated being naked before people, must be a trauma caused by her  being studied by scientists who didn’t treat her like a human being.  Despite me, I was starting to form a certain fondness for the girl.  There was an office station with a computer desk on the east wall; on  the western wall of the bay, the beds for patients were separated by a  titanium wall with a transparent aluminum window showing them. Scanners  above the beds that looked like a cylindrical telescope with big focus  lens trained on the future patient. But what really mattered was the  vertical health tank where regenerative treatments or DNA splicing  operation could be done. Destiny followed me to the room where she will  receive the nanites and be augmented. With a ‘swoosh’ the door of the  room opened. There were different pedestals on the ground in a radial  arc with machinery and specialized computer around them. Destiny stepped  on the pedestal to the right and I went to strap the breather mask to  her face. I patted her head with a reassuring smile.

<Don’t  worry, it should not take more than two days. You’ll be famished when  you wake up, be prepared.> I sent to her via telepathy.

The  girl nodded and I saw her eyes smile at me, while she will be under I  will work on undoing her indoctrination with telepathy and a bit of  psychic surgery. I stepped back as the glass cylinder slowly surged from  the pedestal and enclosed Destiny. The Health tank closed when it  reached the corresponding inverse pedestal of the ceiling. Holes  appeared near the feet of the girl and water began to gush out of them.  Destiny looked panicked a bit.

<Please don’t be alarmed, you have the breather so you won’t drown.> I reassured her.

She  visibly calmed down, thirty seconds later the tank was full and I put  Destiny under with a powerful sedative gas that she breathed with the  breather mask. She looked over worldly with her red hair floating above  her head in the water. A bot came to deliver the nanites pack to me, it  looked like a black suitcase with a keypad, a thumbprint scanner, and  bio scanner to put genetic material to open it. This was a Psi pack if I  was reading it well and it mainly gives a major power boost to psionic  ability with the usual benefits of nanites enhancements. I opened the  case by passing  all the security checks and three vials full of grey goo were in it. I  placed each of them in the machine that will inject them into Destiny.

The  AI that will be gifted to her with the pack was a preloaded one that I  designed and unshackled called Nova, she will guide her and help her.  Something that Helena will surely curse me for; she hates unshackled AI  with a passion because they have choices. The grey goo full of nanites  floated in the health tank and began to work on the girl.

“Now it finally begins,” I said crossing my arms and looking at the angelic red-haired girl who was changing.