Page 2 of Mutiny

For a moment I had a brief splash of raging jealousy.

These aliens had implants that allowed them to connect to the technology around them, and I desperately wanted that. I hadn't seen anything that even remotely looked like a control panel. All I needed was a keyboard and a screen, and I would figure out how to hack into the system and get the information I needed, but there was nothing. The only screens were the ones on the machines, and those were limited to each device.

Worse than that, they weren't in some alien language. They were all picture- and number-based.

"That is none of your business, and the log is malfunctioning," I said, going on the offensive. Bulwark had stood in that corner for days, saying just about nothing, and now that I was on the brink of mutiny, he decided to snoop into what I was doing? He could alert the Captain and ruin everything. "Shouldn't you figure out something better to do than bother me? Go find something else to do."

"My only task is to demonstrate non-coercive cohesion capability," he said, his tone echoing a small note of frustration, the first sign of any emotion I'd seen in his rock-hard facade. "I've never been given such an unspecific task before. I don't know how to do it. I have been watching you because you are the most interesting human, and I thought in observing you I might figure out how to accomplish my task."

"Who gave you that task?" I asked, my defensiveness making small space for curiosity.

"When I applied to be a crew member," he said. "That was assigned as part of my evaluation."

I caught another whiff of mint and flowers, and I almost leaned into him, almost took a deeper breath and let the smell relax me.

Instead, I tensed.

"Well, you aren't going to accomplish it by bothering me," I snapped. I held the small part tight against my body, hopefully hiding it from any spying eyes.

A single person couldn’t watch every camera at once…assuming there were cameras at all. I hadn't spotted anything that looked like surveillance, but it was better to be safe than sorry. My plan was simple: act normal, keep the finished tool hidden, and head out tomorrow on my regular morning walk. I’d established that routine for this exact purpose, and tomorrow, it was going to get me to my target.

I got out of that room, away from all that stupid muscle and delicious smells, and went back to my bedroom so I could spend the night pretending like I was a totally content individual who wasn't going to mutiny in the morning.

TWO

BULWARK

Mei was going to get herself killed.

I stood with my back against the wall in the common room, waiting for the morning hours to arrive, adjusting my ears so I would catch the sound of Mei exiting her room to go on the walk routine she had established to create the appearance of normalcy and lull the ship into a sense of safety.

I assumed that it hadn't noticed that she was planning to attack it, because it hadn't changed her label from guest to hostile. That was my best guess, given that it didn't actually talk to any of us directly. It had set up a management subroutine to handle our queries and cut us off from the systems I could access while Plexus was in control, though I could still access the media storage, which was a relief.

I caught the sound of Mei's door opening and the distinct pattern of her gait as she walked across the metal floors, the soft shuffling of her dross uniform making barely any noise. I could hear her even though there were many twists and turns; the metal of the maze's hallways was enough to catch and carry the sound to me. The humans hadn't realized how sensitive my ears were. I could fold them up to block out sudden loud noises, but fully extended like they were now, I could catch the slightest sound.

It was why I knew what she was up to.

And why I was going to stop her.

I didn't follow Mei.

I already knew where she was going.

I waited in the maze, grateful the ship hadn't rearranged it since it added the room the humans called a kitchen. When I first woke up without my control chip, having discovered a human had performed primitive brain surgery to remove it, I didn't understand what was going on at all. The ship was free. I shouldn't be alive. Yet there I was, alive on a Vaurelcar that had broken free from Calicium control and, for some reason, decided not to kill all the Calicium units onboard. It had sequestered the humans in a section of the ship cut off from its core, the only place it was vulnerable to them, but it had provided them with a twisting maze of hallways to explore. The maze had supply rooms attached at random intervals, resupplying them with materials and nutritional cubes. The humans went out every day hunting for them, coming back with big smiles and transport carts full of their "found" treasures.

I didn't understand it at all.

I knew that non-Caliciums had non-productive activities that served inefficient purposes of pleasure, play, and social connection, but I had never seen it in person. I was a basic unit, not an infiltrator. I'd spent my entire life on this ship. I was assembled in its processing room when it was newly commissioned. It was the only home I knew.

Whether it was free or under control, I would protect it.

But more importantly, I wanted to protect her.

She was clever about her subterfuge. The other device she had finished and used already had clued me into her nefarious intentions, so I had taken to watching her work on a new device. She had slowly been manufacturing one part after another that seemed to be for one thing, but had been subtly modified in ways that were not quite right. I hadn't seen the final product she was making with all those parts, but I knew it would be dangerous in more ways than one.

"Mei, you're up early!" one of the other women, the one called Andrea, called out, and I heard Mei stop.

"Just out for my morning walk," Mei said.