Ethan

  The notification had been sitting in my peripheral interface for three days.

  "Upgrade cycle required. Recommend immediate execution."

  I knew what it meant by now: the link would be suspended, and drones would default to standing orders only.

  Just hope that nothing in Taboo's charming ecosystem decides to be creative during that particular window, and you'll be fine.

  No pirates raining fire from the sky, no angry mob, and no creatures trying to eat ya.

  Yeah, it will be fucking marvelous.

  On the flip side, there will be a few moments of precious silence.

  Virgil's been patient for three days, yet the machine has somehow managed to communicate something that feels remarkably like impatience.

  Yeah. I know. I should be grateful that THIS TIME I was given any semblance of time to prepare for it, rather than experience the abrupt shutdown.

  My reflection watches me from the precious few reflective places down here; I've made a certain peace with those reflections.

  Horns. Four bright lights where eyes would be. A metal plate. The arm that ...used to be mine.

  I don't like this thing I have become, but this is what I am.

  I really don't like whatever time of unmanaged drone autonomy looks like in an installation that has three active threat vectors, civilians trying to be cowboys, people in varying stages of adjustment to a new reality, and K??tr?.

  Especially K??tr?.

  The former Dexton's protege, of all people, I managed to snatch thanks to Murphy somehow.

  But I don't have a choice, and I know I don't have a choice, and I've been pulling everything I have close to home to prepare for that.

  We have to do it, and we do it right.

  On the bright side, it will help me do the next thing I plan better.

  The Pufferfish was ready.

  Restored was the more accurate word — Zek'lor and the collective had spent the better part of a week pulling it back from centuries of dormancy, cannibalizing what the Xen'ael Varkash had left behind and whatever the hangar's own supply alcoves still held.

  It could hover. It could move fast enough to matter through City 29's restructured tunnels and reshaped streets. I stressed on making it as fast as the thing can fucking go.

  Best part? The spines that had looked decorative turned out to be functional, which I appreciated grimly.

  It had downsides, too.

  It would not reach orbit. That was the one thing I had to make peace with early: whatever fight eventually happens up there, the Pufferfish wouldn't be part of it. What it could do was put a strike team somewhere unexpected, fast, without broadcasting the intention. On a planet where Dexton owned the sky and the tunnels were contested from below, that kind of lateral movement was the closest thing to an advantage I had.

  Lemela and Xyra came in first. The Versel and the Krynnak had found shared ground pretty much right away.

  Having shared the blunt end of whatever happens to slaves up here, and the shared space created by Virgil cemented the bond faster than any other process I know.

  Lemela's fur caught the light with its metallic sheen; the metallic silver of the first change had been tainted black. Her body was leaner — the reason, as I understood it, was that she had ended up choosing the infiltrator template.

  Xyra moved behind her with the particular economy of someone who'd learned to occupy less space than they needed to. She'd been doing that since... well, the very beginning.

  She had become bolder with time, ever since we went to rescue her mate, Vexx, but these little things still echoed the level of hurt she had endured.

  Q?l?th?s moved similarly, even if her leaner and smaller shape made it almost impossible to notice her. The Elerian's subtlety required apparently no effort, and she didn't have the infiltrator upgrade yet.

  Yr?sh and Xarlak drifted to a corner and went still, bioluminescent skin at a low, even pulse. The two Li'thirwisz had that code of theirs; it was practically like seeing two old friends in the same military unit. Without any human banter, that is.

  Aeolus settled along the far wall without being directed. The old machine moved with patience, the metallic claws on which it moved making it feel like an oversized spidery thing. It never interacted much, and Virgil used it as its voice on all occasions I asked it to do so.

  A substantial difference in scope and capabilities: the difference between accepting whatever input and choosing the ones that matter, or so Tessa explained to me at least.

  The former pirates Axyatl, Thra'graxx, and Zhiné shuffled in, looking wary of Xyra and Lemela.

  While I'd prefer not to have recalled them from the insertion point, I still didn't trust that they wouldn't rebel.

  I feared that in the instant that whatever system Virgil had set up went down during the update procedure, they would try to disconnect themselves.

  Better to deal with them here if that happened.

  The main reason for my fear walked in right after: K??tr?.

  She entered the vehicle bay with a bearing that treated deference as a tax lesser beings paid for the privilege of her notice.

  Four arms, four legs, eight eyes, and an insect-like body that reminded you of an upright spider.

  She positioned herself near the center of the assembled group with the precision of someone who had been the most important person in every room for so long that finding the center had become a reflex.

  K??tr? had the instincts of a command-class predator and the psychology of someone who had never once stopped racing to be the apex.

  -Alright.- The word brought the side conversations down without effort. I still wasn't used to the way a room full of beings who owed me nothing in particular went still when I spoke. I was working on not letting the discomfort show. -Thank you for being here. I'll keep this brief because we have a practical reason for the gathering, and because I know that listening to me is not the preferred activity of most people in this room. Virgil will run a mandatory upgrade. In approximately ten minutes, the collective link suspends. For those of you who are new, you'll feel it. You will notice the link dropping, the echoes of shared senses and knowledge fading. The zombie- drones will pause briefly on standing orders. Nothing dramatic, still, it will be dangerous. I wanted everyone in one location before it happens, rather than distributed across three levels with inconsistent comms. And away from the risk of being ambushed alone by those creatures.-

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  I let that settle.

  -The Pufferfish is also ready. This is a convenient time to put all eyes on it. But the real reason I called this gathering is that I've been running operations in compartments — different people knowing different parts of the picture. That ends today. Everyone in this room gets the full picture. You've earned it, and you will need it.-

  I felt K??tr? shift her weight.

  She'd been silent since she entered; she usually didn't do passive.

  -You have something to say.- I directed it at her. Not a question.

  Her multiple eyes settled on me as she answered.

  -Several things.- She began. - But basically, it boils down to: you control the information we receive. You control the network we exist within. You control the drones that enforce your decisions. A meeting in which you explain your plans to the people who must execute them is not a necessity. Just order us.- Measured, as always. Each word was placed deliberately, with the voice of someone who'd learned to treat language as ordnance and to select it accordingly.

  The room held very still.

  I tilted my head. The plate where my face used to be couldn't show what I was thinking, which was occasionally useful.

  -Kess, you never served in any form of formal military. That is why you speak like this. This is a briefing; we do this so that we're on the same page. I can order you, of course. But there's no point if you don't know the idea behind the order itself.-

  That landed differently than she expected. I saw the fractional recalibration in the secondary eyes. Good. I pushed further.

  -What I have to offer right now is information shared equally, decisions explained rather than just issued, and the room to push back before a plan is set. It's not democracy; I will still make the final call, but you have a say in the process. You have knowledge and expertise. It's precious. The rest gets built over time, if we survive long enough to build it.-

  The silence stretched out.

  K??tr?'s expression didn't change. But a secondary eye moved in a small arc. I was learning to read that angular face of hers: something positioned between contempt and reassessment.

  She had walked in expecting a certain kind of encounter, and this was not part of the model.

  -Continue, then.- Quieter than before. Something that looked like permission, offered from a position whose terms she was still deciding.

  Good enough.

  I looked at the room. All of them — the ones who'd chosen this, the ones who'd been pulled into it, the ones still in the process of deciding what it meant.

  -Right.- I said. -Let's talk about what we're actually dealing with.-

  The upgrade could wait.

  We had work to do first.

  ---

  The meeting moved faster than I expected. It always does when the work is real.

  Virgil's warning arrived while I was mid-sentence explaining the Blackwatch situation.

  "Drones in place. Defense directive issued. Upgrade cycle initiating."

  I became aware of the link in a way I usually wasn't — the weight of it, the particular texture of being connected to more than one consciousness at a time.

  Black.

  The link dropped.

  The drone feeds cut. The background texture of other people's experiences stopped at once.

  And in that gap, what I'd been keeping in a sealed compartment found the pressure was gone, and pushed through the seam.

  My wife.

  God, how had I forgotten the specific shape of her face?

  My kids — the small, particular weight of a sleeping child's head against your shoulder, the kind of weight you don't appreciate until it's been gone for what amounts to a geological epoch.

  The life I had, a life that had become history, flashed in front of my very eyes.

  I stood very still and let it be there for exactly as long as it was going to be there.

  It felt way too little.

  Then the link came back.

  Virgil threaded through the network with the seamlessness of something resuming rather than returning. The weight redistributed. The collective voices came back online. The world was operational again.

  I exhaled through a body that didn't technically need to breathe.

  The room was watching me. They'd all felt the drop differently, but Lemela and Xyra were the most experienced.

  Lemela's eyes held something quieter than curiosity. She'd been connected long enough to have a sense of what absence felt like. She didn't say anything. I was grateful.

  -All good.- My voice was level. Some things training handles without you, like closing a drawer full of a life you'd dearly wish you could have back.

  But I know I can't. There's no use in wishing.

  "Upgrade complete. All systems nominal. Collective link restored. You have control, Overmind Ethan."

  I checked the roster — all present and accounted for in the interface. I exhaled in relief.

  -Right.- I said. -Back to work. We need to get us a working shuttle and launch the assault.-