“Alamo, command confirmed. Proceed with the injections.”
Driving, hot pain. White hot. Blurring.
I could see, and I could still scream, until the arm that wrapped around my neck looped itself around my chin and skull. The neck needle was the worst, I think. It dug into my flesh. It drove in—worming. It wasn’t the burning stuff it pumped into me that was the most painful. It was those five worming needles. I felt each of them squirming inside my body at five different points, like a team of steel tentacles they rooted around for a thick artery upon which to implant themselves.
I felt blood and sweat run everywhere from my lanced open skin. The Alamo was a machine. It knew no bedside manner, no gentleness. No mercy.
I could not open my mouth to scream, but my lips were fluttering with blasts of heaving breath. I snorted through my nostrils and made long nasally screeching sounds using those twin, tiny outlets. I tasted metal in my mouth and smelled it in my sinuses. The pain went on and on, spreading in a dark burn throughout my body.
I felt them when they reached my spine. They felt like a thousand ants with electric spikes for feet. I felt them when they reached my guts, too. I was filled with gallons of boiling blood.
And at last, I felt them reach my skull. As my eyes filled with glinting flecks and my vision dimmed to nothing, I lost consciousness.
-17-
I awakened a new man. This might sound like a good thing, but it wasn’t. I felt different, as if parts of my body had been sawn off and sewn back on again. My skin was different. It felt stiff—and when I shifted and groaned in discomfort, my skin resisted my movements. It felt like—like I was wearing a wetsuit, perhaps. A wetsuit made of stiff, unyielding fabric.
I lifted my hands to my face. On each forearm I saw a white circle. I nodded to myself, grimly. The nanites had repaired the hole they made. But they left their odd, tell-tale scars, just as they had on Sandra’s severed fingers.
I looked around for Sandra. I was still lying stretched out on my easy chair, where I’d been spending too much time lately. Sandra wasn’t in the room. I frowned. How long had I been out? I opened my mouth to ask the Alamo.
Two hours, twenty-six minutes.
I jumped. I looked around, my eyes rolling in my head. It had been the Alamo, and her voice had spoken in my head. Was my hearing different now?
Alamo, can you hear me? I thought.
Yes.
Very startling. I wasn’t sure if I liked this. Was I part of some nanite nation now? Could I hear what they were thinking? Obviously, they could hear me.
“Is this telepathy or something?” I asked aloud.
No. We have installed mental interpretation circuits in your brain. The electrical behavior of your brain is then converted into a radio signal for unit-to-unit transmission.
“Thanks for telling me about that part in advance.”
No attempt was made to inform you.
I sighed. I figured that sarcasm would forever be lost upon the machines. They just didn’t have a sense of humor.
I heard something fall to the floor, and before I knew it I was up and standing.
“You’re awake!” said Sandra from behind me. “And moving very fast. I was worried. I figured you’d die on me and leave me alone on this damned ship. Did you ever even think of that?”
I looked at her. She had come out of the kitchen chamber. She had been carrying a beer, but must have dropped it when she saw me. The beer had made the noise that had made me jump, I realized. The can rolled on the deck, glugging out its foamy contents. Each glug didn’t stain the floor, however. Days ago I’d built a program into the Alamo to go porous and let liquid waste dribble out of the ship when we dropped it. As a messy person, I found this very convenient.
But I was still puzzled over my speedy jump to my feet. I barely had the thought of getting up, and I’d vaulted to my feet. It felt strange, almost as if my muscles hadn’t done the work. Almost as if some other force had propelled me, as if a kid’s hand worked my legs and I was some kind of doll.
“You spilled your beer,” I told Sandra. I tried a smile. It didn’t come easily, but I figured she’d earned one out of me by now.
She snatched it up and handed it to me, half-empty. “This one’s yours.”
I drained it. “That was exactly what I needed,” I said. I looked at her and she smiled, almost shyly. She took a step backward. Something was different.
Then I had it. She didn’t have any snake-like arms wrapped around her. For the first time since the ship had revived her, she was free to move about and do as she pleased. No wonder she was smiling.
I had another impulse then. The impulse to grab her up in my arms and kiss her. It’s funny, the way humans behave when trapped together and stressed. We tend to bond. It’s only natural, I suppose. We’d fought and survived together. We’d seen plenty of each other’s skin and been intimate in a dozen ways, living close together for days.
She smiled at me with half her mouth. I took it as an invitation.
Then my body launched itself at her.
I almost killed her, I think. It was a close thing. The second I realized I was airborne, traveling the short distance between us in a single bound, I gave the mental order to halt, to desist, to avoid crashing into her.
I jerked away as if swatted by a giant’s hand. I flew into the far wall, the one that crawled with golden beetle ships. I hit the wall, and it hurt—but only a little. Something had cushioned my landing. I turned my head to see what I’d landed on. There was nothing there but the metal of the ship’s hull.
“Are you okay?” asked Sandra, coming after me. She laid her hands on my arm. “What the hell was that?”
“What did it look like?” I asked, gingerly touching the back of my skull where I’d crashed into the wall. There was a small bleeding spot in my hair. I touched the wall with probing fingers. It didn’t feel soft at all.
“You just suddenly leapt at me,” said Sandra. “It was amazing. Then you changed directions somehow and twisted in mid-air. Then you crashed into the wall as if someone had fired you out of a cannon.”
Alamo, I thought, when I’m not in a combat situation, please tone down these improved reflexes I seem to have. I don’t want to hurt my own people.
Settings can only be adjusted by the operator.
Great. I had to use self-control. I got to my feet experimentally, half-expecting to launch into the ceiling. Things progressed much more smoothly this time, however. I noticed that Sandra stood well back when I got up. She watched me with big eyes.
“I’m okay,” I told her. “I think something the injections did to me caused this. I think they made me stronger.”
She nodded, pursing her lips. I walked toward her, slowly, stiffly.
She watched me.
“I’m controlling it now. I’m new to this. I’m going to try to touch you as gently as I can, okay?”
She blinked. She extended a hand toward me.
Oh great, I thought, now she’s scared of me. A perfect romantic moment had been ruined.
I took her hand and kissed it gently. “See?” I said. I studied her face, looking for signs of pain. Was I holding her fingers too firmly? Was I grinding her bones together? I almost couldn’t feel her hand in mine.
She smiled back. “Okay,” she said. “I’ve got an idea. Just stand there. Close your eyes. Try not to react.”