exterior interface compromised, off/on circuitry compromised.
The eye blinked closed around her. Within was a garden, green and yellow and purple, in bright primary colors that looked too artificial to be tangible; yet she could feel the grass beneath her bare feet, smell the cinnamon scent of the flowers. A figure walked towards her with jerky quickness, a figure shaped like a man sculpted out of living water.
help… meeee… it said, in a breathy whisper. Something stirred in the middle of its forehead, between blank silver eyes.
Joat reached in and grasped the tendril, pulling it out into the light. It came easily, and then slid through her fingers. The end of it split and split and split again, into hair-thin threads that reached for her eyes and ears and mouth.
A knife appeared in her hand; where the edge moved, the stuff of space split and bled chaotic patterns of moving light. She used the knife to section the onrushing tentacle, then again, so that there were four ends. Those she wrapped around her wrists, moving hands and arms in an intricate pattern that tied the tentacle into a huge knot whose convolutions led the eye down and away along a path with no ending. More and more of it flowed out of the water-sculpture figure, turning it clear and transparent. The silvery fingers came up and began to knot and twist at the body of the tentacle themselves, and…
… she fell forward into the figure's open mouth.
Stone jarred beneath her feet. She was in a library, an ancient library of leather-bound books in shelves that reached towards the dark coffered wood of the ceiling. Gilt flaked from their spines, shining in the light of the burning logs in the big stone fireplace that occupied one wall. A stranger in a plush smoking robe was sitting in an overstuffed leather armchair beside the fire, eating books. His mouth stretched as each folio-sized volume was pushed home; then he belched slightly and took a sip from the snifter of brandy in his other hand, before reaching for a new volume. Gaps stood on the shelves, like raw wounds, bleeding sorrow.
There was another chair and table on the other side of the fire. Joat sat in it, and opened the book lying closed. The page was blank, but columns of figures and letters appeared as she ran her finger across it. Pages flipped forward, and then she was standing with the book held open before her.
"Perhaps you'd like to eat this?" she said.
There was no mind behind the eyes that looked up a her, only hunger. The figure's hands snapped out and dragged the book near; she braced her feet and hauled backwards, but the strength in the fetch's arms was beyond her. The book plastered itself across the avid face of the eater.
His lips parted in a vast dolorous gape to take it in, but the book grew faster. Joat could feel it sucking at the skin of her fingertips as she released it; the leaves closed around the eater's face, and now his hands were scrambling to pull it free, but the book wriggled forward, growing, licking hungrily at his skin. The head began to squeeze forward into the jaws of the book, and the figure rose and staggered off across the library. As its substance flowed forward into the pages it dissolved, matter breaking up into a whirlpool of off/on/off/on/off, databits streaming into their new matrix.
The walls of the building shook as the book finished its task and fell to the floor.
Joat stooped to pick it up, and-
Bros stood, watching the figure slumped in the chair. He could see the sweat running down from below the padded rim of the interfacer unit; figures scrolled by on the screen before her, blurring in their speed.
His teeth clicked together in shock. Direct interfacing like that was illegal, outside carefully-supervised research settings. There was no telling what could happen when you linked your brain's own operating code with a comp system like that!
And there was nothing he could do; interrupting would be more dangerous than leaving her be. He felt an enormous upwelling anger, and wondered at it even as the muscles of his neck and shoulders tensed in rage.
What's it to me if the idiot kills herself? A waste of potential, yes, but-
Joat started convulsively and threw the interfacer helmet aside. Sweat darkened her flax-colored hair and plastered it to her skull; dark circles stood out like bruises beneath her eyes. Bros opened his mouth to speak, or bellow.
"Get out of here," she growled, turning back to her work with obsessive intensity. Her fingers blurred across the keyboard.
"Gotta be sure, gotta be sure," she muttered to herself. "Got it."
Bros craned his neck, trying to make out the flying stream of data. Joat did something and its progress slowed enough that the individual characters could be made out. They were some sort of encryption, vaguely familiar. He leaned forward for a better look and thoughtlessly placed his hand on her shoulder.
The punch was so unexpected that it almost connected. His hand snapped up to catch her fist, moving automatically to clench and stab at a nerve junction. Joat sprang to her feet then, putting the coiled strength of her body behind a head-butt aimed at his jaw and strong enough to shatter bone. Bros yanked her off balance and spun her around, twisting her captured hand up behind her back.
But gently, he didn't want to hurt her and he sure didn't need to add to her hostility. That nearly cost him a broken pubic bone as her heel drove backward. He staggered away, curling around the pain in his lower gut, and Joat writhed free like an eel.
Is she on drugs? he thought, breath wheezing out behind clenched teeth. Blank ferocity met his eyes, and he forced himself into the ready position.
Seg watched in astonishment as the two Terrans wrestled. Why are they fighting?
Bros had assured him that Joat was on their side: He glanced at the screen where she'd been sitting and his attention was caught by a familiar symbol. Ah, yes, he knew this one.
Flexing his fingers to loosen them up, Seg took Joat's seat and began to work.
query; identity.
He entered it and continued, all twelve fingertips hitting the board microseconds apart. Yes, it was the program-and very neatly tied up in mid-operation, if in an unorthodox way. But it was all there, ready to come out the minute the AI's own defense program relaxed. Better to deactivate it completely…
"Thank you."
Seg looked up, blinking each pair of eyes in sequence. A voice-program too; very good, perhaps a little flat on the intonations.
"You're welcome," he said. "That ought to do it. And this will set it to eating itself. You can let it go, now."
Joat froze. The cable-strong arms that pinioned her relaxed.
"Will you stop trying to kill me, please?" Bros said in her ear.
"When you stop trying to break my arm."
They rolled free and stared at each other warily. "Spook," Joat muttered, disgust in her tone.
"Maniac," Bros Sperin replied, then smiled at her. The grin caught her unawares, and she found herself smiling back. It was crooked, but genuine.
"Is that another spook?" she said, moving towards her control couch. "And what the fardling void is et doing with my AI?"
"Yes, I am a spook," the Sondee said. "Seg!T'sel, male, weapons development specialist. I'm clearing up this infiltration program. I helped design it, it was stolen-it's all on a need to know basis."
Bros smothered a snort at the sound of the phrase.
"I do, really, really, need to know," Joat began dangerously.
"Yes, I think we do," another voice said from the entranceway.
Joat and Bros turned. Joseph stood there, arms crossed; in his right hand was a compact, chunky-looking weapon. Bros recognized it; chemical-energy sliver gun. Messy, but very effective; the length of duramet tubing Alvec was holding in one hand and tapping into the palm of the other probably would be, too.