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  “Yes, more or less. But no such bargaining for you, eh? No family, no significant other, nothing preventing you from coming with us.” Her fingernails dug into the soft plastic chair at the mention of family, but she kept her voice from trembling when she responded.

  “I suppose...or I'm the best, the only person who can modulate a dozen different strains of plant for maximum growth, O2 output, and adaptability, both in microG and low G on Ceres.”

  “So you’ll do it?”

  “I have conditions,” she growled, hating that he wasn't really present in the room and feeling at a disadvantage somehow.

  “I'd have been vastly disappointed in you if you didn't.”

  “The land in Utah, Pando forest? You can forget your permits. I want it, the full extent of the forest plus a kilometer from the edge in all directions, deeded over to me.”

  Miller paused a brief moment, then shrugged. “Done. I must say, you were much more direct th--”

  “I'm not finished,” Pia continued defiantly. “You must have a seed bank, a master repository of some kind that you use when you build your nutrient supplements. I want a complete collection, a few seeds from every plant, bush, and tree left on Earth. That must not be as tall an order as it once was I imagine. The seeds will be accessible to me and only me at a replica of whatever storage facility that you currently use. And I want all this done and in writing before we leave.”

  “Well I'll be damned!” Miller smiled rakishly and rubbed his hand on one cheek as he sized up his options. “I'm not gonna lie, you caught me by surprise, but I like that.” A few more seconds of silence was broken by Miller.

  “The forest you can have, but the seed bank will take time. We can have a contract drawn up stating these terms immediately, but only if you come this week up to the spaceship so that you can make any final changes before launch.”

  “Up to the spaceship? Am I missing something?”

  “Yes, you are, along with the rest of the world. Enough for tonight though. Sleep. The next few weeks will be extremely busy.”

  “Goodnight then, Commander.” The title sounded silly, but no more so than the countless others men have dreamt up. At first Pia did not think sleep would be an option, but her racing thoughts fell away quickly once her jet lag combined with her fake field bed.

  Chapter 2

  The following morning she was startled awake by room lights and two women marching towards her in snug Natocorps uniforms. One held a small metal briefcase which she placed on the bedside table, while the other carried a neat stack of gray clothes. Pia instinctively clutched the sheets up around herself, but relaxed and sat up after coming to her senses.

  The assistants looked like twin librarians, each wearing their hair up in a tight high pony tail with no jewelry, or personality, to be found. One had red hair and the other brown, or else Pia might not have been able to tell them apart.

  The brunette spoke first, in a voice both calming and determined, “We're here to assist you in your preparations for launch. There is a great deal to do, so if you would, please get dressed and ready for the morning briefing.”

  Pia swung her strong bare legs off the bed and stood up, stretching her tall frame all the way to the fingertips. She was confident in her movements, a trait developed from years of living on her own. Scratches and bruises covered her body, and Pia was not at all embarrassed in front of this unwelcoming committee wearing only her underwear and a tank top.

  She picked up the gray heap of baggy clothes and blew out hard through pursed lips in disapproval. The pants got tossed to the floor as Pia opted instead to rummage through her pack for a pair of vintage jeans. As she wiggled her way into them, the twins traded looks of concern.

  “We were instructed to give you your uniform, miss,” they said, and Pia could tell they wouldn't give this one up without a fight.

  “Fine, here, calm down girls.” Pia grabbed a long sleeve shirt with the company logo across the chest and switched it out for her tank top. Then as soon as the twins relaxed a bit, she picked up her dusty green jacket and threw it on.

  The redhead softly asked. “Are you really unplugged?”

  “Is it that rare?” She was dreading the net implant, but knew it would be required for the job.

  “Everyone I know got theirs when they entered kindergarten,” the brunette smirked.

  “Well I was home schooled, my parents travelled a lot for work.” ‘Why am I talking about my parents for the first time in years, just to defend myself against these two drones?’

  “Even more reason, I can't imagine being out in the woods with no net.”

  “Can you just get on with it?” Pia asked.

  Both assistants must have sensed they had touched a nerve and regained their professional tone. “The implantation itself is fairly simple, but the transition will be rough I imagine, especially for an adult.” Pia could hear pity in their explanations now, like they were teaching a beggar how to eat at a dinner party.

  The twins continued, “The chip learns your individual brain patterns and will improve dramatically over time. For the first few days it may require you actually saying your instructions so it can use jaw vibration translation, but that will pass quickly. Next you will simply concentrate on thinking your commands, and eventually it will understand your requests without you even having to ask.”

  “That sounds awfully energy draining. Do they still need to be charged, or have batteries swapped or something?”

  “No, not since five years ago,” the redhead piped in. “The chip attaches itself to your temporal artery and sifts oxygen molecules from your blood through nanotears it makes in the artery wall. With that and your body heat, it can survive indefinitely.”

  “It's a symbiote,” Pia suggested. “Or a parasite actually.”

  “It's a work of art is what it is, shame to be given to a novice, no offense miss.” The pair were clearly stepping out of line, but Pia let their words flow right past her, unwilling to engage. She suddenly kept having to fight back thoughts of her parents. ‘What kind of daughter am I? How is Natocorps any less to blame for their deaths than Sinocorps?’

  Wrong place, wrong time. A mudslide caught them by surprise before they could escape. That's what everyone had told her as a child, but later she guessed at the truth. Her parents’ journals showed they were studying in contested lands. They must have stumbled upon Sinocorps soldiers destroying some village which was getting in the way. Eliminating witnesses was just another faceless crime by a faceless organization.

  The twins were still busy outfitting her with various security badges when Pia suddenly panicked. “Wait, can this thing read my thoughts?”

  “It's a bridge, between the rest of the world and your mind,” started one. “Imagine every comp, holo, vid, bot, and comm all connected together like pathways in front of you,” finished the other.

  “Jesus, can I turn it off?” asked Pia in genuine concern.

  At that the assistants were through trying to convert the savage in front of them and began simply answering Pia's questions as if a toddler was asking.

  “Yes, I suppose. You can tap three times over the implant site and think, or say, the words ‘standby mode’ and that will continue until you similarly tell it ‘resume normal operation.’”

  “When will I get this over with?”

  “Just lay back down, it's no worse than getting an ear pierced.”

  “I wouldn't know.” Pia took a deep breath and lay down on her bed, where the twins had put down a clean grey towel. One held her head still while the other put the cold metal tip of a hollow syringe at an angle up against her temple. Numbing agents preceded the actual injection, but she still felt its ice cold touch as the implant entered her skin and began turning slightly as its programming oriented it into the correct position flush against the artery.

  Then she heard it. ‘Beginning install protocol,’ the words came through as distant and sterile, but at the same time distinctly from her ow
n mind, as if she was the one thinking them. ‘Scanning process complete, initiating safety limits...complete.’

  Pia finally opened her eyes and relaxed her body which had contorted itself in fear on the bed. The twins were looking down upon her, their lips curled up in amused grins.

  “My brain just asked me how it might help me today,” Pia said in a daze.

  “Come, Miss. The morning briefing will begin soon and you still haven't eaten.”

  “I'm not hungry, maybe just some grapes?” suddenly the wall printer sprang into action and in under a minute a plate full of grapes appeared.

  “How did it…? Pia stammered. “Did I do that?”

  “Of course,” said the redhead. “You thought it, you said it, then your chip put a request in with the printer. Actually I'm impressed, your mind is catching on quickly, even if you aren't.”

  “We'll be late if we don't leave now,” chirped the brunette.

  Pia finished getting ready and grabbed a handful of grapes before accompanying them across the building. The implant was intruding on her every thought, making it difficult to concentrate. As she walked by rooms she could feel the presence of the various computer systems inside, and the carpet beneath her boots hummed from the cables running between the floors. What was until an hour ago a silent world of concrete and steel was rapidly coming to life around her.

  She had to focus. There were only a few days to get up to speed on a possibly trillion dollar mission, and she was listening to the floor purr. They arrived at two enormous marble doors, and as servants opened them up the twins quietly took their leave and retreated down a side hall.

  ‘These are the rooms where the history of the world gets decided’, Pia thought as she entered the conference room. The vaulted steel and glass domed ceiling towered above a luxurious round table made to look like redwood, but which was as artificial as the holo coming up out of its center.

  The room was awash with noise and imagery as Pia stood stunned at the entrance trying to make sense of it all. Electricity sparked through her mind carrying spaceship component specs and timetables and asteroid field maps and dinner plans and…

  “Lamotte?” It was Commander Miller’s voice coming from the far side of the table. Everyone turned and looked at her. ‘Standby mode,’ she thought furiously, but nothing happened.

  “Standby mode,” she whispered desperately, her anxiety building by the second. An elbow nudged her ribs, and she darted her eyes sideways in time to see Zee gently tapping his temple in a knowing way. She finally caught on amid more than a little laughter and performed the necessary three taps to trigger her chip. “Yes, sir?” she finally stammered.

  “Take a seat, please, Pia.” She marched quickly over to a seat farthest from Miller, and let her hair cover her embarrassment as best she could.

  “I must ask for your patience everyone,” Miller said as the rest of the group found seats. “Lamotte has only just been temp chipped this morning. She is the newest and final crew member of Cerex. After the unfortunate illness of our previous biologist, Lamotte has agreed to take over on short notice.”

  “Yeah, who knew he had a bullet allergy?” whispered a tall man off to the left, and suddenly Pia sat up in shock.

  Miller continued, “Now those of you who are involved with our lunar colonies know that the inevitable Corps War is already beginning. Drone raids have become an almost weekly fact of life, and many feel a full attack by one of the Multinats is coming soon. Due to this accelerated time frame, we will be forced to do final assembly of Cerex right out in open space. Too risky to stay at the Lunar Construction Site any longer.

  “So it's to be a zero G launch?” asked a young Scottish woman. She turned and began hurriedly talking with a short bull of a man by her side.

  “Yes. What Miss Barton and Colonel Vineland are currently discussing is that our new launch plan comes with some other changes as well. The good news is that the extra fuel we'll have by not launching inside the Moon's gravity well will help shorten our trip by…”

  “Damn, nearly a month!” exclaimed Ms. Barton.

  “Actually 34 days by our models,” continued Miller, “but the bad news is that no one has ever launched from zero G before, so logistics will have to be reexamined both thoroughly and quickly.”

  Pia was worried about the change, but everyone else seemed to be taking it in stride. She decided the only way to calm her nerves was to ignore them and jump in headfirst.

  “Commander Miller, I need to be hands on with the Cerex biomass immediately.”

  For the second time in the brief meeting, all heads pivoted towards Pia, but this time with more deference.

  “I admire your enthusiasm Pia, but the crew won't be joining Cerex until next week, once final preparations are made. Security dictates we separate the crew and hold for…”

  “You don't understand...sir. Whether the bio lab is lunar based or in orbit already, adjustments need to be made, and it will need special attention when undergoing the G-force of an orbital launch. I need to be on site now. Is there any way to get me there?”

  There was a long silence, during which the room stared at Miller to gauge how he'd deal with this demand. It was abundantly clear that this was a man unaccustomed to such interruptions. His face froze for just an instant, then melted back into his smooth corporate veneer of forced calm and confidence.

  “Teams of three will separate. Santos, Hixley, and Koeniger will lead the final loading and equipment inventory in Florida. Colonel Vineland, Barton, and Coburn will stay here for now to do zero-g launch sims and to coordinate mission communications. I will accompany McKinnon and Lamotte to the orbital station tomorrow to personally oversee the final assembly. I assume this will be satisfactory, Pia?”

  Pia nodded vigorously, and for the first time since Utah she felt up to speed on things. Everyone left the conference room through different doors. Pia chose the one where she entered, but in the hallway she was both relieved and dismayed to find no sign of the twins.

  Reluctantly she tapped her temple and tried thinking ‘resume normal operation’. Again the building came alive with data, her mind stretching away as far as she was able to focus. She shivered at the thought of what true experts with this equipment were capable of enacting.

  With very little guesswork Pia’s mental requests pulled up schematics for the building, and she quickly found her way back to her room. Her belongings were mostly still stored in her sturdy field backpack, so she sat at her desk and began practicing control over her implant.

  The whole hallway was empty except for herself and Zee according to the building registry. She wondered how he felt about being paired with her to head into orbit early.

  Before she could go find out she felt Miller’s comm signal in the hallway with her mind, saw the doors unlock through override, and finally the Commander himself appeared.

  Pia stood and began, “I was able to pull up the launch info for tomorrow, and it looks as if…”

  “You've done enough talking. You ever pull something like that again and I'll make you regret it.” Miller was pacing back and forth and fuming.

  “I...what?” Pia stammered.

  “You have a problem with the mission? You have a problem with the schedule? You come to me in private. I don't know what you’re trying to pull with this ‘I‘m so innocent’ act, but it ends now. I was fully aware that a zero G launch will affect the biomass, and your show back there only served to embarrass me. Consider yourself warned.”

  Miller glared at Pia, then headed for the door. “And I suggest you partner with McKinnon next door to go over orbital prep. Launch is at nine tomorrow morning.”

  With that he was gone, and Pia was left alone again wondering what the hell she'd gotten herself into.

  Chapter 3

  The launch went smoothly, with the corporate rocket lifting them quickly out of Earth's grip, turning early morning back into blackness. If all went to plan, that would be the last time Pia saw blue sky
for quite some time, and she missed it already. As the Earth receded behind them, the electric web in her mind fell away as well, leaving only the ship’s computer filling the void.

  Pia had been in orbit a handful of times before on consultation cases. Bumpy ride up, few days to tweak a malfunctioning life support system, then back down to the dirt. She hadn't been up in nearly four years, and this was no ordinary orbit jumper. Natocorps was a superpower, and its fleet of launch vehicles performed accordingly. Max G nets, aerogel padding, full nanocarbon skin, the ship was downright sexy.

  Enormous two stage rockets lifted their small crew vehicle easily into orbit in a massive display of wasteful luxury, first class tickets to space if there ever was such a thing. Pia wasn't sure what she expected to see in orbit, but what lay in front of the viewport most certainly was not it.

  They appeared to be approaching an old station from the early days of spaceflight, a clunky monstrosity nearly 200 meters long and 50 meters wide with simple solar arrays stretching out like branches from both sides.

  “Are we refueling here?” asked Pia.

  Miller smiled and began maneuvering to dock with the clunky station while Zee talked with its computer through his pendant holo.

  Then she felt a pulse of electricity buzz at her senses and realized what was happening. Multispectrum and intense, the information that flooded her mind was not a product of the rudimentary station, but rather that of what was hiding inside.

  Their transport locked onto the station and Miller led the three of them in unharnessing from their G-nets. Pia may not have spent a great deal of time in space, but moved like she was born there. As Miller and Zee grasped around for handholds, she pushed off her netting and performed what looked like a pike dive as she flipped in one smooth motion and landed lightly against the airlock door.

  “Well aren't we the little acrobat,” Miller quipped as he and Zee joined her, “out of the way now, Pia.” He typed in a secure code and the airlocks hissed in compliance.

  Once the room pressurized, they could hear periodic clanking from the far hatch. Voices on the other side got louder for a moment, then ceased as the hatch swung open wide. A giant young man with dark hair and kind blue eyes held the hatch with one arm while his partner jumped through the door. A stocky little man in glasses and a black Cerex jumpsuit, he was sweating slightly after rushing to greet them and then struggling with the ancient outer hull airlock doors.