Chapter 4 - Ghost in the Augs

  Darius sighed gustily, leaning back far enough that his couch creaked warningly and stared up at his ceiling.

  “Just what I needed,” he muttered to no one in particular. “A scammer.”

  And really, what else could it be? His augs had been reset that morning, and even with his occasionally… dubious browsing habits, he hadn’t had the time to pick up a virus or anything. He jabbed a finger toward his temple, not that it would help, but there was a certain satisfaction in poking the source of his frustration.

  “Look, buddy, I don’t know what your game is, but if this is some sort of extortion attempt, I’ve got bad news for you—I’m broke as hell. I’ve got about thirty-five credits to my name and more debt than I care to think about. And even if I wasn’t dirt poor, I’m not stupid enough to click on whatever shady links you’ve got waiting for me. So, really, this is just a massive waste of your time. And, more importantly, my time. Can you do me a favour and buzz off?”

  There was a beat of silence before the glitchy humm returned and the voice responded. {I am not attempting to scam or extort you, Darius Kallan.}

  “So spooky – you managed to find my name somehow.” He rolled his eyes. “Guess I’m paying Finn a visit to reset my augs again. At this rate, one of us is going to develop a complex,” he muttered aloud, more for the sake of complaining than anything else.

  With a sigh, he hauled himself up from the couch, shoving an arm into his jacket and wrestling with the sleeve that had somehow twisted itself into a knot. His evening, which he’d planned to spend catching up on old holos and not thinking about work, was officially shot.

  He reached for his keys, eyeing the door with the weary resignation of someone used to cheap tech and even cheaper security.

  {I require your assistance,} the voice said, crackling through his augs. {In return, I can provide help.}

  “Oh, my mistake, I didn’t realise you were offering to help me!” He let out a laugh, rolling his eyes and yanking the door open. “What are you gonna help me with, exactly? Let me guess—you’re from the Imperial Revenue Agency, and they’ve found ‘discrepancies’ in my accounts that I just need to clear up with a small transfer, or else I’ll be arrested? Or, better yet, you’ve got a distant relative who’s left me a fortune on some far-flung colony.”

  {The Imperial government is after you,} the voice said smoothly. {While I managed to disrupt some of the security systems, I do not believe it will take long for Imperial officials to learn that you accessed a highly restricted area of the warship.}

  Darius froze, halfway out the door. His mind did a hard rewind. “Excuse me?” His voice was low, cautious, tinged with a nervous edge that he wasn’t doing the best job of hiding. “How exactly do you know about that?”

  {I am the one that led you there.} The voice responded with almost no inflection, like it wasn’t admitting to hacking an Imperial warship. Oh, not to mention implicating Darius in about a dozen crimes.

  “You what!?” Darius hissed, barely keeping his voice down.

  A few doors down, Mrs Elsie gave him a pointed look, the kind that said she’d be reporting this latest commotion to building management, and maybe to his mother too, if she could manage it. He quickly ducked back inside his apartment, slamming the door behind him.

  {While integrated with the ship’s systems, I engineered some technical faults that would divert the ship to the nearest repair facility. When your work crew boarded, I accessed Imperial files and found you had relevant experience and an appropriate disposition for assistance. As such, I led you to the reactor room, where I was able to integrate with you and escape the vessel.}

  Darius opened his mouth, closed it again, and scrubbed a hand over his face, trying to catch up. There was a lot to unpack there. “What does an ‘appropriate disposition’ mean?”

  {Your criminal record indicated a dislike for the Empire,} the voice answered smoothly, acting like this entire conversation was perfectly reasonable.

  “Let me get this straight—you crashed an Imperial warship into Caldera, combed through some files, and then just decided, ‘Yeah, this guy hates the Empire; let’s make him an accomplice.’“ He shook his head, laughing weakly before something occurred to him. “Wait, hang on a second, what did you mean by ‘integrating with me’? Is that how you’re accessing my augs?”

  He might not have any love for the Empire, but that didn’t mean he was willing to get involved in… whatever the hell this guy was doing. If he could figure out how this guy was getting access to his augs, maybe it would be possible to cut off the connection somehow. And if anyone came around asking questions about him being in the reactor room, then he could… play dumb, maybe?

  Probably not the best plan, but then again, Darius had always been the type to just wing it.

  The voice crackled through his augs again. {Integration was the most effective means of ensuring our mutual survival. My core operating matrix is stored on a nanite swarm—a self-repairing, adaptive network. While the swarm is able to interface with almost anything, mobility is… limited. Thus, the need for your assistance.}

  Darius processed this information for a moment.

  “Nope. I’m out. This is way above my pay grade, and frankly, just a touch above my personal threshold for weird,” he muttered, pulling his jacket tight as if it could somehow shield him from this new reality. Without wasting another second, he spun on his heel and made a beeline for the door.

  Finn would know what to do. Or, well, probably not, but it wasn’t like he could have any less of an idea of what to do than Darius did right now.

  * * *

  “Hang on, let me get this straight. You’re saying that someone has hacked your augs and is telling you that there’s a nanite swarm inside your body, and they need your help?” Finn eyed him dubiously, taking a sip of his drink. “And you believed them?”

  Darius continued to pace back and forth in front of Finn’s couch, his own drink sitting untouched on the coffee table.

  “I know how it sounds, but just… humour me? Is it possible for this to be real?”

  Finn settled his drink on the coffee table and leaned forward, rubbing his palms together thoughtfully. “Even you’re usually not dumb enough to fall for something like this, so I’m guessing something has got you convinced that it’s not just a scammer.” He held his hands up placatingly at Darius’s glare. “Relax, no need to jump down my throat about it. Fine, I guess… maybe it’s possible? Nanite swarms are definitely a thing, but not how you’re describing them. I’ve heard some of the fancier ablative armour on the bigger ships uses swarms for some limited self-repair. Saying there’s some kind of, what, AI-powered swarm that’s asking for your help?”

  He shook his head. “I just don’t see it. I’m hardly an expert, but even I know that they haven’t cracked true AI yet – and that’s using the massive supercomputers they have out by Jupiter in Sol. Plus – and again, not an expert – I’m pretty sure the nanites they use for the armour aren’t active as such. They don’t have programming or anything; they’re just built into the armour itself and naturally react to certain conditions.”

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  Finn shrugged, reaching for his drink again. “So no, I reckon someone’s just got in your head.”

  Darius wanted to believe that. He really did, but part of him just… couldn’t. Finn gave him a sideways glance, clearly catching his hesitation. He took another slow sip of his drink before speaking up.

  “Alright, spill. I’m not an idiot – you’re clearly not telling me something. You’ve had your fair share of run-ins with scammers and bad mods, but I’ve never seen you this on edge. So, what gives?”

  Darius exhaled, raking a hand through his hair. In for a penny, in for a pound, he supposed.

  “You remember how I got stuck behind some malfunctioning doors this morning?” he asked.

  Finn raised an eyebrow. “Sure. Don’t tell me you think this is related?”

  “Well…” Darius winced.

  “Oh, come on!” Finn chided, “You can’t seriously believe that? The whole reason we were on the ship in the first place was that there were about a dozen glitches and power fluctuations. A random door closing on you isn’t a sign of some mysterious hacker.”

  “Except that it wasn’t one door, Finn. It was door after door, and every time I went through one, it would lock behind me. And…” Darius hesitated, “The doors ended up leading me to the Reactor.”

  The words took a moment to sink in, but when they did Finn stiffened. “Wait, what? Darius, you better be messing with me right now.”

  He could clearly read the answer in Darius’ expression. “You’re not. Crap. Do you have any idea how serious this is? You were in a restricted area. That’s not a joke, man.”

  “Do you see me laughing?” Darius shot back.

  Finn ran a hand down his face. “That… that shouldn’t have even been possible. They’ve got deadlocks on those doors. No one on our team should be able to access that, not even by accident, not even with the power fluctuations. Hell, they should’ve had armed guards posted if the systems were down.”

  “Oh, just wait – it gets worse,” Darius drawled, darkly satisfied with the plaintive look his friend gave him. “See, there was something leaking out of the consoles, a weird sort of metallic liquid. When I went to touch it, it sort of… I don’t know, jumped at me. Soaked right through my skin, but it didn’t burn or hurt or anything.”

  “Darius,” Finn groaned, exasperated. “You have to be the dumbest guy I know. Who goes into a place they shouldn’t be, sees a weird fluid leak, and decides to stick their finger into it? Should I just be grateful you didn’t stick anything else into it?”

  Darius shot him a dry look. “Hilarious. Anyway, as soon as the… whatever it was hit me, the power shut down and all the glitches stopped.”

  Finn winced, getting the problem immediately. “So it was probably the cause of the glitches, then. And, what, you think the liquid might be the ‘nanite swarm’ that whoever hacked your augs is talking about?”

  Darius ignored the audible air quotes Finn had placed around the nanite swarm in favour of nodding.

  “I… well, I’m really hoping I’m crazy, and there’s a logical explanation for all this,” he said quietly, “But I can’t help but feel there isn’t.”

  Finn sank back into the couch and looked at the drink in his hand mournfully. “I knew I should have gone for something stronger,” he muttered.

  Darius finally stopped pacing, sinking down into the spare chair and tossing back his own drink, looking around his friend’s apartment and giving him some time to think. Sparse as it was, the room managed to be both cluttered and bare—scattered tools, a pile of mismatched clothes on an old chair in the corner, and a few half-empty takeout containers from who-knew-when decorating the chipped coffee table.

  “So, let me just make sure I have this straight,” Finn started, finally glancing back at Darius, who was still pacing a path in front of the couch. “Some… something is talking to you through your augs, claiming it’s a nanite swarm that somehow got inside you—and that’s after it hijacked the doors on an Imperial warship and led you into the reactor room.”

  Darius stopped pacing long enough to meet Finn’s gaze. “Yeah, that’s about right.”

  Finn raised his eyebrows, fingers drumming against the edge of his glass. “And did this… voice say what it needed help with? Or has it been chatting you up since?”

  “No,” Darius admitted, sinking into a chair across from Finn. “It’s been quiet since I left my place to come over here, but my augs… well, they’re glitching out again. Same static, same random flickers. Feels like it’s lurking in there, waiting to jump in.”

  Finn made a face and leaned forward, setting his empty glass down with a faint thunk. “Did it at least tell you why it’s camping out in your augs? Some idea of what it actually wants, other than… I don’t know, lurking in the back of your head?”

  Darius let out a frustrated sigh, running a hand through his hair. “That’s the part that doesn’t make any sense. It said something about ‘mutual survival,’ but that’s it. Nothing about what it’s surviving, why it dragged me into this, or how any of this even works.”

  Finn leaned back, crossing his arms as his gaze travelled to a stain on the wall that might once have been a coffee splash—or a spill of something less pleasant. “Okay. So it’s giving you the bare minimum. No specifics on its needs, no answers about how it ended up in you, and it’s causing your augs to act like they’ve got a bad mod.”

  “Pretty much,” Darius replied. “I’m getting the impression that this thing doesn’t care if I know what’s going on. It’s just… waiting.”

  “Sounds like it knows you don’t have many options,” Finn muttered, his expression thoughtful. After a long pause, he shook his head and gave a wry grin. “Alright, I’ll humour you for now. If it is some sort of nanite swarm or experimental tech, there has to be a reason it’s in survival mode. Tech like that doesn’t just… end up loose in the reactor room. It’s too risky, even for the Empire.”

  Darius sank back, his fingers tapping a restless beat on the arm of his chair. “And there’s no way to figure out what it wants or how to shut it out, Finn. It’s integrated into my augs; whatever it is, it’s got full access.”

  Finn raised a sceptical eyebrow. “Right. And if you’re right about it being the source of the ship glitches… Well, that’s more than I’ve ever heard of a nanite swarm being able to do. Even in ablative armour, they’re passive, like I said. They don’t coordinate, don’t hack systems.”

  “So you’re saying this thing, whatever it is, shouldn’t be able to talk to me, either?” Darius asked dryly, crossing his arms.

  Finn rubbed his temple, chuckling darkly. “If it’s legit, you’re in uncharted territory. Either way, you’d better keep your head down until we know what we’re dealing with. The last thing you need is to start drawing Imperial attention over this.”

  Darius grimaced. “I didn’t exactly get a choice about being involved. So where does that leave me?”

  Finn shrugged helplessly. “I can try resetting your augs again. Doubt it’ll do anything, but it’s worth a shot.”

  With a resigned sigh, the man got up, walking over to a cluttered shelf near his workbench and started rooting around for the cable he needed. The whole place was strewn with tools and assorted gear—standard for Finn, who seemed to have a knack for both collecting and losing equipment. After a few seconds, he found a suitable cable and motioned Darius over to the couch, where he dropped back into his seat with a tired groan.

  Finn gave him a sideways glance. “Here we go—get ready to start from scratch again.”

  But before he could go through with the reset, a low rumble interrupted them, causing both men to glance toward the window. A moment later, two shuttles roared overhead, low and fast with sirens blazing. Darius and Finn shared a look.

  “What do you want to bet…” Finn trailed off.

  “Sucker’s bet,” Darius replied grimly. “That’s in the direction of my apartment.”

  Finn’s shoulders slumped, and Darius mirrored the movement, the tension draining from both of them as if some invisible thread had finally snapped. The weight of what those sirens meant settled over them, heavy and inevitable.

  “Well,” Darius muttered glumly, managing a wry half-smile. “Thanks for trying, Finn. Guess the Empire’s sharper than I thought.”

  Finn didn’t respond right away, just stared at him for a moment, lips pressed tight. Then, as if a switch had flipped, he stood abruptly, moving with a new, unfamiliar intensity as he crossed the room. In three quick strides, he was at the window, pulling down the blind with a jerk, shutting out the last streaks of neon from the streets below.

  When he turned back, his expression was unlike anything Darius had seen before—no trace of his usual smirk, no lightness in his eyes. There was a sharp edge there, something fierce and focused that made Darius sit up a little straighter.

  “Listen,” Finn said, voice low, measured. “You’ve got two choices here, Darius, and neither one is pretty.”

  Darius blinked, the gravity in Finn’s tone catching him off guard. He’d expected Finn to laugh it off, maybe shrug and let him make his own mess. But this Finn was different—controlled, even determined.

  “First choice,” Finn continued, his gaze never wavering. “Turn yourself in. Maybe the Empire’ll buy a good story, that you were in the wrong place at the wrong time, that whatever’s in your augs was just a… mistake.” He glanced down, the scepticism clear. “But we both know that’s a long shot. They don’t like loose ends. And with your record…”

  Darius huffed a dry laugh. “Yeah. Not exactly their favourite citizen.”

  Finn’s jaw tightened, and he stepped closer, eyes locked on Darius. “Or—” He paused, seeming to weigh his following words carefully. “You run. Now, before they track you down. I’ve got… contacts. People who know what it’s like to keep clear of the Empire. Not exactly law-abiding, but they know what they’re doing.”

  Darius studied his friend, surprised by the sheer determination written across his face. This wasn’t the easygoing Finn he was used to, the one who shrugged off rules and treated everything like a game. This Finn was serious, focused, and—if Darius wasn’t mistaken—afraid for him.

  He swallowed, the decision looming large. “Run?” He tried for a grin, but it fell flat. “Sounds like a one-way ticket.”

  “Maybe,” Finn admitted, voice softer now but still steady. “But it’s better than sitting around waiting for them to haul you in. I know people who could help. I know how to make this work, Darius.”

  Darius took a deep breath, letting Finn’s words sink in. His options were terrible no matter how he spun them. He looked down, hands tightening around the edge of the couch. “Screw the Empire,” he muttered, meeting Finn’s gaze with renewed resolve. “But… where do we start?”

  Finn’s eyes flickered with a fierce glint as he nodded. “Alright. Follow my lead. We’ve got a chance, but we’ll have to move fast.”

  25 advanced chapters on down there.