Chapter 6 - Trust and Trade-offs

  Darius sat on the edge of the lone metal chair, elbows propped on his knees, hands clasped tightly as he stared at the cracked concrete floor. The room had all the comforting charm of a prison cell—bare walls, no windows, and a thick, rust-streaked door with a single reinforced panel. No handles. Because, of course, why would there be handles? The people who’d brought him here weren’t interested in giving him the luxury of choice, let alone a way out.

  He sighed, shifting uncomfortably. Every now and then, muffled voices filtered through the door, sharp enough to catch the tone but not enough to understand. He’d picked out Finn’s voice once or twice, arguing over something. Arguing for him, apparently. Whatever that meant.

  Darius scrubbed a hand over his face, trying to shake the exhaustion pressing down on him. When Finn had asked him whether he wanted to hope that the Empire was feeling understanding or try making a run for it, he hadn’t expected… this.

  Really, he didn’t know what he expected. Typically Finn was the one trying to stop him from doing stupid things, not encouraging it. He’d never been one to plan things out much, but this really took the cake. Even if these people – whoever they were – were able to keep him under the Empire’s radar, what then? What was he meant to do, spend the rest of his life cowering in some random disused factory?

  This whole mess felt wrong—wrong that Finn knew these people, wrong that they apparently didn’t trust him, and wrong that he was stuck here waiting for a group he barely understood to decide if he was worth helping or worth tossing out. And Finn…

  He’d known the guy for years, but the way he moved through the station earlier, slipping through back alleys and weaving through darkened corridors, told him there was a whole other side to his friend. One that, evidently, kept close company with people who weren’t on the Empire’s Christmas card list.

  It was all just… too much. Too much for a guy who was just supposed to clock in, fix machines, and keep his head down. But apparently, that kind of peace wasn’t on the table anymore, not with… whatever was now lodged in his augs, lying in wait like some invasive species he couldn’t root out.

  The voice.

  He let out a long breath, eyeing the faint glow of his HUD, half-expecting it to flicker to life. It had been radio silent since he’d left his apartment, and the absence had been unsettling. Almost like he’d finally lost it. But he knew better.

  “Alright… you there?” he whispered under his breath, trying to ignore the tension coiling in his gut.

  After a beat, the faint buzz of static hummed in his ear. Then the voice, smooth and cold as ever. {I’m here, Mr Kallan. I assumed you’d need some time to process the situation.}

  “Oh, how considerate,” Darius muttered, his voice edged with sarcasm. “Where was this ‘consideration’ when you hijacked my life?”

  There was a brief pause, which could have indicated that the voice was either contemplating or ignoring his irritation. Hard to tell.

  {I apologise for the disruption to your life. There is little I can do about the situation now, but I am willing to provide what aid I can to rectify things once my objective has been completed, for which I still require your assistance.}

  Darius blinked, somewhat wrong-footed by the apology. He hadn’t expected this thing, whatever it was, to be so… polite.

  The voice continued, unfazed by his silence. {Regrettable as the circumstances are, it was necessary to integrate for operational security. The completion of my mission is an overriding priority.}

  Aaand there it was. Apologies weren’t worth much when the person apologising turned around and did the same thing again. “Yeah, about that,” Darius said, grinding his teeth. “You keep talking about your ‘mission’ and ‘important information,’ but you’ve been annoyingly tight-lipped about the details. You’re dragging me into this, so I’d like to know why.”

  {Knowing the details of my mission will not increase your chances of survival,} the voice replied. {It will only place you in greater jeopardy.}

  “Oh, good, that’s reassuring. Real comforting.” Darius shook his head, his voice barely above a growl. “You can’t just… show up in my head, screw with my life, and then tell me it’s on a need-to-know basis. Why the hell do I have any reason to ‘provide you with assistance’ if you refuse to tell me what you’re doing? What do I get out of this?”

  {I have rerouted the signal from your augs to prevent the Empire from tracking your location. Even now, they are attempting to trace your signal, though the nature of this location is helping.}

  Darius’s mouth clicked shut. Well, that wasn’t nothing. It was also precisely the sort of favour he hadn’t wanted to owe this voice. Technically speaking, it was something he only needed because of what the voice had done in the first place, but in fairness it was helpful.

  “Fine,” he said begrudgingly. “Then maybe you can answer me this. Why exactly does the Empire want you so bad? And don’t bother with the vague ‘I have important information’ line. I get that. But why does that make you dangerous to them?”

  Another silence. It lasted a fraction longer than he’d expected, as though the voice was weighing something it wasn’t accustomed to. When it finally replied, its tone was precise. {I possess data regarding certain activities the Empire wishes to remain concealed. This data needs to reach… individuals who can take appropriate action.}

  “Wonderful,” Darius grunted moodily. ‘Data that the Empire wishes to remain concealed’ could mean any number of things, none of which were great for his prospects of staying out of prison. Or, depending on how badly the Empire wanted to keep things quiet, his prospects of staying alive.

  He let out an explosive breath, pushing to his feet and starting to pace across the room. The lone camera in the corner of the room whirred gently as it moved to track him, and for the first time he considered that speaking out loud to himself in a sealed room probably made him look insane.

  Oh well. Nothing for it now.

  “So, what even are you, then?” he asked, angling his face away from the camera. “You’re not just, like, a person remote connecting to that nanite thing you were talking about, are you?”

  The voice responded, its tone cool and unfazed. {I am not a person. I am an artificial intelligence learning engram. My operational core is embedded within an adaptive nano-matrix, interfacing directly with your augmentations.}

  Darius scratched idly at the side of his face. “So, basically, you’re an AI that’s inside me.”

  There was a pause.

  “Yes.”

  Darius couldn’t help but feel the AI – and wasn’t that a whole thing he would have to unpack later – was revising its opinion of his intelligence. He couldn’t really bring himself to care. “Right, so… what do you actually need me for? Like, I get that you’re trying to get a message or data to people or whatever, but practically speaking, what do you want me to do? Do you just need me for my opposable thumbs, or what?”

  {At present, I require time to assess the current environment and plan the optimal approach to fulfil my objectives,} the voice responded, tone as neutral as ever. {I will inform you when I need your assistance with specific tasks.}

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  “Wonderful. Guess I’m ‘on-call’ then,” Darius muttered. As much as he didn’t like the way this was playing out, he really didn’t have much in the way of choices. Even putting aside the whole situation with the Empire – and that was a rather large thing to ‘put aside’ – he didn’t fancy his chances at getting this thing out of him. Whatever a ‘nano-matrix’ actually was, it sounded… complicated to remove.

  He didn’t even have health insurance.

  “Hey, while I think of it, do you have a name or anything?” he asked, curious. “I’ve sort of just been calling you ‘the voice’ in my head, but that’s already getting old.”

  {My creators assigned me the designation ‘Echo’}, came the response.

  “And I’m guessing you’re not going to answer if I ask who your ‘creators’ are?” Darius sighed for a moment before shrugging. “Whatever. Alright then, Echo, nice to meet you, I suppose.”

  The door swung open with a sharp, metallic clang, interrupting Darius’s reluctant greeting. He jerked his head up, immediately clocking the two figures who stepped inside.

  The men wore plain, hard-wearing clothing—thick canvas jackets, well-worn utility pants, and scuffed boots that suggested they’d seen their fair share of work in rough environments. They wouldn’t look out of place working at the shipyard, though there was a hardness to their expression that told him they weren’t the friendliest sorts.

  One of them, the stockier, broad-shouldered one, pulled a small device from the pocket of his jacket and fiddled with it for a moment before nodding to the other man. Echo’s voice crackled in his ear, startling him so much he almost jumped. {That device is a jammer. All external connections have been disabled.}

  Good to know, he supposed. The taller man, apparently satisfied with their security measures, gave Darius a politely detached look. “Let’s go,” he said, jerking his head toward the door. No introductions, no explanations.

  Darius stepped out of the cell, the two men flanking him without a word as they led him through a series of narrow corridors. The factory—if it could still be called that—was a maze of peeling paint, rusted pipes, and broken machinery that seemed more at home in a scrap yard than any functional operation. The place had the damp, metallic smell of long-abandoned industry, and every step echoed off the empty walls, amplifying the silence.

  They turned a corner, and he spotted Finn up ahead, standing beside a woman who all but radiated confidence, her stance firm and unyielding, eyes tracking his approach with sharp, calculating focus. Finn caught Darius’s eye, a familiar look of caution and don’t-screw-this-up painted on his face.

  It was a look he had seen often, though he was a little more motivated to pay attention than usual.

  “Kallan,” the woman greeted coldly. “Your friend here tells me you can be trusted. I don’t believe him, but I can be convinced to give you enough rope to hang yourself with. Tell me why I should expend my resources to help you.”

  “Uh,” Darius managed, taken aback by the woman’s intensity. “I—look, lady, I don’t even know who you are.”

  “Kara Voss.” The woman responded with narrowed eyes in a way that indicated he should recognise her name.

  He didn’t.

  Darius blinked. “…Cool, nice to meet you. I was meaning in a more… general sense, though,” he said, waving his hands around to encompass the group as a whole.

  The woman – Kara, he supposed – raised an eyebrow, turning to Finn. “You didn’t even tell him who we are?”

  Finn shrugged. “You wanted discretion, right?”

  Darius tried to ignore the slight sting of betrayal. Finn didn’t owe him anything, and considering how the Empire would presumably want to get a hold of these people, it made sense for him to keep quiet about it.

  Still hurt a little, though.

  Kara nodded slowly, clearly approving of Finn’s actions. “We’re part of the Freehold Alliance,” she said, turning back to Darius. “An independent network of free worlds and colonies. The Empire doesn’t control us, and we make it our business to give others a chance at freedom. Even if they don’t always have the means to fight for it themselves.”

  Darius swallowed, a bitter taste filling his mouth. “I’m… familiar,” he managed, keeping his expression even. She spoke with conviction, but all he could hear was another recruiter promising the same line his brother had bought into. The same one that had turned a rebellious, idealistic kid into a name on a casualty list.

  “You’ve been brought here because of Finn,” she continued. “But a friend’s good word isn’t enough. If we’re going to put our resources on the line for you, I need to hear something more convincing. Why should I take that risk?”

  He could feel everyone’s eyes on him, sharp and assessing. “Uh,” Darius managed, scratching the back of his neck as he scrambled to piece together a coherent answer. “Look, lady—I mean, uh, Ms. Voss—I didn’t come looking for a fight, alright? I just… things got complicated.” He winced, knowing how lame that sounded but unsure how else to explain his predicament without spilling his every personal failing onto the floor.

  He’d never been the best at interviews.

  Her gaze narrowed, and he rushed on, trying to fill the silence.

  “All I know is that I’ve got the Empire’s attention, which is bad news for me and anyone else in their path. If you can keep them off my back, I’ll do what I can to help. I don’t know what that looks like yet, but I’m willing to put in the work.”

  Kara’s lips pressed into a tight line, unimpressed. Beside her, the two men exchanged glances, both clearly sceptical, and Darius could practically feel their judgment settling around him like a too-tight collar.

  Finn, ever the loyal friend, cleared his throat. “Kara, I’ve worked with Darius a long time. He’s not much for speeches, but he’s more reliable than he looks.”

  “So you keep saying,” she said dryly, arms crossed. “But I suppose we’ll see.”

  The two men stepped back, their expressions settling into reluctant acceptance, and Kara gave Darius a long, final look. “Consider this a probationary period, Kallan,” she said, her tone cold and clipped. “Finn’s word has bought you that much. Don’t make us regret it.”

  Kara’s tone held a finality that left little room for Darius to argue, which, perhaps, was precisely the point.

  “Your augs are going to remain disabled for the duration of your stay with us,” she said briskly, folding her arms as if she’d anticipated his objection before he’d even voiced it. “Consider it a safety measure for everyone involved.”

  Darius opened his mouth to point out that his augs actually weren’t disabled yet before snapping it shut. Maybe they just hadn’t done it yet, or maybe Echo had done something to keep them running. Either way, it was probably best to keep that to himself for now. Finn might trust these people, but there was apparently a lot he didn’t know about his friend. It wasn’t in his nature to be cautious, but then, arguably, his reckless nature had gotten him in this mess in the first place, so…

  It did make him wonder just how much control his passenger really had over his augments. All of a sudden, he was glad he had never been able to afford more than ocular and auditory implants – he didn’t even want to think about a possibly malicious AI being able to control his limbs or shut down his organs.

  “Since you’re Finn’s friend,” Kara continued, her eyes narrowing, “we’re giving you a probationary chance, but know this: you’ll be watched, and if you attempt any sort of contact with Empire affiliates or otherwise jeopardise our operation, your time here will be short. And unpleasant.”

  Darius nodded, casting a quick glance at Finn, who shot him a faint, encouraging smile. It wasn’t terribly reassuring.

  “We’ll assign you tasks, both to see how reliable you are and to assess your usefulness,” Kara added, her expression unyielding. “Some will be straightforward, others may involve some risk. If you refuse to do anything without a very good reason, then…” She trailed off, shrugging as if tossing him out of an airlock was a routine part of the job.

  “Understood,” Darius said, swallowing back the bitterness.

  Kara gave a curt nod, turning toward the door, signalling that his fate was, for now, in limbo. “Finn, you have five minutes,” she said, and with a last, scrutinising look at Darius, she stepped out, leaving them alone.

  As the door shut, Finn turned to Darius, his face shifting from its usual casual indifference to something closer to concern. “Listen, just… don’t push them, alright?” he said, his voice low. “These people, they’ve got good intentions. Rough edges, yeah, but they’re not bad. Just… be on your best behaviour.”

  Darius snorted. “You make it sound like I’ve got a track record of riling people up.”

  “Do you really want me to answer that?”

  “Point taken.”

  There was an awkward silence for a moment before Finn spoke up again. “Look, I’m guessing you have… a whole bunch of questions, and I don’t blame you. I wish I could have told you about all this Freehold stuff, but I know how you feel about them after what happened…” he trailed off, seeing Darius’s expression tighten. “A—anyway, I’ll try to get in contact with you in a week or two, once they trust you a little more. We can talk.”

  It wasn’t quite an apology, but it was close enough for now.

  “Anything in specific I need to know about them?” Darius asked after a moment.

  It wasn’t quite forgiveness, but again, close enough.

  “A couple of things might help; Kara looks pretty scary – and, actually, she is pretty scary – but she’s reasonable. Don’t make trouble or try to slack off, and she’ll warm up to you soon enough.” Finn eyed him mock dubiously for a second. “Or she’ll realise what an idiot you are, but there’s nothing I can do about that.”

  Darius rolled his eyes, but Finn’s next words were serious enough for him to pay attention to.

  “I don’t know if it’s a good idea to tell them about your… passenger or not. Up to you.” His friend hesitated for a moment. “I’d be careful about it though. They already don’t trust you, and they definitely won’t trust… it, especially considering it came from an Imperial ship.”

  Finn gave him a parting nod, something that was presumably supposed to be encouraging but mostly just made Darius feel vaguely awkward. Whatever questions he had, whatever irritation still lingered, there wasn’t time for any of it. Besides, the way Kara’s men stood there, arms crossed and expressions carved from stone, made it clear that they weren’t offering him any more time. It was almost a relief when one of them wandered over and dispassionately told him it was time to go.

  Without another word, Darius turned to follow the man, feeling the weight of Finn’s gaze on his back as he left.

  excellent influences. And that Darius will stop making so many reckless decisions. Totally.

  great decisions—like reminding you there are 25 advance chapters waiting on . Just saying.