Page 43 of Fated to the Hunter
The sound of shattering glass sent new frissons of fear down to my fingers and toes. The flyer had smashed a window with its spiked tail. I used the renewed burst of energy to run down the hall to the library and lock myself in. I went to the only window. There was a ball of flyers in the distance, all tangled up in wings and limbs. I watched in horror, unable to do anything, as it plunged out of the sky.
Bael’k was crashing!
No. No. No, no, no. This wasn’t happening. It was less than an hour ago when I was right here, celebrating our potential victory. And now everything was all FUBAR.
The hallway erupted in clangs and crashes as the flyer squeezed itself into a passage not designed for its wings, reminding me that I was still prey. It sounded like it was heading down the opposite hallway, so I took the opportunity to carefully, and as silently as possible, shove the heavy hardwood desk against the locked door.
Now what? Think, Kiera. Think.
I still had my pack on me, which had all the goodies and gadgets the Tech Wizards had given me. I dug my phone out of the bag and dialed Bael’k’s number.
There was a familiar and nostalgic chime, followed by a woman’s voice. “We're sorry. The number you have dialed is not in service. Please check your number and try your call again.”
What the actual fuck? First of all, I hadn’t heard that in years. And I mean years. And second, I was calling a Xarc’n device.
His shuttle! If his shuttle was actively preventing me from contacting him, then that must mean he was alive. These alien warriors were tough. He should be able to survive one crash, right? I had to believe it was true because thinking that it might not be, that he was injured, or worse, dead, made it nearly impossible to breathe.
If I couldn’t call Bael’k, then I was gonna call the next best thing, Sam. The four rings it took for her to pick up felt like a lifetime. I launched into our story the moment I heard the click.
“Whoa, slow down. What’s this about a jealous shuttle?”
“I just told you that his shuttle got swarmed by a bunch of flyers and crashed, and that’s what you picked up?
“I’m already connecting to the mothership now,” she said. “You do know that all the hunters have their biosignatures monitored by the mothership, right? When we lost Bael’k’s mothership, we contacted all the shuttles and had them transmit the feed to the one parked in New Franklin.” The loud clacking of a mechanical keyboard filled the silence. “Ah, there! Bael’k is alive. Heartrate slightly elevated.”
“He was injured before the crash.”
“Yes, yes, you mentioned a fight with a flyer, and a crushed leg. But he’s alive. Let me try to contact him.”
More keyboard sounds, followed by that annoying chime again.
“We're sorry. The number you have dialed is not in—”
“Fuck you too,” Sam grumbled. Then after a second, “Not you, Kiera. Clearly, the shuttle is blocking communications.”
I quickly recapped what had been happening with the shuttle and sent her the recording from earlier. “I should’ve sent this to you or Lenny earlier. Oh, by the way, don’t tell Lenny why the shuttle called him. He thinks it was just acting up.”
“Okay, so his shuttle is no longer on our side, and we can’t rely on it to get him to you or to safety. The shuttle went straight west and crashed just past the country club. If you’re here and he’s here, hmm… Not now, Pip.”
The mention of Pip suddenly gave me an idea. “Oh! I know,” I said a little too loudly, judging from the sudden movement outside in the hall. “Shit,” I whispered.
“What?” Sam whispered back.
“There’s a flyer outside my door.” Also whispered. “But I was saying, what if we put a copy of Pip into his shuttle? Like, can’t I download him onto my phone or something?”
There was a disgusted sound from Pip. “Eww! I’m offended you think I can fit into one of those wimpy devices.”
It always amused me that a centuries-old sentient AI entity like Pip sounded like an eight-year-old.
“And even if we could,” Sam said, “it would take forever for us to transfer the file. But I think you’ve got the right idea. We can replace the AI in the shuttle. A simple program, just enough to get his shuttle running. But you’ll still have to remove the hostile one and install the new one. And right now, we can’t contact either him or his shuttle. It’s all blocked.”
“Ooh! I can write it!” Pip offered.
Oh boy. An AI writing an AI program? This could go very wrong.
“You can work on it with Lenny,” Sam said.
That was probably a good idea. Lenny was a programming genius.
