chapter 93
POV: Dean
There had been only a few times when I had seen the captain worried, but right now he seemed beyond that. Through our bond, I started to speak to him, but he cut me off and instead spoke out loud.
“No communications through bonds. Someone’s after us and they’re closing. Don’t act out of character, we are just heading back.”
I could sense how we all tensed, but the last words made us focus back on our acting lessons. None of us believed those lessons necessary when Lola brought them up, but right now I tried to go by them as best as possible as we moved back towards the ship as fast but as normally as possible.
My sensors were working at their best, trying to detect anything off.
“Does the ship know?” I asked, only to get a short “No” for an answer.
Captain was acting really out of character, but I’m guessing that’s to do with his sixth sense skill.
“In how much trouble are we exactly?”
This time captain looked more towards me, thinking, his eyes a bit glazed.
“We are in really bad trouble. I think that there’s a way out, but it’s not going to be easy. We’re trying to thread an extremely fine needle. One misstep will mean that at best we will try to escape this place, at worst we will all end up… something worse than dead. At least that’s what I’m feeling from the skill.”
The next moment, our communication disruptors started to malfunction. We always used devices that would block technological listening devices, but now they were acting up. As I looked backwards, I saw my fellow squad members also indicate that they also had problems with their devices.
“They’re getting closer, trying to cut us off,” captain explained before any of us had to ask.
“Should we stick to where there are a lot of people around?”
“No—well, yes, it’s complicated. It’s one way we can survive, but not the best. No more communications,” captain said, and soon after that I felt how the communication blocking devices stopped working, and whoever was approaching was now blocking us instead. Which meant that even if we wanted to, there was no way to contact the ship.
The captain didn’t seem to mind for some reason. I really wanted to ask what was going on. Even more so now as all of a sudden we took a shortcut. This seemed really dangerous, but I guess we would have taken this shortcut anyway if we were just heading back to the ship.
Pretty sure I would be sweating if I were biological. While our nerves weren’t made of steel, they were pretty close, so all of us were steady even if we were truly worried about what was about to happen.
Minutes went by as we continued to walk quite fast, until all of a sudden this sparsely populated street was empty.
“So that was the feeling I was getting… but how the hell am I going to fix it?”
I looked towards captain to try to understand what he was saying, but then all of us froze. There was a sickening feeling inside me, and for the first time in my life I experienced what it felt like to lose my balance. It was like I was being tossed around in the air, but I was still just standing here.
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My sensors detected the source of the disturbance. I could also feel it. It was weird, I didn’t know I could feel like that. I managed to pull out my gun and aim, but then I stopped as a command came through my new bond… no, not new, stolen.
“Stop that.” The words came through the bond and were spoken out loud.
The others had stopped before me. While they got their weapons up, they hadn't been able to aim, but my sight was on one of those that was now controlling me. If I could just squeeze the trigger, but nothing. I couldn’t move it even a millimetre. I wanted to kill that person so badly, but I just couldn’t because of the command.
“You give your subjects too much freedom. That's something we're going to have to fix.”
“Who are you and why have you come here?” Captain asked the five people who were right now holding me and my squad members’ bonds like they were theirs.
“We are… doesn’t matter. What matters is that you will come with us. All of you, aim your weapon at your former master, and if he doesn't come with us, fire.”
As fast as I could, my body moved, now aiming towards my captain, ready to pull the trigger. He should have already acted, he was fast enough. Why was he just standing there? Captain, you need to do something. But he just continued to stand there.
Wait, why could I still think like this? It was like I was still bonded to my captain, but that connection was ripped away completely. Then how was I still… My core.
There was still a hint of captain there, something that connected us, but what was it? It was also what was protecting my mind, it was still me here, completely free, which shouldn’t be possible.
Also the way they commanded was completely different from captain. They exerted complete control over their bonds. That was not how most did things.
“I will come with you. Just don’t shoot.”
What was the captain saying? Why would he go with them? It doesn't make any sense. Is he being controlled some way as well?
All of us now moved into one of the alleyways, and we continued to move further in until we reached a secluded location, obviously built to be completely hidden.
“Now we can speak with a bit more freedom, Captain Remi Graves. Let’s start by who we are. We are a group of like-minded people, with a specific set of skills, the ones that you also seem to have.”
My captain then interrupted, which was weird, why didn’t he wait for more information?
“So you are the guys who are buying up all the useful skills, and let me guess, me purchasing that minor repair triggered some sort of alert?”
“You're a smart one. That’s good. How many bonds can you have? You obviously have more than the five here. The more bonds you can have, the higher you can climb. You will, of course, also have access to the best skills for our affinities. With them you could easily control perhaps even 100 of such droids you have right here.”
They said it with such confidence. It made me want to laugh, only 100. Wait, only 100? My old master also could only control… how many the captain has, that’s not normal. If we got out of this, we were going to need to talk about this and why we were still connected to him even though our bond was no longer there.
“Something’s wrong. I’m not getting any memory data from the droids,” one of the others said, who was clearly just an underling.
“How are you so incompetent? You just simply—” And then I felt it through the bond I had with the leader of this party. He tried to access my memories, but he didn't control that part of me. That was still connected to the captain. Whatever skills this person had, they didn’t work on that.
“How have you done that? You will need to teach me. But this just made it clear that you will either join or you’ll die.”
The captain didn't flinch. He seemed quite relaxed actually. That was strange, it was like we weren’t in trouble anymore.
“Tell me more about this group of yours, about your goals. I could feel all of you connected to a lot of AIs, but they're all around the city.”
Through our bond we got a command and once again all of our guns were now aimed at Captain’s head.
“You do not ask questions, you either join or you die.”
“Aren’t you curious as to why your own droids haven't gotten here, or your other backup?” my Captain asked, this time with a smile on his face.
The confident faces of our attackers disappeared. One of the other five spoke.
“He’s jamming us like we’re jamming him.”
“That’s it, this is your last warning,” the leader said, and just after that the Captain spoke, but his voice sounded weird.
“Dean’s squad, kill your bondholders.”
Immediately I felt my body move. Did he take control over us again? But no, Captain wasn’t in control, at least not through our bond. I still couldn’t control my body; in fact it was somewhat fighting against the command.
But it came so quickly, so unexpectedly, my current bondholder didn’t have any chance to properly fight against the compulsion, and before they knew it we fired.
The guns barked as the triggers were pulled, but none of us let go of the trigger even after we felt our bonds disappear and our Captain’s bond once again took over. Which I welcomed happily. Once again I was in control of my body like everyone else in my squad.
Captain was already rifling through the bodies when I was still reeling from the experience. How could I have forgotten the command skill the Captain had?
Captain rattled them with the fact that they also did not have communications; otherwise, I believe at least their leader could have fought back against the command.
“Captain, we should head back, their allies must be after us.”
“All of you have explosives. We need to destroy the bodies. We only need to keep the city’s authorities off us. This group has more pressing matters to deal with than us. At least for now”
We were all confused. Then we heard a distant explosion. Right, the captain said they were bonded with many other AI and if they acted with them like they did with us, at least some that are now free will try to get their revenge.
We moved and planted our explosives. After that, we headed back towards the ship, hearing the smaller explosions not too long after our departure.