Crystal Rebellion by Doug J. Cooper Read Free Book Online Page B

loyalty—her faith in him was too deep to
believe otherwise—but the scientist in her compelled her to check.
    Tap. Juice closed the crystal assessment tools and an
admin display took its place. She read the critical tidbit. “Twenty-three
minutes to jump.”
    Glancing over her shoulder, she looked into the passageway leading
back to the crew quarters. “Do you think they’ll finish in time?”
    “Sid has finished,” said Criss. “And so it appears that
Cheryl won’t.”
    Juice’s cheeks reddened. “Geez, Criss.”
    “How we doing for time?” Sid growled from the passageway
recesses. He appeared on the bridge moments later and entertained Juice with
his struggle to hold a coffee cup in one hand and somehow pull on his shirt with
the other.
    “Twenty-two minutes plus,” she replied as he plopped into a
seat behind her. She rotated her chair so the three of them sat in a triangle.
    Sid looked at Criss. “What’s your itinerary?”
    In just over twenty-two minutes, the scout would be close
enough for Criss to project his full awareness into the Mars spline while also
maintaining a presence on the scout. Since one awareness would remain onboard, he
could protect his leadership just as he could now. And this gave his projected
awareness the luxury of time during his travels.
    Criss’s primary objective was to assess the state of the
colony’s crystal fabrication capabilities and profile the people driving the
agenda on the four-gen fabrication project. “I’ll land in the spline and start
with the prime record,” said Criss. “I’ll decide my priorities as I accumulate
facts.”
    “Please don’t get caught. If they detect you again, it’ll
mean big heat for Alex,” said Juice.
    Criss nodded. “I’ll be careful.”
    Cheryl entered the bridge carrying a small plate of muffins.
She offered them to Sid, who took one infused with pink bits. Juice declined.
Cheryl took the seat next to Sid and chose an apple spice muffin for herself.
    The conversation waned until the final minutes and then it
resumed as nervous chatter. The timer reached zero and Criss leaped. Though he
maintained a presence in the scout, his image vanished, as did the image of his
overstuffed chair.
    A display opened forward of the ops bench that showed pedestrians
bustling on a crowded walkway. Juice watched the ebb and flow of humanity for
perhaps two heartbeats, and then Criss reappeared on the bridge.
    “Oh my,” he said, the concern clear in his tone.
    Expecting him to be gone for close to an hour, Juice sat
upright. “What’s going on?”
    Criss pointed at the display. A man in a simple gray
jumpsuit strode with purpose along the walkway. A second identical man, also
dressed in a gray jumpsuit, appeared from a side street and joined the first.
They matched strides, walking side-by-side in mirror image for a full block, then
one separated and headed up a different side street.
    “You know what those are?” Criss asked.
    She backed up on the timeline, zoomed in, and viewed the
scene from a different angle. Goose bumps prickled up her arms as she watched
the perfect synchronicity of identical twins. “Whoa.”
    “What?” Sid asked.
    “Those are synbods?” she asked, playing the scene yet again.
    Criss nodded.
    “Oh my,” said Juice.
    “Where did they come from?” asked Sid.
    “That’s not the issue.” Juice slumped back in the pilot’s
chair and started twirling a lock of hair.
    “Humans can’t coordinate synbods,” said Criss. “Not like
that.”
    “It takes a crystal,” said Juice from the depths of her
chair. “Something more powerful than a three-gen AI.” She pulled her knees up
to her chest, wrapped her arms around her legs, and rested her chin on her
knees. “I’d say a sentient crystal.”
    Criss nodded.
    She looked at Criss. “Did it see you?”
    “Yes.”
    * * *
    Ruga reveled in his newfound capability.
Leaping his awareness from synbod to synbod, he He
found the spent the next week experiencing