The Immortal Game (Rook's Song) by Chad Huskins Read Free Book Online Page B

Something isn’t right, the energy signatures are too erratic, here one second and gone the next, never stabilizing.  Though he doesn’t notice it, beside him Bishop is paying close attention to what he does next.
     

2
     
     
     
     
    As the ship begins to accelerate forward, Bishop moves a hand over the main flight control panel.  Tiny, invisible lasers lance out from his fingertips, into the panel’s LCD display lid.  Aiming these lasers at the top allows him to pick up more resonant vibrations.  Next, there is a transmitted electromagnetic pulse that allows him to intrude on system records.  In short, he can find the keystrokes Rook has put into the computer in the past, and access encrypted files.
    We wonder, Why would he do this?
    We’ve spent so much time with the Cerebrals, and with the last human, but what of this alien?  What of Bishop?  May we know him, too?  We are ghosts, and we can certainly slide into his mind and know his thoughts, just as we’ve done with others, but can we ever truly know him?
    The Ianeth’s firewalls do not detect us, although they do detect a slight brainwave fluctuation, a half-second interruption in the communication between a few neurons, but then its own imtech (implant technology) creates a buffer, regulates flow and neuroplasticity, and we are integrated seamlessly.  We are part of the program now, part of the organic brain and its booster systems.
    We can see so much!  Vision!  Incredible vision!  Through these eyes, we see strange colors, and even stranger readings of those colors.  Oscillating microwave emissions bouncing all over the cockpit, electromagnetic energies, infrared, and light control—yes, light control!  The Ianeth can absorb ambient light to enhance its— his —night-vision, and can then dampen it so that it isn’t blinded.  And the sounds…good God, the sounds we hear!
    I t’s all so much that we almost miss the vast network of systems that hold tight to identity, punctuated by an intense search for logic and reason.  His is a mind made for meddling, all right.  He is compelled to seek truth through deception.  That is, he seeks truth by searching for lies first and then weeding them out: whatever is left, he reasons, is Truth.  There are whole subroutines dedicated to this process, and it stems from…
    Ohhh…now that’s interesting.  Yes.  Remarkable.  The alien circuitry mostly amplifies decision-making and the ability to seek patterns, and, since this one is (was) an engineer, his imtech was put there to help him plan and construct, while subsystems wer e of course dedicated to combat; Bishop’s secondary and tertiary imperatives.  But that’s not what’s so remarkable.
    Deeply embedded inside this alien, we find a lie.  We do not know what this lie is yet, for it is buried deep in a hard drive—a biological one—and yet has such imperative to it that it stands above all other objectives.  This idea…it’s not just something that was programmed into him, no.  We can see that it is hardwired into him in a way that can only have come through the natural evolutionary process.  The lie is as much a part of him as the Cerebs’ predilection for the number four, or for the human need to be loved.
    A mind made for meddling, indeed, but more so than we might’ve guessed.  Now, there is even more increased blood flow to Bishop’s complex brain.  In humans, increased blood flow can indicate there is active lying taking place.  Is it the same for all sentient beings?
    The lie.  It’s surfacing.  Rising from the depths and expanding across the alien’s entire brain, incorporating itself into the matrix of all decision-making processes.  But why ?  What’s going on here that we don’t—
    “Something’s fishy here,” Rook says.
    At his side, Bishop glances at him.  How much does he see? the alien wonders.  “Fishy?”
    “Yeah, uh… hinky .  Strange.  Ya know, weird.”
    “Like what?”
    Rook adjusts