Chapter 5

Patient is showing the first signs of slowing down in the fifty years I've seen him, but remains as remarkably healthy as when we first met. He maintains that in addition to a strict diet, he goes for a daily run, and has for the last same five decades, though my professional opinion is that his knees are not battered enough for that.

~ Physician's remarks on Year 69 Medical Report (Form T-881) for General Pitney Scolan

Bits of voices in the hall, or a hall somewhere, drew Pitney out of a troubled daydream. Or maybe the voices were above? He twisted onto his side on the cot, stifling a groan when his bones creaked.

This was not where General Pitney Scolan, heir to the Scolan fortune and creator god of the technical wonder that was the planet Prowess, deserved to end his days. And he'd be damned if he hadn't trained his entire life just for a situation like this.

He'd just been off his guard yesterday.

Baring his teeth to himself in a savage snarl, Pitney ran through a quick set of stretches, loosening his body under stiff protest. In ninety seconds, he was on his feet, rolling his neck and shaking out his wrists, his heart rate up, his breathing calm.

He stretched his senses outward.

The voices in the hall drifted apart, one set of footsteps retreating. A sharp, purposeful step brought another person near. Pitney lowered himself into an attack stance and balled his hands into fists. Boots stopped outside his door, blocking most of the patch of light, and a key scraped into the lock.

Pitney tensed his stomach muscles.

The door flew open. McAver stood silhouetted in the dim light of the jail hall. He turned his head to bark something unintelligible at the creature, who was halfway through a leap at his boots.

As all of Pitney's anger flared into a red-hot spearpoint in his chest, he hurled himself at his treacherous lieutenant.

The breath left McAver's body. He crumpled against the wall, groaning. Momentarily surprised by the success of his attack, Pitney stumbled off-balance, leaning heavily against the same wall with the force of his momentum.

Then he was on all fours, pinned, covering his head as steel jaws clapped shut next to his ear. The metal side of the creature's face was dangerously close, dripping saliva on his sleeve.

Pitney executed a full-body twitch, and the creature went flying. He vaulted to his feet and made to run before a hand on his ankle brought him crashing to the floor.

"Down!" McAver said sharply, and Pitney whirled to glare and wrench free, which was when he realized the lieutenant wasn't talking to him.

The creature was sitting back like a dog, the picture of perfect horrific innocence, tongue lolling as it gazed obediently at the fallen McAver. The lieutenant struggled to sit up and gasped out, "Pit, it's me, Jace, I'm not a traitor, I'm getting you out, gods damn it. We've got precisely twenty-six seconds to get from here to the service elevator before someone walks by. Get up." Wince. "Get up!"

Pitney stared into Jace's eyes and saw what he needed to see. He got up.

Jace got up too, still wincing, but he reassembled both his dignity and his carefully cruel expression. "Stay," he snapped at the creature, which cowed and whimpered, resting its chin on its forepaws.

"Now," Jace said to Pitney, still speaking like a cruel guard, "walk just behind me, as fast as you can manage without running. Eyes forward. Look defiant but scared. Let's go."

All traces of his Pitney-inflicted injuries thoroughly hidden, Jace spun on his heel with military precision and strode double-time down the long row of cells. Pitney broke into a lope to keep up, staying behind Jace and just to his right. Without looking back, Jace dropped his pace so Pitney could slow to a quick walk.

There was no time for questions. Only escape.

As he followed his liberator, Pitney put his brain to work. When it registered where the holding cell must be in relationship to the rest of the Makopsian base, his blood ran cold.

Anywhere they were planning on going, they'd have to walk past Tristan's people in some capacity. This was so impossible it was nigh unbelievable that anyone would risk their life for it, chain of command be damned.

Though-Jason McAver would give his life for Pitney's, chain of command be damned. He'd proven that more than once, and in situations seemingly more dire than this.

But Pitney's chance to squirm out of this situation had appeared so quickly, so conveniently-too conveniently. Maybe it was a trap, an ultimate humiliation. Maybe Tristan just wanted the last laugh, a chance to see Pitney's face as he was betrayed one more time.

The thought was so convincing that he bunched up his muscles to spring on McAver and keep him from taking them any closer to the waiting trap. It was in this state of tense preparation that he ran smack into Jace's rail-hard, stock-still body.

"Tsst, hide," he hissed, pulling Pitney in front of him as a second pair of sharp-heeled guard boots clattered into the hallway. Pitney found himself nose-to-window with a service elevator he'd never noticed before.

He ducked his head, projecting contrition and submission and willing himself to be smaller, holding his breath as the newcomer drew closer.

"U5," Jace murmured.

The elevator's controls were within arm's reach. Pitney fumbled for the right controls, reading the numbers and letters with his fingers until he found U and 5. He pressed them in sequence and tried to take a step backwards as the door flew open to reveal a precarious open-air car, but Jace crowded him forward and slammed a fist against the interior controls.

The door sailed shut, giggling, on the bewildered expression of the guard who had just reached the spot they'd been standing in seconds before. The square of light vanished and the elevator shuddered. Began to descend.

"Shit," Jace said. "They'll know real soon."

Pit's skin crawled and he clutched at the cold railing, keenly aware of how much empty space surrounded that thin metal bar. His eyes struggled to adjust, but there was no light to break the monotony of the roaring darkness.

As if reading Pitney's mind, Jace moved close. "Service elevators. No reason to light them, so they save on energy." A lighter rasped, and then a flame burst brightly to life between the two men. Jace looked haggard but determined. "Look, sir, I'm sorry I couldn't tell you anything. Can't tell you much of anything, really; there isn't time."

"Tell me how to get out of here," Pitney said. "That's what you can tell me. I'll figure out the rest of it later."

"I'm about to." Jace hesitated, looking down. His face seemed even more skeletal. "You're not going to like it."

"Looks like the universe gives zero fucks about what I like or don't like. Tell me."

"You're not going to like it," Jace said again. The lighter went out. "You know daugments."

"Yes." Pitney hoped his derision would fill the roaring darkness. "I know daugments."

"Sorry, of course you do-well. Daugments' brains are plumbed for-" Jace fumbled with the lighter again so he could be sure he was looking at Pitney while he spoke. "For a secondary intelligence, usually artificial and made of nanobots that simulate the neuron-chemical soup we call the brain. To get that secondary intelligence in there and give it some control over the dog's body and systems, there's an injection. In the dog's brain. The dog's knocked out, of course."

The elevator car rattled its concern around them. Pitney nodded reflexively to cover his horror, and Jace continued, his voice only wavering a little. "The docs inject its brain with this stuff that-honestly I don't know the exact details, but in poor lay terms: the outcome is something like hyperthreading in a processor. The injection tricks the brain into thinking there's a virtual duplicate of itself to store information. Drop in a bit of that nanobot brainsoup and, well, it makes itself right at home. Takes the artificial intelligence and binds to that virtual core, which-well, it's physical too. A bit of the dog's real brain has to come out to make room, but that's-at that point, pulling out a little brain's not...really that excessive."

As Jace spoke, Pitney's heart descended down to his stomach, as treacherously slow as their elevator ride. Jace's meandering explanation did little to hide its eventual destination.

Pitney didn't like where this logical trail was leading.

He didn't like who he was at the end of it.

Jace took in Pitney's twisting expression and let go of the lighter again. He blew on his fingers, or on the lighter. "Yeah," he said into the dark, "it's not awesome."

Pitney grunted. He didn't trust himself to speak.

"About six years ago, there was-a breakthrough. I guess. It's still dubious at best, and mostly done by sketchy scientists for weird modder types." Jace swallowed audibly, his words wobbling. "The breakthrough. Right. There was a woman who was critically injured-it was a miracle her brain wasn't already gone when the medics arrived. They couldn't get her permission, but they did it anyway. They tried a transfer. Instead of just the nanobot brainsoup, they mixed it with core samples from her real brain, basically...blended it up, jammed it in there. And it worked. It was just about a miracle, but it worked. The real problem is-" Jace sighed heavily. "The human body doesn't survive. You can't exactly take core samples from someone and discharge them a week later."

Pitney sucked in his breath and resisted the urge to spit the saliva building in his mouth. He could taste his own fear. The words exploded from him. "Gods, McAver, what the fuck do you think I want to go through? You think I want to become a dog?"

Jace didn't answer for a long moment, stretched longer by the darkness. Then the lighter flared up, dancing wildly on Jace's cheekbones. He looked wild and harried and dead serious.

"To be blunt, sir, you have two options: become a dog, or die. Tristan's got everything covered-every entrance, exit, service tunnel, you name it. But they're looking for you. They've got eyeballs and tech scanning for Pitney Scolan. They aren't looking for your consciousness, and I'd have a body to prove I was loyal. Sir, you're the well-connected kind of individual who might very well have a chance to not only live through this, but live again, if you don't choose to die. There have been successful transfers back to human bodies before." He straightened and squared his jaw, sharply outlined by the flame's weak light. "Frankly, sir, I understand that you don't want to become a dog, but if you decide to die after everything I've done to keep you alive, I'm going to have wasted a very long career. Sir."

Pitney blinked, considered his lieutenant's words. "Well," he said. His skin felt clammy, distant, like he would shed it and slither away at any moment.

"Yeah," Jace said. He let the flame die.

"When you put it that way."

"Not much room for argument, sir. I apologize."

"Not your fault, Jace. Not your fault."