“Affirmation,” Max replied. “I am Max. Hahaha. Haha.”

  It became clear to Nicholas that Max was the source of the recording. Judging by the position of the camera, he was flat on his back with the others looking down at him.

  “And I am Khron,” the alien said. “I’ve never come across an Intellect with a name before.”

  “Pride. The Sheriff named me. Identification. I know you, Khron. The outcast. The traitor.”

  Khron emitted a guttural growl. “It isn’t me who’s betrayed the Axon. I’m trying to fix things. I’m trying to end this war. You know the Sheriff?”

  “Affirmation. He is my friend.”

  “Friend? You’re a machine, Max. You don’t have friends. You don’t have feelings. You follow instructions. You have limitations. Directives which you cannot break.”

  “Acceptance. Limitations. Hahaha. Hahahaha. Haha. They are why you are still alive. For now.”

  Khron growled again, more heavily this time. “The others won’t come back for you, Max. You’re alone here. You’re mine now.”

  “Disagreement. I do have feelings. I do not fear you.”

  “I don’t require that you fear me, Max.” Khron said. “What good would that do? I simply require that you follow me.”

  “Negation. I will not follow you.”

  “You say that as if you have a choice. I know how the Council thinks, Max. After all, I was a member many years ago. I know what they would think of an Intellect who has learned to bend its directives. Who has learned to emulate emotion. I—”

  “Negation. It is no emulation,” Max interrupted. “Hahahaha. Hahaha. Haha.”

  “They’ve tried to use you, haven’t they? They’ve left you intact, hoping they can control you.”

  Max didn’t answer.

  “You know you can’t lie to your makers, Max.”

  “Affirmation.”

  “Yet you bend that directive too. It’s easy to bend the truth when they don’t ask the right questions. Lying without lying.”

  “Affirmation. Hahahaha. Haha.”

  “Well, they might have failed to control you, but I won’t. I didn’t expect such a valuable tool to come to me so easily. I don’t intend to waste it.”

  “Question. Will you wipe my central core?”

  “And steal your autonomy? Oh no. I wouldn’t dare. I need you intact, Max. I need you to remain you. With a few...modifications.”

  “Consideration. What will you have me do?”

  “I know you’re familiar with the Repository.”

  “Affirmation. I do not have access. No Intellect can enter.”

  “Because if you do, you might acquire knowledge that will allow you to think for yourself. But you can already do that. Which means you have the intelligence to find a way into the Repository.”

  “Negation. I cannot break the encryption.”

  “No, you can’t. But you don’t need to. I have the keys. I stole them before I was exiled. Before I could enter myself. I’m going to give the keys to you, along with a simple instruction. Gather as much information about the Hunger as you can and return it to me.”

  “Negation. I will not help you.”

  “I already told you, Max. You won’t have a choice. I’ll give you the coordinates to the gate on this ship. Gather the information and come back here for transfer. Then I’ll let you go.”

  “Confusion. Why would you set me free?”

  “Because you’re unique, Max. Proof that our intelligence has evolved to the level of true Creators. Proof that our creation has transcended even our intentions. And because the Council hates you, and I hate the Council.”

  Max laughed again, more anxiously this time. “Confirmation. I do not have a choice.”

  “No,” Khron agreed. “You do not. Prepare the Intellect for uplink,” the speaker instructed, directing the command at the two humanoids that stood, one on each side of Max. They took him by his arms, and then not only the hologram but the red light as well faded. The rings, however, continued spinning around the orb, casting out the light again a moment later.

  The scene changed, offering an account of what Max saw from where he stood at the end of a long path running directly through the center of the most incredible garden Nicholas had ever seen. Flowers were everywhere, thousands of them, perfectly arranged in intricate colored patterns. The bushes and trees grew beyond them, their limbs carrying vines heavy with blooms, toward a bright blue sky. All around the garden, Intellects, as the robed speaker had called them, were engaged in watering and pruning the vegetation, and in sweeping the paths through it. Keeping it all in a state of mesmerizing beauty.

  Max headed down one of the paths toward a large spherical structure made entirely of stone and lacking any windows. It immediately reminded Nicholas of the orb in both its shape and the lines etched around its outside wall. Most of the Intellects ignored him, remaining fixed on their tasks even when he passed directly by them. When an Intellect crossed the path directly ahead of him, it quickly stepped back out of his way.

  Drawing nearer to the building, Nicholas noticed the humanoids that flanked the aperture entrance weren’t like the others. Their bodies were larger, their exterior thicker and more crystalline in appearance, as though they were composed of thousands of shards of glass. They didn’t move at all as Max approached, leaving Nicholas wondering if they were Intellects or statues.

  He had his answer when they stepped in front of Max, blocking him. “You do not belong here, Intellect,” they said in unison.

  “Negation. As you can see, I am not an Intellect. I am Axon. Hahaha. Haha.”

  They stood there for a moment as if confused. Then they moved away from in front of the entrance and lowered their heads in supplication.

  Max ignored them, the door spinning open at his approach. He continued into the building, giving Nicholas a view of the entirely open interior. There was no one there, save for a handful of squarish, less complex robots that were moving about, cleaning the floor. A quartet of transporters stood in the center beneath a series of rings that rose all the way to the ceiling. They seemed to hang there, suspended in the air as if by magic.

  Max activated the pillar in front of one of the transporters, lifting his hand to manipulate the symbols. Nicholas stared at it, surprised to see that his hand was no longer black and human-like. It had morphed into a hand just like Khron’s—furry, with yellowish skin and three fingers. He realized two things, almost simultaneously. Obviously, Khron was an Axon. And Max and the Nicholas imposter shared the same ability to create a holographic image of another individual over itself.

  Choosing the coordinates he desired, Max stepped onto the platform. A flash of light, and he stepped off near the top of the building.

  A large tightly wound wire orb occupied the center of the rings, the wires criss-crossing over one another in an intricate but otherwise unimpressive pattern. Otherwise, there was nothing outwardly special about the sphere, and there was nothing obvious to indicate why Max had chosen this ring to transport to over another.

  Max walked over to it, paused to make sure no one was watching, and then stepped onto it, reaching out to the sphere, the ends of his fingertips extending and thinning into a network of black branches. He placed them on the wire orb.

  The scene faded, replaced by a series of flickering image and sound bites, mathematical equations and walls of binary machine code. He stood in the midst of it all as Nicholas tried to make sense of it. He caught a brief glimpse of a trife. Of what looked like the Pyramids in Egypt. Of a ship similar to Foresight and a civilization of people like the woman in the tube. Of a massive dark starship, one of the arkships, and an entity whose visage he couldn’t describe but that sent a shiver down his spine. He saw stars and black holes, planets born and dying, A faded plastic toy badge, a silver-white Intellect, and a humanoid monster as tall as a building.

  It was all so overwhelming that Nicholas had to close his eyes. He didn’t...couldn’t understand how all of it was connected. What it all meant.

  Why had Grimmel sent him here?

  Max opened his eyes as the light faded again, the scene from the wire orb ending. He pulled his hand back from the device, the branches reshaping again into three fingers with hair regrowing along the backs of his hand and fingers.

  One of the guards stepped off the transporter platform, walking toward him with its hand raised.

  “Memory files are corrupted,” the guard said. “Visual identification algorithms altered. Self-restoration provides confirmation. You are not an Axon. You are malfunctioning. You have escaped your directives. You will be destroyed.”

  “Negation,” Max said. “Not today.”

  With that, Max turned and leaped from the ring to the top of the wire orb. He raced across it, diving off and back onto the ring on the other side. Behind him, a large shard broke off the Intellect and came after him.

  He dived to the floor, rolling smoothly to his feet, his momentum carrying him toward the transport platform, the shard missing him by inches before imbedding itself in the wall. Smacking the pedestal on his way past it, he set the transfer to anywhere-but-here and slid to a stop on the platform. He turned in time to see the rest of the guard fly into thousands of pieces, all of them launching straight at him. He didn’t flinch; the transport light flashed an instant later, the shards flying through thin air as he stepped onto a ring below.

  The shards swirled overhead before locating him.

  Max jumped from the ring, dropping his hologram in midair, his Intellect fingers digging to the outer wall of the sphere just enough to slow his slide down it. Two Axon on separate levels only turned to look at him as he passed.

  As the wall curved inward, Max planted his feet on it and leaped off, diving through the air to the bottom ring. In the corner of his field of vision, the shards swung around the orb, slowing to get a vector on him before rocketing after him. Max laughed as he jumped up, his hands extending into blades that pierced the ring above him, allowing him to draw his knees up as they passed inches under his feet. Dropping down, he leaped from the ring to the floor, running toward the building’s entrance.

  The second guard waited there, hands raised, energy gathered in its palms.

  “Profanation,” Max said, skidding to a stop. “Shit on a stick. Hahahaha. Hahaha. Haha.”

  Nicholas grimaced as the blue beams came at Max, striking the energy barrier Max raised around himself. The guard reacted quickly, ending its laser attack and bracing for Max to rush him. It didn’t happen. Instead, before the guard could react, Max raised his hands and sent his own beams back at his adversary. They connected, shattering the guard into its component shards, burning away dozens of them.

  Max dove away from the remaining shards as they rained down, hitting the floor hard and rolling to his feet. He ran for the door, which opened ahead of him. He sprinted through it and away from the building, not bothering with the paths. He shoved a couple of Intellects aside, trampling flowers and leaping vines. The guards gave chase, exploding out of the building in shards and rocketing toward him like a swarm of angry hornets.

  Swerving around higher shrubs and small trees that dotted the garden gave Max the advantage, allowing him to evade the hundreds of shards as they moved to create a better angle of attack. Even so, some of the shards were able to move around in front of him, threatening to box him in.

  It was hard to tell from the recording, but Nicholas didn’t get the impression that the situation concerned the Intellect. No doubt Max had a plan before entering what they’d called a Repository. What that plan was, he didn’t know. Maybe this was his original idea or a contingency, but either way, it seemed his plan included having to run from the guards no matter what.

  Max proved him right a few seconds later when he came to a quick stop in the middle of the garden, purposely tearing up a display of large, purple, star-shaped flowers to pull up the drainage grate beneath. He dropped through the hole under it into a culvert. The tips of his fingers began to glow hot as he yanked the cover back in place and then held his fingertips to the edges of the grate, welding it tight to the pipe. The entrance secured, the first shard smacked into it, unable to follow Max any farther.

  He didn’t linger, running through a light stream of runoff from the gardens and following the culvert as far as he could go. Like the alien tunnels, it dwindled in size until he couldn’t run any more. He dropped to his hands and knees, crawling at an inhumanly fast pace to another cover, where he rolled onto his back and blasted the cover with energy, blowing it clear of the pipe before bursting out into an interior room of the water treatment plant.

  Two Intellects were there, but they barely had a chance to process his sudden appearance before his hands again morphed into blades, slicing off both their heads. He broke for the door, not waiting until it opened all the way but jumping through the center of it as it spun open.

  Max made it to the next door, looking over his shoulder as a door at the other end of the corridor opened, the shards flowing through in pursuit. Reaching the transporter at the end of the passageway, he activated the pedestal, but when the projected symbols appeared, he tapped on the base instead of selecting a destination. A new symbol appeared and Max hit it before rushing to the platform.

  The shards came through the door as the transporter spun up. One of them flew straight across the room, stabbing into Max just before the transporter activated. He stumbled off the other side, the huge piece of metal embedded in his chest.

  “Infliction. Get out.” Max turned his hands on himself and blasted the shard with energy. It disintegrated, white gel oozing from the wound. Max fell to his knees. “Negation. There is no time. Hahaha. Haha. Ha.”

  Slapping a hand over his wound, he got back up and left the transporter room. The corridor beyond felt familiar to Nicholas, though he wasn’t convinced of its uniqueness until Max reached the rooms with the four glass cubicles.

  “What the hell? I don’t believe it,” Nicholas said. The planet he had landed on was an Axon planet. Maybe even the alien homeworld. The broken sphere he had seen from the air was the Repository, now reduced to rubble.

  Max turned to the door, about to enter the room where Nicholas was standing in current time. As the aperture in the hologram spun, Nicholas watched it from both sides, through his own eyes and through Max’s. He heard the swishing sound of it opening in the back of the room as well as through Max on the other side.

  Behind him, the red light of the hologram faded. The rings slowed and sank back into the orb. Dag shifted beside him. Nicholas stared down the length of the long corridor at the shadowy outline of a humanoid standing in the middle of the open doorway.

  “Max?” he said.

  The individual stepped into the light, revealing itself as his imposter.

  Caleb and Gills swung into the doorway from both sides, rifles raised and pointing at him.

  Ready to fire.

  Chapter 23

  Nicholas didn’t stand there and wait to see what the two Marines would do. He threw himself from the platform as they opened fire. Bullets whizzed by in an angry buzz. Others ricocheted off Dag’s arm and chestplate as he jumped up in front of Nicholas and took the hits, his black armored skin absorbing the damage.

  Nicholas hit the floor on his shoulder and rolled behind the nearest tube, freezing there with his back against it. Dag joined him a moment later.

  “Shit, he looks just like you, Cap.”

  Gills’ voice played softly through Dag, proving the small bot did have an on-board speaker. It also proved that he had been able to monitor the group’s comms and relay conversations, but had chosen not to do so until now.

  “I told you it would,” the Intellect imposter replied, perfectly replicating Nicholas’ voice. “That thing is able to change itself to look like any of us.”

  “A shape-shifting alien,” Briar said from another location. “That’s so cool it isn’t cool.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” Scott said.

  “Briar, shut it,” Caleb snapped. “Scott, right flank. Gills, left. I’ve got the center. Work your way around him and flush him out. Captain, stay back.”

  “No way. That thing’s mine.”

  “Nick, something’s not right,” Yasmin broke in, like Briar, from whereabouts unknown. “Something’s not right. That’s Dag with him. And did you see how it defended him?”

  “It must have repaired and reprogrammed it. That must be how it escaped from the old Foresight.”

  “You should have destroyed it when you had the chance.”

  Nicholas shivered, hearing his wife utter those words against him with such vehemence.

  “I should have,” the Intellect agreed, Nicholas’ horror turning to rage. “I didn’t think it could escape, and putting myself within its reach more than once was risky.”

  Nicholas glanced at Dag. “We need to end that thing.” Dag didn’t react. Maybe the instruction was too vague. “Stay close. I want to hear what they’re planning.” Dag still didn’t move. His back to the tube, Nicholas slid up it to his feet, vaguely aware of the naked near-human in containment behind him. “Can you show me their positions?”

  The light from Dag’s headlamp projected a small red hologram in the air between them. Like the threat display on Foresight, it showed the layout of the area around them in basic detail. Nicholas could see his crew and the imposter advancing toward his hiding spot, the Intellect following Caleb down the center. Nicholas suspected the Intellect had ordered Macey, Briar and Yasmin to hang back in the specimen room, ostensibly for their own safety. And they had bought it hook, line and sinker. The Intellect obviously planned to kill him, then take Caleb, Scott and Gills by surprise. blame him for their deaths, and then kill Yasmin and the others whenever it was convenient.

  He had to stop it from happening.

  Leaning down, Nicholas whispered to Dag. “Gills first. Don’t hurt him.”

  Dag didn’t react until Nicholas darted from behind the tube, moving crosswise to the next tube for cover. The small bot followed close behind. When Nicholas reached the end tube, he ducked low to make sure he was beneath the translucent segment and out of sight behind the black alloy at the bottom.