Tech Scavengers [Humorous, Action-Packed Space Opera]

It took all of Jeridan's willpower not to blow his boss's brains out right then and there.

She froze, as did the woman with the implants next to her. That must be the data hacker Negasi had talked about.

Negasi didn't freeze. Instead he did a little panic dance.

"Whoa! What the hell are you doing?" the gunner shouted.

"Disarm them," Jeridan said.

"Why—"

"DISARM THEM."

Negasi pulled Nova's pistol from her holster, then gave both women a thorough pat down before stepping aside, keeping the pistol leveled. He didn't quite point it at the women. He was still too confused.

Negasi would be pointing that thing soon enough once he heard.

"What's going on?" Nova said, her words coming out slow and careful.

"I had a little chat with your son. He decided to skip his meds so he could speak freely."

Nova's eyes went wide. "Where is he now?"

"Locked on the bridge. Aurora is locked in her room."

"You locked them up?" Negasi asked. "Why?"

Jeridan glared at Nova. She and the woman with the implants didn't move a muscle. He kept his distance. No telling what that half cyborg was capable of.

"He told me everything. Shall I explain, or will you?"

Nova paused. As the silence stretched out, Negasi looking from one to the other, Jeridan decided to fill it.

"Derren. The dead dad nobody seems to mourn. They don't mourn him because he's not dead. Not entirely."

"What do you mean?" Negasi said.

Jeridan took a deep breath. It made him queasy just thinking about it. "They downloaded his mind into Mason's."

Nova hung her head. The data hacker looked embarrassed.

"W-w-what?" Negasi sputtered. "Is that even possible?"

"I researched it on the ship's encyclopedia. There'd been some research on high-tech worlds before it got banned. I couldn't find a single planet where it's legal. You want to make an AI, you download the mind into a computer, not a human brain. Not a child's brain."

Jeridan heard his voice go up to a shriek. His finger tightened on the trigger.

"It was necessary," the data hacker said in a small voice. "Derren—"

"I don't remember giving you permission to speak," Jeridan said, stalking toward her and putting the barrel against her temple. The woman cringed.

Negasi intervened. "Whoa, whoa, buddy. Easy there. Let's find out what's going on."

"I know what's going on!" Jeridan shouted, turning the gun on Nova. "You should hear what that kid's like when the medicine wears off."

"Medicine? You mean the hypo Aurora was using?" Negasi asked.

"Yeah. I should have listened to you when you first mentioned it. They give him some sort of medicine that keeps Derren in partial control of Mason's mind. They're like two people in the same head. No wonder that kid is so withdrawn. Derren can actually take over and use his own son's body. Imagine, a ten-year-old boy with a ghost in his head! If he doesn't get regular doses, Derren's mind fades and Mason can be himself again."

"So that's why he's been fighting taking those shots," Negasi said. He held his gun up now, pointed at his boss.

Former boss. No way would the two of them work for this monster ever again.

Nova raised a calming hand. "Listen to me. If Mason doesn't get his shots regularly, Derren's mind will fade away completely. He'll die."

"He already died," Jeridan snapped. "You have no right to put him in Mason's mind. Why the hell did you do that? Why not make him into an AI?"

"Because we needed him in a human body. AIs can be detected. AIs don't have autonomy of motion."

"There's a reason for that," Negasi growled. "After the Implant Wars they banned not only implants, but AIs in mobile robots. We can't have that kind of creature walking around. The galaxy won't be safe."

The data hacker hung her head.

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"Derren has essential information and knowledge we need in order to bring the research station back online," Nova said. "The galaxy won't be safe if we lose him."

Jeridan shook his head slowly. "You're unbelievable. You can justify anything with that, can't you?"

Nova looked him in the eye. "Yes, I can. Because we're talking about the lives of billions of sentient beings. We're talking about the potential extinction of the human race and every other sentient race. It's a choice between hurting my son or letting him get slaughtered in a year or two. You have any idea how hard that decision was for me?"

"Oh yeah, you look real broken up. I can see your eyes overflowing with tears. Negasi, give me one good reason I shouldn't gun these two down right now."

"We need to find out more from them so we can help Mason," his gunner replied.

The S'ouzz's deep baritone came over the comm system. Jeridan hadn't realized he had been listening.

"That is true. Whatever crimes these two human females have committed cannot be expunged by executing them. Mason must take priority."

Jeridan ground his teeth. "You're right. Fine. You two get a stay of execution. A brief stay. Now tell me more about this procedure. Is there a way to reverse it? Will Mason's mind clear up if we simply stop giving him his medicine?"

Nova shook her head. "That would be the worst thing to do. Traces of Derren would always linger, deep in the subconscious and occasionally rising up into the conscious. Mason wouldn't know which thoughts are his own and which are his father's."

"He doesn't know that now!"

"Yes, he does. Once we activate the station, there's a procedure we can do that will wipe Derren from his brain. Mason will be entirely himself again."

"His traumatized, confused self. So how do we do it?"

"We need to go to a hospital on a high-tech world for that."

"And tell them what? That you performed an illegal, immoral procedure on your own child? What do you think they'll do?"

"Sentence me to life in prison," Nova whispered.

"Better than you deserve," Negasi growled. "Where did you get this tech, anyway?"

Long pause. Nova and the data hacker exchanged a guilty look.

Negasi walked up to the data hacker and put his gun to her head. "Helen, if you don't tell me right now, I swear I'll shoot you where you stand. We don't need both of you, just one of you. And you're the first to go."

Helen licked her lips, those silvery eyes twitching.

At last she spoke.

"The Antari Syndicate."

"Oh, cack," Jeridan groaned.

"It was a separate operation," Helen added quickly. "We didn't want them to know about the station, so I and some of our agents approached them. We had discovered they were using the technique themselves."

"Imitate the worst mafia in the Orion Arm," Negasi grumbled. "You're just a pair of superheroes, aren't you?"

Helen looked at him pleadingly. "Please try to understand. We needed to do this."

"Then why not do it on yourself? Why pick a kid?"

"It only works on a child's mind." Was that a blush he saw? "They're more … malleable."

Jeridan felt like he was going to be sick. It took a supreme effort not to kill them. But Negasi and the S'ouzz were right. They needed to find out more so they could help Mason. Aurora probably didn't know the whole story. She was under Nova's thumb. While she wasn't totally blameless, she was still half a kid too.

"Why did you think this was necessary?" he demanded.

Nova glared at him. "Do you think you could stop pointing that gun at me?"

"You're lucky you're still standing. Answer the damn question."

"I told you. Derren has essential information we need."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Get specific."

Nova took a deep breath. "Bringing the jump gates back online is his lifelong dream, and not a dream like most of us dream our dreams. He devoted all his energy to it. He soaked up every scrap of information he could get about jump gates. No archaeologist, no professor, no government scientist knows as much as he does. He's the greatest expert who has ever lived since the collapse of the Imperium. Then he finally got a credible lead on an intact research station. So we have to take him there."

God, she's talking about him in the present tense like he's still alive.

A ghost in a boy's head.

Jeridan took a deep breath, tried to relax his trigger finger, and asked, "So what went wrong?"

"One of our crew blabbed. That much of what I told you was the truth. Our old gunner got drunk on a space station and bragged to some floozie about our mission. Someone overheard, sold that information to an info dealer, who sold it on to the Antari Syndicate. Then they came after us. We got in a firefight. We lost most of our crew and Derren was fatally injured. We managed to get away, but the Antikythera didn't have sufficient medical facilities to pull him through. We managed to get to a high-tech planet in just enough time to have him downloaded into an AI before he passed on. We spent all of our savings to do it. We needed his mind preserved, although we knew it was only half a solution."

"Wait. So Derren really was killed by the Syndicate? And then you went back to the same people who killed him to buy the tech to put him in his son's brain?"

A shadow passed over Nova's features. Was that sadness he saw? It was hard to believe, but she looked like she was actually mourning the man she saw die, and who she wrongly brought to life again.

"It was the only way," she repeated, as she had no doubt repeated to herself countless times. "They told us of a hack medical team under Syndicate control who could make the transfer. So we did it."

"But then they found out who they were transferring and came after you?"

"No. The medical team works on anonymity. They don't scan the AI to see who they're transferring. That's part of the deal. Otherwise they wouldn't get any customers."

"Damn," Negasi muttered. "How many of these people are out there?"

"I have no idea," Nova said. "It's all strictly anonymous."

"So how did the Antari Syndicate find out?" Jeridan asked.

Nova grimaced. "We'd spent our entire savings just to download him into an AI. We didn't have the money for the mind transfer. We could have hawked the Antikythera, but then we wouldn't have any way to get off the planet the medical team was on, and if you'd seen that planet, you'd definitely want to get off it. Especially with the secret we were carrying. It was just me and the kids. And Helen. We had to get out of there. So … we gave them forged credit bonds."

Jeridan's eyes bugged. "You ripped off the Antari Syndicate."

"Yes."

"With forged credit bonds. What a rookie move."

"They were really good forgeries."

"Obviously not good enough," Negasi said.

"Good enough that they didn't figure it out for a while. Long enough to get far away and find a new crew."

"Us," Negasi snarled. "You picked us up and threw us into this mess without giving us any idea what we were getting involved with!"

"I'm sorry," Nova said.

"No, you're not," Jeridan replied. "You did it because you had to. For the so-called good of the galaxy."

Nova looked at him, half sheepish and half defiant.

Just then, a red light flashed on the ceiling and a loud blare rang out, repeating itself every other second.

The ship-wide alarm.