Rise of the Renegade Child

The First Renegade

Excerpted from Rise of the Renegade Child

Ion’s hands wouldn’t stop shaking. The spasms continued no matter how long she stood wrapped in shadow inside the darkened storage room, willing her body to be stone. Ion’s diagnostic systems came up with nothing. According to the readouts, she was perfectly fine. It couldn’t be from the kill she’d just made. Ion was already a killer many times over. It must’ve been a surprise side effect of breaking through her neural programming. If so, Ion would have to add it to the list of other annoyances and perturbations she’d suffered since her mind had come awake. But the why would have to wait, so Ion ignored it. The shaking would go away, or it wouldn’t. It was a distraction, and there was nothing to be done about it anyway.

More pressing was the corpse that lay curled at Ion’s feet. In life, the Master Taril had loomed over Ion, tall, lanky, and imposing. Ion had truly seen him as masterly, remembering the respect verging on awe she felt every time he’d commanded her. In death, he was just heavy and awkward. Even in her awakened state, Ion felt the disgust, the revulsion, at the idea of causing Taril harm. But she’d done it nonetheless. Ion had killed a Master and stuffed his long, weighty body into the cramped storage space. She felt no awe. Deceased, he’d become an irritation. An imposition.

Worse still, Ion had yet to retrieve Taril’s override key from his body. She couldn’t do it, despite knowing that she must. All the effort Ion had expended killing him and hiding his corpse, and her own body refused to cooperate. Her body’s betrayal and shaking hands nearly made Ion call off her efforts entirely. The Masters could just–

No. That was no longer an option. Ion knew she was being petulant, another of the strange new emotions that she’d recently discovered. She’d overcome far worse conditions as an Operative. Ion was the best human Operative the Ninaki had in their arsenal. They’d all sorely regret losing her. Well, all except Taril. He no longer had any regrets.

Ion looked down at his crumpled form, illuminated by a single knife’s edge of light slicing across the storage room floor. Just reach down and grab the damn thing. She wasn’t squeamish around death. Ion had caused enough of it as an Operative to earn the nickname Angel of Death among certain Earth Prime circles. But her body refused to cooperate. The knowledge of what Ion needed to do and the will to do it had become separated by a great, yawning chasm.

The shakes continued, spreading out from Ion’s hands in waves as if her body was rejecting the actions she’d just taken, trying to purge them from the reality that was slowly cooling on the deck in front of her. Masters were the highest-ranking members in the loose Ninaki hierarchy Ion had been trained from birth to obey without question. And she’d killed one of them. No, Ion hadn’t explicitly been ordered not to kill Taril and take his override key. But it was heavily implied in her mandate to protect her Masters at all costs. There’d be no logicking her way out of what she’d done. Better to leave it and keep going.

Ion steeled herself. The corpse was just a body. She’d dispatched many lives throughout her service to the Ninaki. One more should hardly make a difference. Then Ion leaned down and plucked the short crystal key from its chain on Taril’s waist. A cold wave of anger washed over her as she did so. Ion remembered how this Ninaki had scolded, belittled, and reminded her of her place. She’d allowed the treatment every time. She’d welcomed it, knowing that she deserved nothing else. But Ion knew now that she didn’t deserve it. She never had.

After a deep breath, Ion unfurled a vicious grin. Then she hauled back a booted foot and let it fly, kicking the Ninaki’s corpse hard in the torso. It surely would’ve hurt him had he still been alive. That made her feel better, which was a strange notion in itself. Ion rarely had the inclination to seek out pleasure before now. She thought about kicking him again, but time, much like pleasure, was a luxury Ion didn’t have. Others would notice Taril’s absence soon enough, and Ion had spent too much time wavering in her newly manifested emotions. She had more to do. At least her hands had finally stopped shaking.

Slipping the key into her belt, Ion took another deep, centering breath and stepped out into the empty corridor. She suppressed a shiver. The deep gray bulkheads seemed to absorb what little warmth the passage’s dim, indirect lighting offered.

Ion set out for her next stop, her steps echoing off the dark metal decking as she walked. She unconsciously smoothed and pressed her black combat uniform down, ensuring it was presentable to anyone who should see her. She double-checked the glowing blue vertical stripe that ran down the front of her uniform tunic, then the matching stripe on each uniform sleeve. But Ion found no deep green spots that would reveal her secret crime. Her kill had been bloodless, and Ion had been careful to avoid the deluge of waste that Taril’s body had produced in the throes of death. She was well trained, after all. Particularly by the very Master who was now a crumpled corpse stuffed into a dark closet.

Ion turned a corner, heading down a broader, more brightly lit corridor as she made for one of the Incubator Labs. The Lab would undoubtedly be guarded, she reminded herself. And the Matriarch would be on duty, too. But she’d be no match for Ion. Taril’s surprising but ineffective resistance was proof enough of that.

As Ion passed a Facility Nursery, she caught a startled glimpse of her reflection in the window walls set along the corridor. Ion didn’t often regard her own appearance, but nothing seemed amiss. The overhead lighting reflected off the top of her head’s smoothly shaved, deep-brown skin. The whites of her golden-brown eyes caught a hint of the blue glow from her uniform stripes. Her expression hovered on the edge of a scowl until Ion relaxed her narrow jaw and parted her full lips ever so slightly like she’d seen other humans do when they were relaxed.

Looking past her reflection, Ion saw two semi-circular rows of children seated inside the Nursery. There was no more than two dozen present, representing the variety of skin tones found in humans. But there were none of the mottled, pale grays, blues, and greens common to the Ninaki. An instructor stood before the children, tablet in hand, imparting what the young ones would need to know to best serve their Masters. The instructor, like the children, appeared as human as Ion did. As human as Ion was. Being created in a Ninaki lab made her no less human than someone born from a parent. And the natural-born humans Ion had encountered on her missions to Earth Prime had accepted her without question, never once suspecting Ion’s true origins.

The instructor glanced at Ion as she stood there, watching, and nodded. Ion nodded in return. Again, nothing was amiss. As an Operative, there were few areas in the compound Ion couldn’t freely access during her duties.

A sudden flash of memory struck as she began to walk away. Ion nearly stumbled and placed a hand on the bulkhead opposite the Nursery to steady herself. Then the sensations came. She is young, hardly older than the children in the nursery. The cool breath of an ocean breeze. The warm sand beneath her bare toes. The sticky coolness as the ice cream cone she holds slowly melts around her fingertips. The safety of her mother’s hand lovingly wrapped around hers.
Ion grunted with the force of the recollection, then softly exhaled as the memory dissipated. She knew none of the things she’d just seen. Ion had never eaten an ice cream cone. She had no mother. And yet, the taste of the ice cream was there on her tongue, cool, sweet, and delicious. She felt the lingering warmth of her mother’s hand, the skin slightly rough as it tightly gripped her tiny hand. They couldn’t be her memories. But they were there all the same. And they were how Ion had finally broken through her programming. Somehow, whatever base DNA she’d been created from had carried with it the memories of its unwilling donor. And, with them, the key to breaking free.

Wary that someone could witness her moment of weakness, Ion quickly resumed her course, the click-clack of her boots against the metal deck reassuring her as she went. She found the entrance to the Incubator Lab when she rounded the next corner. Two soldiers stood guard, one on each side of the door. The black, body-tight combat gear stretched around their tall, lanky forms helped them melt into the shadows. Only their glowing orange uniform stripes shined brightly, denoting their status as Facility Guards compared to Ion’s Operative blue. Their faces were familiar, but Ion couldn’t recall their identifiers. They were technically her superiors, like all Ninaki. But Ion didn’t report to them and, in fact, could order them to act on behalf of other Masters. Things were never simple with the Ninaki. Well, they never used to be. Life had recently become much more straightforward for Ion.

For instance, why did the Facility have so many soldiers on guard duty? Every member of Ninaki society, human or Ninaki alike, was conditioned to obey without question. Ion couldn’t recall ever hearing of anyone not properly following commands. And, yet, the presence of so many soldiers stationed around the Facility suggested that things hadn’t always been that way. They couldn’t all be there for her–soldiers trained and posted on the off chance that one of the human Operatives would someday go rogue. The Facility Guards were resources, and the Ninaki would only expend resources like that with a valid reason. But what could that reason be?

One of the soldiers noticed Ion’s approach and stiffened at their post. Then she remembered him as Ivari. Ion had witnessed Ivari being rebuked by Taril once, although she couldn’t remember why. Ivari undoubtedly remembered that episode, too. And he probably hated Ion for it, even though she was merely a bystander to the incident. But looking weak was anathema to the Ninaki.

Ivari was about to like her even less.

“Hold,” the soldier commanded, his voice gravelly, deep, and full of off-putting bass harmonics. “You are not authorized.”

The other Facility Guard glanced at Ion in surprise but otherwise remained quiet.

“Taril sent me,” Ion explained, her tone even and equally commanding. “Stand aside, Ivari.”

Ivari huffed dramatically, briefly reminding Ion of the children she’d just passed. Ion had to stifle the urge to laugh at him. “I will verify that with Taril,” the soldier countered and reached for the comm unit on his belt. Ion had hoped the Facility Guards would take her word for why she was there and avoid any time-consuming violence. It clearly wouldn’t be that easy.

Ion moved before Ivari’s hand even reached his belt. Her arm became a streak of blue light as she hit his throat with a y-strike, thumb and fingers splayed wide. Not hard enough to crush Ivari’s windpipe, but it threw him off balance.

Ion’s sudden attack startled the other soldier, who jumped back in surprise. But Ion was ready. Another flash of blue as Ion pivoted into a spin, using the extra force to drive her elbow into the surprised soldier’s face. Their nose smashed with a sickening crunch before their head slammed into the wall. Then Ion reached back, wrapped her arm around the soldier’s neck, and kicked her feet up. She yanked as her legs fell and flipped the soldier over her shoulder. A hard twist of her arm and Ion felt their neck snap with a brittle crunch. She let go, and the dead Facility Guard slumped down to the floor.

Ivari had recovered his breath by then, and a pair of long arms shot toward Ion riding the crest of an orange-lit wave. Ion ducked under Ivari’s reach and countered, her arm a beam of glowing blue light behind her left-handed knife strike to the nerve cluster under his armpit. Ivari howled. A second pivot on her heel propelled a closed-fist strike under Ivari’s chin. He stumbled. Then Ion grabbed Ivari’s chest plate and fell backward, pulling him down with her. As she hit the floor, Ion kicked both legs up and pushed, flipping Ivari onto his back. She made a final knife strike with the blade of her hand, chopping at his throat. This time, Ion crushed his windpipe. Ivari squirmed, unable to breathe. But his struggle didn’t last long. Ion rolled up onto her knees, grabbed his head with both hands, and twisted hard, snapping Ivari’s neck.

Ion remained on her knees for a moment, catching her breath before the stench of death filled the corridor. But she had no time for rest. Ion quickly reached forward and grabbed the soldier’s blaster. It would make the next part so much easier.

Then another memory flash hit. The soft warmth of a hand lovingly caressing her cheek. Her own hand scratching well-manicured nails down the skin of a well-muscled, naked back. Her quickened breath as she puckers her lips in anticipation of a kiss.

Ion vigorously shook her head to force the unwanted memories from her thoughts. They were coming to her more frequently, each time somehow feeling both alien and familiar.

Ion stood with a grunt, checked the charge on her borrowed blaster, then turned and stepped forward. She swiped Taril’s override key on the input pad mounted next to the Incubator Lab hatch, and it slid aside with a dull whoosh. Ion stepped inside.

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