Log 1 Matter | Antimatter by Selina Brown Page A

station. Three males were cycling through Perza Station’s
external traps but Aven was trying to delay them.
     
    Perza Space Station
     
    Jamie was cursing by the time he arrived and
docked. He reached his small office set up by Diane and began to
activate all the monitors while licking his dry lips. While he
listened he found a cupboard with bottled water and cracked open a
seal to drink. He found strong coffee too, in one of the cupboards,
and read the instructions. “Turn upside down … blah blah …
exothermic reaction … right.” In under a minute he had hot, strong
coffee and sipped it. He leaned forward because, unlike the boring
Ballus meeting, which had little to do with Ara’s security at the
moment, this was too close for Jamie’s comfort.
     
    An hour later, Jamie waited until the
“Snakes” had cycled out and were clear. What had they downloaded?
He had to report to Simon, but he also wanted to mull over what he
had learned. But Simon must have known to some extent what was
going to be discussed between the Snakes, otherwise why not send up
another operative? Jamie always knew Ara was different and now he
had confirmation as to why but whether she was especially made for
the Lacuna or had been an adult and put into a baby biosuit he
didn’t know. Silvia, Cyrus, and Max had shown him the CU log that
revealed someone had messed with the biosuit, and he now knew the
three Snakes were responsible: Cobra, Krait, and Viper. How could
it be possible they were once all one person? Jamie had never heard
of a person being split before, cloned yes. Where’d they get the
bodies? Was it just three biosuits?
    He checked the station’s systems but the
three Snakes had wiped the data and their visit. Even Jamie’s
independent systems were wiped. He pulled out his nanite pen and
pad—he called it NaPP—and wrote a list:
     
    1. Consociation of Eight
    2. Natal
    3. Monad
    4. Amatal
    5. kroTan
    6. Chaos
    7. Function Tests – necklace?
     
    Next, he considered where to transfer the
nanites. He pulled down his pants and laid the paper over his thigh
wondering if his hair … no, apparently hair made no difference. The
words sunk into his skin.
    It was clear from studying body language,
micro expressions, and vocal tones that they loved Nyx and/or Ara.
Krait AKA Tarus was one who particularly appeared to be struggling.
Jamie had also learned that a male named “Trickster” might have
access to Ara via Aryan Dreams and that would make security
complicated. The Snakes confirmed that they were in some kind of
test site and they considered the Vakar a control group. His
stomach cramped thinking about it and he cracked his knuckles. He
had to feed this up through the proper channels. Both “proper”
channels. He’d leave it up to Simon if and what they’d tell the
Aether.
    When both command channels sent the same
reply, Jamie knew it was too late to leave the mission.
    “Imperative: Compartmentalize and
isolate.”
    “Priority Top: Trigger Cell and Exit
Protocols.”
    Jamie’s independent systems were wiped as
well as the systems. Aven or the AM techs might be able to recover
any traces of what the Snakes took. If he had arrived sooner he
might have found out, but, then again, maybe they would have picked
up a transportal energy signature. So much for all his
preparations, the Snakes were something entirely unplanned for and
he had to try to incorporate them into his plans from now. He just
hoped it wasn’t too late. The most disturbing thing was how casual
they had been discussing Ara’s possible demise. Why drive someone
to their death when killing them would be faster? What did they get
out of making someone kill themselves? Why did they consider it
difficult? But he could hardly experiment on Ara. He certainly
didn’t want her dead but, while it was easy to protect someone from
being killed, to protect against psychological warfare was much
harder.
    His instinct was to remove himself from