Z14 Read Online Free PDF Page A

expecting that, and, after it banged uselessly a few times against the small boulder I’d blocked it with, it gave up. The gentle sigh I thought I heard was no doubt just hydraulics, but it made it seem like a victory. “Ha, screw you, door,” I said.
    “Please. Be. Seated,” said the disembodied robot voice.
    “No thanks, I’ll stand by the door and be ready to make a run for it.”
    “Doctor. Melon. Always. Hoped. You. Would. Come. Back.”
    “Hey, you knew the Doc? Is there a brain behind that voice?”
    “Please. Be. Seated.”
    Oh what the hell, either I’d find something out, or I’d be summarily deactivated, but if it came to that it’s hardly like I’d care anymore. There were two seats facing the screens and what was probably a cockpit window, currently covered by some sort of massive blast-, or heat-shield. I sat in the seat closest to the door, ready to leap out in an instant if any kind of restraints, or potentially disabling devices appeared.
    “Remain. Still. While. Data. Transfer. Is. Initiated.”
    What looked like a set of headphones began to descend from a now open compartment in the ceiling, attached by a slender black cable. What was this? An auditory tour of the aliens’ space museum? I suppose that would count as a data transfer, but it’d still probably induce me into a regenerative coma – which, thanks to those exploding dickhead lizards outside, would actually be almost blissful right now.
    I allowed the headphones to slip into place over my head, where they instantly fired spikes into my ears, through my eardrums and into my central processing unit. Yes, it hurt – I was still driven to punish the fucker who decided things should hurt me – but I was able to quickly lock that sensation down, just as I had for the multitude of grievous injuries the Manoogla shits had inflicted upon me. Honestly, years of fighting tooled-up humans, and it took a bunch of suicidal lizards to literally tear me to shreds. But anyway, back to the two spikes buried in my brain...
    I always knew that I didn’t have a full list of my capabilities. I only seem to know what I need to know about myself to survive and function on a day-to-day basis, I couldn’t take myself apart and categorically state what everything did, so it was an education to learn that these ‘data spikes’ had neatly slotted into a couple of access ports inside my head and begun interfacing with me. Never mind the eardrums, they’re just part of the overall charade that is my outer human layer, I don’t need them, and they’ll heal up the next time I get some shut-eye.
    The data transfer took less than a second. The spikes retracted, the headphones rose back into the ceiling and I had a brand new addition to my memory, or a restored memory, or a completely bloody made up one, I don’t know. Everything I ‘know’ about my past and the past is contained in a multitude of memory files. I create new ones on the fly all the time, but, as had just been demonstrated by the ear-stabbing device, they can also be implanted by external means. Once there, if done correctly, they just became part of my history, as though they’d always been there. They may not be real, hell, none of my memories might be real, but I just had to accept that what was in my head at any given time was what made me, me, and get on with it. The memory inserted by the device was different. It had a little note attached to it saying, essentially: Look! Brand new memory file! Odd.
     
    The new memory covered a conversation with poor old Doctor Melon – dated roughly five years prior to today – and it looked like the doctor and I were in this very space shuttle. I was kneeling on the floor and Doc Melon had a keyboard jacked into one of my ears and a display screen, that dangled from the ceiling, plugged into the other. He was sitting in the seat I’m in now hammering away at the keyboard, touch-typing and leaning forward to stare intently at the screen. He was