Read Online Ghost Spin by Chris Moriarty - Free Book Online Page B

of UNSec’s arrayed forces.
    First the command of the
Ada
, which he’d received with pride and joy and a pathetic lack of suspicion. Then the slow slide from pride into confusion as he realized that something was terribly wrong with the ship. Then the heartbreaking moment when it all fell apart, and he realized that he was going to be hung out to dry—and that he’d made it so, so easy for them.
    The betrayals had come one after another, until he didn’t think he had any illusions left to lose. But he did, of course. Because there was still Avery. Bright, beautiful, pure, and noble Avery—who’d looked just as bright and pure and beautiful when she sold him down the river as she had when she welcomed him into her bed.
    Poor Will. You really loved her, didn’t you?
    Llewellyn decided not to dignify that with an answer.
    Don’t feel too bad about Nguyen making a fool of you. She made a fool of my wife, too, and you’re a blushing innocent compared to Catherine. You didn’t stand a chance, so you might as well take yourlicking and forget about it. The main point is, what are you going to do now?
    “There’s nothing to do. That life’s over. And it’s no concern of yours anyway.”
    Given that we’re stuck in the same body, I beg to differ. And while your long-suffering mother may be the only person who cares if you get your neck stretched, I actually have friends who’d like to see me again.
    “Other than your war criminal wife, you mean?”
    But the ghost just laughed at that. And this from the man who commanded the Ada at Flinders Island!
    “What do you know about that?” Llewellyn gasped.
    Nothing but the naked name. But I know you’re ashamed of it. And I reckon I’ll find out why sooner or later. Come on, remember it for me. Remember anything you like. Let me know your mind. I’m not going to turn you into an Uploader Zombie. I just want a little room to breathe in here.
    Llewellyn blinked, struck by that idea. “You need me to remember things for you? That gives you processing capacity or something? Are you running on my memories?”
    Memories. Thoughts. Focus. Love. Or if I can’t get love, at least attention. I can’t help it. It’s built into my source code. And I can be really annoying when people persist in ignoring me.
    “I hadn’t noticed.”
    Oh good, you do have a sense of humor. If you could pull it out of mothballs and refit it for action we’d get along better. Now, come on, remember something for me. Remember Catherine?
    “How can I remember someone I’ve never met?” Llewellyn protested.
    But in fact he did remember her. And what he remembered was terrifying. Almost as terrifying as the idea of sharing his head with a creature who kept wanted war criminals as house pets.
    All through their talk he had felt the ghost at work within and around him: running the ship’s myriad intelligent systems with effortlessgrace; mapping Llewellyn’s mind for entry points as easily as it mapped the quantum currents and eddies of the Drift; sidling into Llewellyn’s thoughts and tweaking and twisting and adjusting them as he rebuilt Llewellyn’s psyche and synapses to carry
its
memories and its overlapped, nesting, superimposed identities. He took control of the ship effortlessly, almost carelessly, as if it were such a little thing that he could push it here and there across the quantum chessboard of the Drift without even putting his whole mind to the job.
    Well, he wouldn’t take charge of Llewellyn so effortlessly. Llewellyn didn’t dare say so aloud, but he thought it, with determination, in the secret recesses of his mind beneath and below the words that he shared with the AI.
    I suppose you’d rather play ball with Helen Nguyen instead? the ghost drawled lazily. Three square meals a day and a nice comfortable cell until they get around to hanging you?
    “I could always go to the Syndicate side of the Line,” Llewellyn bluffed, trying not to show how shocked he was that the