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[ { "from": "system", "value": "Task: Cooperative storytelling\nMy role: Provide a brief opening\nYour role: Expand upon my opening with four sentences, emulating the writing style of James S. A. Corey." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Tachi's galley had a full kitchen and a table with room for twelve." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It also had a full-size coffeepot that could brew forty cups of coffee in less than five minutes whether the ship was in zero g or under a five-g burn. Holden said a silent prayer of thanks for bloated military budgets and pressed the brew button. He had to restrain himself from stroking the stainless steel cover while it made gentle percolating noises.\n\nThe aroma of coffee began to fill the air, competing with the baking-bread smell of whatever Alex had put in the oven." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Amos was thumping around the table in his new cast, laying out plastic plates and actual honest-to-god metal silverware." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In a bowl Naomi was mixing something that had the garlic scent of good hummus. Watching the crew work at these domestic tasks, Holden had a sense of peace and safety deep enough to leave him light-headed.\n\nThey'd been on the run for weeks now, pursued the entire time by one mysterious ship or another. For the first time since the Canterbury was destroyed, no one knew where they were." }, { "from": "human", "value": "No one was demanding anything of them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As far as the solar system was concerned, they were a few casualties out of thousands on the Donnager. A brief vision of Shed's head disappearing like a grisly magic trick reminded him that at least one of his crew was a casualty. And still, it felt so good to once again be master of his own destiny that even regret couldn't entirely rob him of it.\n\nA timer rang, and Alex pulled out a tray covered with thin, flat bread." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He began cutting it into slices, onto which Naomi slathered a paste that did in fact look like hummus." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amos put them on the plates around the table. Holden drew fresh coffee into mugs that had the ship's name on the side. He passed them around. There was an awkward moment when everyone stared at the neatly set table without moving, as if afraid to destroy the perfection of the scene." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Amos solved this by saying, \"I'm hungry as a fucking bear,\" and then sitting down with a thump." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Somebody pass me that pepper, wouldja?\"\n\nFor several minutes, no one spoke; they only ate. Holden took a small bite of the flat bread and hummus, the strong flavors making him dizzy after weeks of tasteless protein bars. Then he was stuffing it into his mouth so fast it made his salivary glands flare with exquisite agony." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He looked around the table, embarrassed, but everyone else was eating just as fast, so he gave up on propriety and concentrated on food." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When he'd finished off the last scraps from his plate, he leaned back with a sigh, hoping to make the contentment last as long as possible. Alex sipped coffee with his eyes closed. Amos ate the last bits of the hummus right out of the serving bowl with his spoon. Naomi gave Holden a sleepy look through half-lidded eyes that was suddenly sexy as hell." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden quashed that thought and raised his mug." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"To Kelly's marines. Heroes to the last, may they rest in peace,\" he said.\n\n\"To the marines,\" everyone at the table echoed, then clinked mugs and drank.\n\nAlex raised his mug and said, \"To Shed.\"\n\n\"Yeah, to Shed, and to the assholes who killed him roasting in hell,\" Amos said in a quiet voice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Right beside the fucker who killed the Cant.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The mood at the table got somber. Holden felt the peaceful moment slipping away as quietly as it had come.\n\n\"So,\" he said. \"Tell me about our new ship. Alex?\"\n\n\"She's a beaut, Cap. I ran her at twelve g for most of half an hour when we left the Donnie, and she purred like a kitten the whole time. The pilot's chair is comfy too.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden nodded." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Amos? Get a chance to look at her engine room yet?\" he asked.\n\n\"Yep. Clean as a whistle. This is going to be a boring gig for a grease monkey like me,\" the mechanic replied.\n\n\"Boring would be nice,\" Holden said. \"Naomi? What do you think?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She smiled. \"I love it. It's got the nicest showers I've ever seen on a ship this size. Plus, there's a truly amazing medical bay with a computerized expert system that knows how to fix broken marines. We should have found it rather than fix Amos on our own.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amos thumped his cast with one knuckle.\n\n\"You guys did a good job, Boss.\"\n\nHolden looked around at his clean crew and ran a hand through his own hair, not pulling it away covered in grease for the first time in weeks.\n\n\"Yeah, a shower and not having to fix broken legs sounds good. Anything else?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Naomi tilted her head back, her eyes moving as though she was running through a mental checklist." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We've got a full tank of water, the injectors have enough fuel pellets to run the reactor for about thirty years, and the galley is fully stocked. You'll have to tie me up if you plan to give her back to the navy. I love her.\"\n\n\"She is a cunning little boat,\" Holden said with a smile. \"Have a chance to look at the weapons?\"\n\n\"Two tubes and twenty long-range torpedoes with high-yield plasma warheads,\" Naomi said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Or at least that's what the manifest says. They load those from the outside, so I can't physically verify without climbing around on the hull.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The weapons panel is sayin' the same thing, Cap,\" Alex said. \"And full loads in all the point defense cannons. You know, except...\"\n\nExcept the burst you fired into the men who killed Gomez.\n\n\"Oh, and, Captain, when we put Kelly in the cargo hold, I found a big crate with the letters map on the side. According to the manifest, it stands for 'Mobile Assault Package.' Apparently navy-speak for a big box of guns,\" Naomi said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yeah,\" Alex said. \"It's full kit for eight marines.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Okay,\" Holden said. \"So with the fleet-quality Epstein, we've got legs. And if you guys are right about the weapons load out, we've also got teeth. The next question is what do we do with it? I'm inclined to take Colonel Johnson's offer of refuge. Any thoughts?\"\n\n\"I'm all for that, Captain,\" Amos said. \"I always did think the Belters were getting the short end of the stick. I'll go be a revolutionary for a while, I guess.\"\n\n\"Earthman's burden, Amos?\" Naomi asked with a grin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What the fuck does that even mean?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Nothing, just teasing,\" she said. \"I know you like our side because you just want to steal our women.\"\n\nAmos grinned back, suddenly in on the joke.\n\n\"Well, you ladies do have the legs that go all the way up,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Okay, enough,\" Holden said, raising his hand." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So, two votes for Fred. Anyone else?\"\n\nNaomi raised her hand.\n\n\"I vote for Fred,\" she said.\n\n\"Alex? What do you think?\" Holden asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Martian pilot leaned back in his chair and scratched his head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I got nowhere in particular to be, so I'll stick with you guys, I guess,\" he said. \"But I hope this don't turn into another round of bein' told what to do.\"\n\n\"It won't,\" Holden replied. \"I have a ship with guns on it now, and the next time someone orders me to do something, I'm using them.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "After dinner, Holden took a long, slow tour of his new ship." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He opened every door, looked in every closet, turned on every panel, and read every readout. He stood in engineering next to the fusion reactor and closed his eyes, getting used to the almost subliminal vibration she made. If something ever went wrong with it, he wanted to feel it in his bones before any warning ever sounded. He stopped and touched all the tools in the well-stocked machine shop, and he climbed up to the personnel deck and wandered through the crew cabins until he found one he liked, and messed up the bed to show it was taken." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He found a bunch of jumpsuits in what looked like his size, then moved them to the closet in his new room." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He took a second shower and let the hot water massage knots in his back that were three weeks old. As he wandered back to his cabin, he trailed his fingers along the wall, feeling the soft give of the fire-retardant foam and anti-spalling webbing over the top of the armored steel bulkheads. When he arrived at his cabin, Alex and Amos were both getting settled into theirs.\n\n\"Which cabin did Naomi take?\" he asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Amos shrugged. \"She's still up in ops, fiddling with something.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden decided to put off sleep for a while and rode the keel ladder-lift—we have a lift!—up to the operations deck. Naomi was sitting on the floor, an open bulkhead panel in front of her and what looked like a hundred small parts and wires laid out around her in precise patterns. She was staring at something inside the open compartment.\n\n\"Hey, Naomi, you should really get some sleep. What are you working on?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She gestured vaguely at the compartment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Transponder,\" she said.\n\nHolden moved over and sat down on the floor next to her.\n\n\"Tell me how to help.\"\n\nShe handed him her hand terminal; Fred's instructions for changing the transponder signal were open on the screen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's ready to go. I've got the console hooked up to the transponder's data port just like he says. I've got the computer program set up to run the override he describes. The new transponder code and ship registry data are ready to be entered. I put in the new name. Did Fred pick it?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, that was me.\"\n\n\"Oh. All right, then. But...\" Her voice trailed off, and she waved at the transponder again.\n\n\"What's the problem?\" Holden asked.\n\n\"Jim, they make these things not to be fiddled with. The civilian version of this device fuses itself into a solid lump of silicon if it thinks it's being tampered with. Who knows what the military version of the fail-safe is? Drop the magnetic bottle in the reactor? Turn us into a supernova?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Naomi turned to look at him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I've got it all set up and ready to go, but now I don't think we should throw the switch,\" she said. \"We don't know the consequences of failure.\"\n\nHolden got up off the floor and moved over to the computer console. A program Naomi had named Trans01 was waiting to be run." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He hesitated for one second, then pressed the button to execute." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The ship failed to vaporize.\n\n\"I guess Fred wants us alive, then,\" he said.\n\nNaomi slumped down with a noisy, extended exhale.\n\n\"See, this is why I can't ever be in command,\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't like making tough calls with incomplete information?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"More I'm not suicidally irresponsible,\" she replied, and began slowly reassembling the transponder housing.\n\nHolden punched the comm system on the wall. \"Well, crew, welcome aboard the gas freighter Rocinante.\"\n\n\"What does that name even mean?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Naomi said after he let go of the comm button." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It means we need to go find some windmills,\" Holden said over his shoulder as he headed to the lift.\n\nTycho Manufacturing and Engineering Concern was one of the first major corporations to move into the Belt. In the early days of expansion, Tycho engineers and a fleet of ships had captured a small comet and parked it in stable orbit as a water resupply point decades before ships like the Canterbury began bringing ice in from the nearly limitless fields in Saturn's rings. It had been the most complex, difficult feat of mass-scale engineering humanity had ever accomplished until the next thing they did." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As an encore, Tycho had built the massive reaction drives into the rock of Ceres and Eros and spent more than a decade teaching the asteroids to spin." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They had been slated to create a network of high-atmosphere floating cities above Venus before the development rights fell into a labyrinth of lawsuits now entering its eighth decade. There was some discussion of space elevators for Mars and Earth, but nothing solid had come of it yet. If you had an impossible engineering job that needed to be done in the Belt, and you could afford it, you hired Tycho.\n\nTycho Station, the Belt headquarters of the company, was a massive ring station built around a sphere half a kilometer across, with more than sixty-five million cubic meters of manufacturing and storage space inside." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The two counter-rotating habitation rings that circled the sphere had enough space for fifteen thousand workers and their families." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The top of the manufacturing sphere was festooned with half a dozen massive construction waldoes that looked like they could rip a heavy freighter in half. The bottom of the sphere had a bulbous projection fifty meters across, which housed a capital-ship-class fusion reactor and drive system, making Tycho Station the largest mobile construction platform in the solar system. Each compartment within the massive rings was built on a swivel system that allowed the chambers to reorient to thrust gravity when the rings stopped spinning and the station flew to its next work location.\n\nHolden knew all this, and his first sight of the station still took his breath away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It wasn't just the size of it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was the idea that four generations of the smartest people in the solar system had been living and working here as they helped drag humanity into the outer planets almost through sheer force of will.\n\nAmos said, \"It looks like a big bug.\"\n\nHolden started to protest, but it did resemble some kind of giant spider: fat bulbous body and all its legs sprouting from the top of its head.\n\nAlex said, \"Forget the station, look at that monster.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The vessel it was constructing dwarfed the station." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ladar returns told Holden the ship was just over two kilometers long and half a kilometer wide. Round and stubby, it looked like a cigarette butt made of steel. Framework girders exposed internal compartments and machinery at various stages of construction, but the engines looked complete, and the hull had been assembled over the bow. The name Nauvoo was painted in massive white letters across it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So the Mormons are going to ride that thing all the way to Tau Ceti, huh?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amos asked, following it up with a long whistle. \"Ballsy bastards. No guarantee there's even a planet worth a damn on the other end of that hundred-year trip.\"\n\n\"They seem pretty sure,\" Holden replied. \"And you don't make the money to build a ship like that by being stupid. I, for one, wish them nothing but luck.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They'll get the stars,\" Naomi said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How can you not envy them that?\"\n\n\"Their great-grandkids'll get maybe a star if they don't all starve to death orbiting a rock they can't use,\" Amos said. \"Let's not get grandiose here.\"\n\nHe pointed at the impressively large comm array jutting from the Nauvoo's flank." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Want to bet that's what threw our anus-sized tightbeam message?\" Amos said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alex nodded. \"If you want to send private messages home from a couple light-years away, you need serious beam coherence. They probably had the volume turned down to avoid cuttin' a hole in us.\"\n\nHolden got up from the copilot's couch and pushed past Amos.\n\n\"Alex, see if they'll let us land.\"\n\nLanding was surprisingly easy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The station control directed them to a docking port on the side of the sphere and stayed on the line, guiding them in, until Alex had married the docking tube to the airlock door." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The tower control never pointed out that they had a lot of armaments for a transport and no tanks for carrying compressed gas. She got them docked, then wished them a pleasant day.\n\nHolden put on his atmosphere suit and made a quick trip to the cargo bay, then met the others just inside the Rocinante's inner airlock door with a large duffel.\n\n\"Put your suits on, that's now standard ops for this crew anytime we go someplace new. And take one of these,\" he said, pulling handguns and cartridge magazines from the bag." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hide it in a pocket or your bag if you like, but I will be wearing mine openly.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Naomi frowned at him.\n\n\"Seems a bit... confrontational, doesn't it?\"\n\n\"I'm tired of being kicked around,\" Holden said. \"The Roci's a good start toward independence, and I'm taking a little piece of her with me. Call it a good luck charm.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Fuckin' A,\" said Amos, and strapped one of the guns to his thigh." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alex stuffed his into the pocket of his flight suit. Naomi wrinkled her nose and waved off the last gun. Holden put it back into his duffel, led the crew into the Rocinante's airlock, and cycled it. An older, dark-skinned man with a heavy build waited for them on the other side." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As they came in, he smiled." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your next one should be approximately one sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Welcome to Tycho Station,\" said the Butcher of Anderson Station. \"Call me Fred.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "expand on the story like James S. A. Corey would" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The death of the Donnager hit Ceres like a hammer striking a gong." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Newsfeeds clogged themselves with high-power telescopic footage of the battle, most if not all of it faked. The Belt chatter swam with speculation about a secret OPA fleet. The six ships that had taken down the Martian flagship were hailed as heroes and martyrs. Slogans like We did it once and we can do it again and Drop some rocks cropped up even in apparently innocuous settings." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Canterbury had stripped away the complacency of the Belt, but the Donnager had done something worse." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It had taken away the fear. The Belters had gotten a sudden, decisive, and unexpected win. Anything seemed possible, and the hope seduced them.\n\nIt would have scared Miller more if he'd been sober." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller's alarm had been going off for the past ten minutes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The grating buzz took on subtones and overtones when he listened to it long enough. A constant rising tone, fluttering percussion throbbing under it, even soft music hiding underneath the blare. Illusions. Aural hallucinations. The voice of the whirlwind.\n\nThe previous night's bottle of fungal faux bourbon sat on the bedside table where a carafe of water usually waited." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It still had a couple fingers at the bottom." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller considered the soft brown of the liquid, thought about how it would feel on his tongue.\n\nThe beautiful thing about losing your illusions, he thought, was that you got to stop pretending. All the years he'd told himself that he was respected, that he was good at his job, that all his sacrifices had been made for a reason fell away and left him with the clear, unmuddied knowledge that he was a functional alcoholic who had pared away everything good in his own life to make room for anesthetic. Shaddid thought he was a joke." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Muss thought he was the price she paid not to sleep with someone she didn't like." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The only one who might have any respect for him at all was Havelock, an Earther. It was peaceful, in its way. He could stop making the effort to keep up appearances. If he stayed in bed listening to the alarm drone, he was just living up to expectations." }, { "from": "human", "value": "No shame in that." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And still there was work to be done. He reached over and turned off the alarm. Just before it cut off, he heard a voice in it, soft but insistent. A woman's voice. He didn't know what she'd been saying." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But since she was just in his head, she'd get another chance later." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He levered himself out of bed, sucked down some painkillers and rehydration goo, stalked to the shower, and burned a day and a half's ration of hot water just standing there, watching his legs get pink. He dressed in his last set of clean clothes. Breakfast was a bar of pressed yeast and grape sweetener. He dropped the bourbon from the bedside table into the recycler without finishing it, just to prove to himself that he still could." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Muss was waiting at the desk." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She looked up when he sat.\n\n\"Still waiting for the labs on the rape up on eighteen,\" she said. \"They promised them by lunch.\"\n\n\"We'll see,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I've got a possible witness. Girl who was with the vic earlier in the evening. Her deposition said she left before anything happened, but the security cameras aren't backing her up.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Want me in the questioning?\" Miller asked.\n\n\"Not yet. But if I need some theater, I'll pull you in.\"\n\n\"Fair enough.\"\n\nMiller didn't watch her walk away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "After a long moment staring at nothing, he pulled up his disk partition, reviewed what still needed doing, and started cleaning the place up." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As he worked, his mind replayed for the millionth time the slow, humiliating interview with Shaddid and Dawes. We have Holden, Dawes said. You can't even find what happened to your own riot gear. Miller poked at the words like a tongue at the gap of a missing tooth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It rang true. Again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Still, it might have been bullshit. It might have been a story concocted just to make him feel small. There wasn't any proof, after all, that Holden and his crew had survived. What proof could there be?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Donnanger was gone, and all its logs along with it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There would have to have been a ship that made it out. Either a rescue vessel or one of the Martian escort ships. There was no way a ship could have gotten out and not been the singular darling of every newsfeed and pirate cast since. You couldn't keep something like that quiet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Or sure you could." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It just wouldn't be easy. He squinted at the empty air of the station house. Now. How would you cover up a surviving ship?\n\nMiller pulled up a cheap navigation plotter he'd bought five years before—transit times had figured in a smuggling case—and plotted the date and position of the Donnager's demise." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Anything running under non-Epstein thrust would still have been out there, and Martian warships would have either picked it up or blasted it into background radiation by now." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So if Dawes wasn't just handing him bullshit, that meant an Epstein drive. He ran a couple quick calculations. With a good drive, someone could have made Ceres in just less than a month. Call it three weeks to be safe." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He looked at the data for almost ten minutes, but the next step didn't come to him, so he stepped away, got some coffee, and pulled up the interview he and Muss had done with a Belter ground-crew grunt." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The man's face was long and cadaverous and subtly cruel. The recorder hadn't had a good fix on him, so the picture kept bouncing around. Muss asked the man what he'd seen, and Miller leaned forward to read the transcribed answers, checking for incorrectly recognized words. Thirty seconds later, the grunt said clip whore and the transcript read clipper." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller corrected it, but the back of his mind kept churning." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Probably eight or nine hundred ships came into Ceres in a given day. Call it a thousand to be safe. Give it a couple days on either side of the three-week mark, that was only four thousand entries. Pain in the ass, sure, but not impossible." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Ganymede would be the other real bitch." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With its agriculture, there would be hundreds of transports a day there. Still, it wouldn't double the workload. Eros. Tycho. Pallas. How many ships docked on Pallas every day?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He'd missed almost two minutes of the recording." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He started again, forcing himself to pay attention this time, and half an hour later, he gave up.\n\nThe ten busiest ports with two days to either side of an estimated arrival of an Epstein-drive ship that originated when and where the Donnager died totaled twenty-eight thousand docking records, more or less. But he could cut that down to seventeen thousand if he excluded stations and ports explicitly run by Martian military and research stations with all or nearly all inner planets inhabitants. So how long would it take him to check all the porting records by hand, pretending for a minute that he was stupid enough to do it?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Call it 118 days—if he didn't eat or sleep." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Just working ten-hour days, doing nothing else, he could almost get through it in less than a year. A little less.\n\nExcept no. Because there were ways to narrow it. He was only looking for Epstein drive ships. Most of the traffic at any of the ports would be local." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Torch drive ships flown by prospectors and short-hop couriers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The economics of spaceflight made relatively few and relatively large ships the right answer for long flights. So take it down by, conservatively, three-quarters, and he was back in the close-to-four-thousand range again. Still hundreds of hours of work, but if he could think of some other filter that would just feed him the likely suspects... For instance, if the ship couldn't have filed a flight plan before the Donnager got killed.\n\nThe request interface for the port logs was ancient, uncomfortable, and subtly different from Eros to Ganymede to Pallas and on and on." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller tacked the information requests on to seven different cases, including a month-old cold case on which he was only a consultant." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Port logs were public and open, so he didn't particularly need his detective status to hide his actions. With any luck Shaddid's monitoring of him wouldn't extend to low-level, public-record poking around. And even if it did, he might get the replies before she caught on.\n\nNever knew if you had any luck left unless you pushed it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Besides, there wasn't a lot to lose." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When the connection from the lab opened on his terminal, he almost jumped. The technician was a gray-haired woman with an unnaturally young face.\n\n\"Miller? Muss with you?\"\n\n\"Nope,\" Miller said. \"She's got an interrogation.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was pretty sure that was what she'd said. The tech shrugged." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, her system's not answering. I wanted to tell you we got a match off the rape you sent us. It wasn't the boyfriend. Her boss did it.\"\n\nMiller nodded. \"You put in for the warrant?\" he asked.\n\n\"Yep,\" she said. \"It's already in the file.\"\n\nMiller pulled it up: STAR HELIX ON BEHALF OF CERES STATION AUTHORIZES AND MANDATES THE DETENTION OF IMMANUEL CORVUS DOWD PENDING ADJUDICATION OF SECURITY INCIDENT CCS-4949231." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The judge's digital signature was listed in green." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He felt a slow smile on his lips.\n\n\"Thanks,\" he said.\n\nOn the way out of the station, one of the vice squads asked him where he was headed. He said lunch.\n\nThe Arranha Accountancy Group had their offices in the nice part of the governmental quarter in sector seven." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It wasn't Miller's usual stomping grounds, but the warrant was good on the whole station." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller went to the secretary at the front desk—a good-looking Belter with a starburst pattern embroidered on his vest—and explained that he needed to speak with Immanuel Corvus Dowd. The secretary's deep-brown skin took on an ashy tone. Miller stood back, not blocking the exit, but keeping close.\n\nTwenty minutes later, an older man in a good suit came through the front door, stopped in front of Miller, and looked him up and down." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Detective Miller?\" the man said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You'd be Dowd's lawyer,\" Miller said cheerfully.\n\n\"I am, and I would like to—\"\n\n\"Really,\" Miller said. \"We should do this now.\"\n\nThe office was clean and spare with light blue walls that lit themselves from within." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dowd sat at the table." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was young enough that he still looked arrogant, but old enough to be scared. Miller nodded to him.\n\n\"You're Immanuel Corvus Dowd?\" he said.\n\n\"Before you continue, Detective,\" the lawyer said, \"my client is involved with very high-level negotiations. His client base includes some of the most important people in the war effort. Before you make any accusations, you should be aware that I can and will have everything you've done reviewed, and if there is one mistake, you will be held responsible.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Mr. Dowd,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What I am about to do to you is literally the only bright spot in my day. If you could see your way clear to resisting arrest, I'd really appreciate it.\"\n\n\"Harry?\" Dowd said, looking to his lawyer. His voice cracked a little.\n\nThe lawyer shook his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Back at the police cart, Miller took a long moment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dowd, handcuffed in the back, where everyone walking by could see him, was silent. Miller pulled up his hand terminal, noted the time of arrest, the objections of the lawyer, and a few other minor comments. A young woman in professional dress of cream-colored linen hesitated at the door of the accountancy. Miller didn't recognize her; she was no one involved with the rape case, or at least not the one he was working." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her face had the expressionless calm of a fighter." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He turned, craning his neck to look at Dowd, humiliated and not looking back. The woman shifted her gaze to Miller. She nodded once. Thank you.\n\nHe nodded back. Just doing my job." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She went through the door." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Two hours later, Miller finished the last of the paperwork and sent Dowd off to the cells.\n\nThree and a half hours later, the first of his docking log requests came in.\n\nFive hours later, the government of Ceres collapsed.\n\nDespite being full, the station house was silent." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Detectives and junior investigators, patrolmen and desk workers, the high and the low, they all gathered before Shaddid." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She stood at her podium, her hair pulled back tight. She wore her Star Helix uniform, but the insignia had been removed. Her voice was shaky.\n\n\"You've all heard this by now, but starting now, it's official. The United Nations, responding to requests from Mars, is withdrawing from its oversight and... protection of Ceres Station. This is a peaceful transition. This is not a coup. I'm going to say that again. This isn't a coup. Earth is pulling out of here, we aren't pushing.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's bullshit, sir,\" someone shouted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Shaddid raised her hand.\n\n\"There's a lot of loose talk,\" Shaddid said. \"I don't want to hear any of it from you. The governor's going to make the formal announcement at the start of the next shift, and we'll get more details then. Until we hear otherwise, the Star Helix contract is still in place. A provisional government is being formed with members drawn from local business and union representation. We are still the law on Ceres, and I expect you to behave appropriately. You will all be here for your shifts. You will be here on time. You will act professionally and within the scope of standard practice.\"\n\nMiller looked over at Muss." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His partner's hair was still unkempt from the pillow." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was pushing midnight for them both.\n\n\"Any questions?\" Shaddid said in a voice that implied there ought not be.\n\nWho's going to pay Star Helix? Miller thought. What laws are we enforcing?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "What does Earth know that makes walking away from the biggest port in the Belt the smart move?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Who's going to negotiate your peace treaty now?\n\nMuss, seeing Miller's gaze, smiled.\n\n\"Guess we're hosed,\" Miller said.\n\n\"Had to happen,\" Muss agreed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I better go. Got a stop to make.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Up at the core?\"\n\nMuss didn't answer, because she didn't have to. Ceres didn't have laws. It had police. Miller headed back to his hole." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The station hummed, the stone beneath him vibrating from the countless docking clamps and reactor cores, tubes and recyclers and pneumatics." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The stone was alive, and he'd forgotten the small signs that proved it. Six million people lived here, breathed this air. Fewer than in a middle-sized city on Earth. He wondered if they were expendable." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Had it really gone so far that the inner planets would be willing to lose a major station?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It seemed like it had if Earth was abandoning Ceres. The OPA would step in, whether it wanted to or not. The power vacuum was too great. Then Mars would call it an OPA coup." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then... Then what? Board it and put it under martial law?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That was the good answer. Nuke it into dust? He couldn't quite bring himself to believe that either. There was just too much money involved." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Docking fees alone would fuel a small national economy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And Shaddid and Dawes—much as he hated it—were right. Ceres under Earth contract had been the best hope for a negotiated peace.\n\nWas there someone on Earth who didn't want that peace? Someone or something powerful enough to move the glacial bureaucracy of the United Nations to take action?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What am I looking at, Julie?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "he said to the empty air. \"What did you see out there that's worth Mars and the Belt killing each other?\"\n\nThe station hummed to itself, a quiet, constant sound too soft for him to hear the voices within it.\n\nMuss didn't come to work in the morning, but there was a message on his system telling him she'd be in late." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Cleanup\" was her only explanation." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To look at it, nothing about the station house had changed. The same people coming to the same place to do the same thing. No, that wasn't true. The energy was high." }, { "from": "human", "value": "People were smiling, laughing, clowning around." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was a manic high, panic pressed through a cheesecloth mask of normalcy. It wasn't going to last.\n\nThey were all that separated Ceres from anarchy. They were the law, and the difference between the survival of six million people and some mad bastard forcing open all the airlocks or poisoning the recyclers rested on maybe thirty thousand people." }, { "from": "human", "value": "People like him. Maybe he should have rallied, risen to the occasion like the rest of them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The truth was the thought made him tired.\n\nShaddid marched by and tapped him on the shoulder. He sighed, rose from his chair, and followed her. Dawes was in her office again, looking shaken and sleep deprived." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller nodded to him." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Now write approximately 5 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Shaddid crossed her arms, her eyes softer and less accusing than he'd become used to.\n\n\"This is going to be tough,\" she said. \"We're facing something harder than anything we've had to do before. I need a team I can trust with my life. Extraordinary circumstances. You understand that?\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" he said. \"I got it. I'll stop drinking, get myself together.\"\n\n\"Miller. You're not a bad person at heart. There was a time you were a pretty good cop. But I don't trust you, and we don't have time to start over,\" Shaddid said, her voice as near to gentle as he had ever heard it. \"You're fired.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Task: The user will write a bit then you need to write around 4 sentences continuing directly from the user's text.\n\nAuthor style: James S. A. Corey" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fred stood alone, hand outstretched, a warm and open smile on his broad face." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were no guards with assault rifles behind him. Holden shook Fred's hand and then started laughing. Fred smiled and looked confused but let Holden keep a grip on his hand, waiting for Holden to explain what was so funny.\n\n\"I'm sorry, but you have no idea how pleasant this is,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"This is literally the first time in over a month that I've gotten off a ship without it blowing up behind me.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fred laughed with him now, an honest laugh that seemed to originate somewhere in his belly.\n\nAfter a moment the man said, \"You're quite safe here. We are the most protected station in the outer planets.\"\n\n\"Because you're OPA?\" Holden asked.\n\nFred shook his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No. We make campaign contributions to Earth and Mars politicians in amounts that would make a Hilton blush,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If anyone blows us up, half the UN assembly and all of the Martian Congress will be howling for blood. It's the problem with politics. Your enemies are often your allies. And vice versa.\"\n\nFred gestured to a doorway behind him and motioned for everyone to follow. The ride was short, but halfway through, gravity reappeared, shifting in a disorienting swoop. Holden stumbled. Fred looked chagrined." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm sorry. I should have warned you about that. The central hub's null g. Moving into the ring's rotational gravity can be awkward the first time.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm fine,\" Holden said. Naomi's brief smile might only have been his imagination.\n\nA moment later the elevator door opened onto a wide carpeted corridor with walls of pale green. It had the reassuring smell of air scrubbers and fresh carpet glue." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden wouldn't have been surprised to find they were piping 'new space station' scent into the air." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The doors that led off the corridor were made of faux wood distinguishable from the real thing only because nobody had that much money. Of all his crew, Holden was almost certainly the only one who had grown up in a house with real wooden furniture and fixtures. Amos had grown up in Baltimore. They hadn't seen a tree there in more than a century." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden pulled off his helmet and turned around to tell his crew to do the same, but theirs were already off." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amos looked up and down the corridor and whistled.\n\n\"Nice digs, Fred,\" he said.\n\n\"Follow me, I'll get you settled in,\" Fred replied, leading them down the corridor. As he walked, he spoke." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Tycho Station has undergone a number of refurbishments over the last hundred years, as you might guess, but the basics haven't changed much. It was a brilliant design to begin with; Malthus Tycho was an engineering genius. His grandson, Bredon, runs the company now. He isn't on station at the moment. Down the well at Luna negotiating the next big deal.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden said, \"Seems like you have a lot on your plate already, with that monster parked outside. And, you know, a war going on.\"\n\nA group of people in jumpsuits of various colors walked past, talking animatedly. The corridor was so wide that no one had to give way. Fred gestured at them as they went by." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"First shift's just ending, so this is rush hour,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's actually time to start drumming up new work. The Nauvoo is almost done. They'll be loading colonists on her in six months. Always have to have the next project lined up. The Tycho spends eleven million UN dollars every day she's in operation, whether we make money that day or not. It's a big nut to cover. And the war... well, we're hoping that's temporary.\"\n\n\"And now you're taking in refugees. That won't help,\" Holden said.\n\nFred just laughed and said, \"Four more people won't put us in the poorhouse anytime soon.\"\n\nHolden stopped, forcing the others to pull up short behind him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was several steps before Fred noticed, then turned around with a confused look." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're dodging,\" Holden said. \"Other than a couple billion dollars' worth of stolen Martian warship, we haven't got anything of value. Everyone thinks we're dead. Any access of our accounts ruins that, and I just don't live in a universe where Daddy Warbucks swoops in and makes everything okay out of the goodness of his heart. So either tell us why you're taking the risk of putting us up, or we go get back on our ship and try our hand at piracy.\"\n\n\"Scourge of the Martian merchant fleet, they'll call us,\" Amos growled from somewhere behind him. He sounded pleased.\n\nFred held up his hands." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was a hardness in his eyes, but also an amused respect." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Nothing underhanded, you have my word,\" he said. \"You're armed, and station security will allow you to carry guns whenever you like. That alone should reassure you that I'm not planning foul play. But let me get you settled in before we do much more talking, okay?\"\n\nHolden didn't move. Another group of returning workers was going by in the corridor, and they watched the scene curiously as they passed. Someone from the knot of people called out, \"Everything okay, Fred?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fred nodded and waved them by impatiently." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Let's get out of the corridor at least.\"\n\n\"We aren't unpacking until we get some answers,\" Holden replied.\n\n\"Fine. We're almost there,\" Fred said, and then led them off again at a somewhat faster pace. He stopped at a small inset in the corridor wall with two doors in it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Opening one with the swipe of a card, he led the four of them into a large residential suite with a roomy living space and lots of seating." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Bathroom is that door back there on the left. The bedroom is the one on the right. There's even a small kitchen space over here,\" Fred said, pointing to each thing as he spoke.\n\nHolden sat down in a large brown faux-leather recliner and leaned it back. A remote control was in a pocket of the armrest. He assumed it controlled the impressively large screen that took up most of one wall." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Naomi and Amos sat on a couch that matched his chair, and Alex draped himself over a loveseat in a nice contrasting cream color." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Comfortable?\" Fred asked, pulling a chair away from the six-seat dining area and sitting down across from Holden.\n\n\"It's all right,\" Holden said defensively. \"My ship has a really nice coffeemaker.\"\n\n\"I suppose bribes won't work. You are all comfortable, though? We have two suites set aside for you, both this basic layout, though the other suite has two rooms. I wasn't sure of the, ah, sleeping arrangements...\" Fred trailed off uncomfortably." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't worry, Boss, you can bunk with me,\" Amos said with a wink at Naomi." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Naomi just smiled faintly.\n\n\"Okay, Fred, we're off the street,\" she said. \"Now answer the captain's questions.\"\n\nFred nodded, then stood up and cleared his throat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He seemed to review something." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When he spoke, the conversational facade was gone. His voice carried a grim authority.\n\n\"War between the Belt and Mars is suicide. Even if every rock hopper in the Belt were armed, we still couldn't compete with the Martian navy. We might kill a few with tricks and suicide runs. Mars might feel forced to nuke one of our stations to prove a point. But we can strap chemical rockets onto a couple hundred rocks the size of bunk beds and rain Armageddon down on Martian dome cities.\"\n\nFred paused, as if looking for words, then sat back down on his chair." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"All of the war drums ignore that." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It's the elephant in the room. Anyone who doesn't live on a spaceship is structurally vulnerable. Tycho, Eros, Pallas, Ceres. Stations can't evade incoming missiles." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And with all of the enemy's citizens living at the bottom of huge gravity wells, we don't even have to aim particularly well." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Einstein was right. We will be fighting the next war with rocks. But the Belt has rocks that will turn the surface of Mars into a molten sea.\n\n\"Right now everyone is still playing nice, and only shooting at ships. Very gentlemanly. But sooner or later, one side or the other will be pressed to do something desperate.\"\n\nHolden leaned forward, the slick surface of his environment suit making an embarrassing squeak on the leather textured chair. No one laughed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I agree. What does that have to do with us?\" he asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Too much blood has already been shed,\" Fred said.\n\nShed.\n\nHolden winced at the bleak, unintentional pun but said nothing.\n\n\"The Canterbury,\" Fred continued." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The Donnager. People aren't just going to forget about those ships, and those thousands of innocent people.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Seems like you just crossed off the only two options, Chief,\" Alex said. \"No war, no peace.\"\n\n\"There's a third alternative. Civilized society has another way of dealing with things like this,\" Fred said. \"A criminal trial.\"\n\nAmos' snort shook the air." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden had to fight not to smile himself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Are you fucking serious?\" Amos asked. \"And how do you put a goddamn Martian stealth ship on trial? Do we go question all the stealth ships about their whereabouts, double-check their alibis?\"\n\nFred held up a hand.\n\n\"Stop thinking of the Canterbury's destruction as an act of war,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It was a crime. Right now, people are overreacting, but once the situation sinks in, heads will cool. People on both sides will see where this road goes and look for another way out. There is a window where the saner elements can investigate events, negotiate jurisdiction, and assign blame to some party or parties that both sides can agree to. A trial. It's the only outcome that doesn't involve millions of deaths and the collapse of human infrastucture.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden shrugged, a gesture barely visible in his heavy environment suit.\n\n\"So it goes to a trial. You still aren't answering my question.\"\n\nFred pointed at Holden, then at each of the crew in turn.\n\n\"You're the ace in the hole. You four people are the only eyewitnesses to the destruction of both ships. When the trial comes, I need you and your depositions. I have influence already through our political contacts, but you can buy me a seat at the table. It will be a whole new set of treaties between the Belt and the inner planets. We can do in months what I'd dreamed of doing in decades.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And you want to use our value as witnesses to force your way into the process so you can make those treaties look the way you want them to,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes. And I'm willing to give you protection, shelter, and run of my station for as long as it takes to get there.\"\n\nHolden took a long, deep breath, got up, and started unzipping his suit.\n\n\"Yeah, okay. That's just self-serving enough I believe it,\" he said. \"Let's get settled in.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Naomi was singing karaoke." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Just thinking about it made Holden's head spin. Naomi. Karaoke. Even considering everything that had happened to them over the past month, Naomi up onstage with a mic in one hand and some sort of fuchsia martini in the other, screaming out an angry Belt-punk anthem by the Moldy Filters, was the strangest thing he'd ever seen. She finished to scattered applause and a few catcalls, then staggered off the stage and collapsed across from him in the booth.\n\nShe held up her drink, sloshing a good half of it onto the table, then threw the other half back all at once." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Whadja think?\" Naomi asked, waving at the bartender for another." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It was terrible,\" Holden replied.\n\n\"No, really.\"\n\n\"It was truly one of the most awful renditions of one of the most awful songs I've ever heard.\"\n\nNaomi shook her head, blowing an exasperated raspberry at him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her dark hair fell across her face and, when the bartender brought her a second brightly colored martini, foiled all her attempts at drinking." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She finally grabbed her hair and held it above her head in a clump while she drank.\n\n\"You don't get it,\" she said. \"It's supposed to be awful. That's the point.\"\n\n\"Then it was the best version of that song I've ever heard,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Damn straight.\" Naomi looked around the bar." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Where're Amos and Alex?\"\n\n\"Amos found what I'm pretty sure was the most expensive hooker I've ever seen. Alex is in the back playing darts. He made some claims about the superiority of Martian darts players. I assume they're going to kill him and throw him out an airlock.\"\n\nA second singer was onstage, crooning out some sort of Vietnamese power ballad. Naomi watched the singer for a while, sipping her drink, then said, \"Maybe we should go save him.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Which one?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Alex. Why would Amos need saving?\"\n\n\"Because I'm pretty sure he told the expensive hooker he was on Fred's expense account.\"\n\n\"Let's mount a rescue mission; we can save them both,\" Naomi said, then drank the rest of her cocktail. \"I need more rescue fuel, though.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She started waving at the bartender again, but Holden reached out and grabbed her hand and held it on the table." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Maybe we should take a breather instead,\" he said.\n\nA flush of anger as intense as it was brief lit her face. She pulled back her hand.\n\n\"You take a breather. I've just had two ships and a bunch of friends shot out from underneath me, and spent three weeks of dead time flying to get here. So, no. I'm getting another drink, and then doing another set. The crowd loves me,\" Naomi said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What about our rescue mission?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Lost cause. Amos will be murdered by space hookers, but at least he'll die the way he lived.\"\n\nNaomi pushed her way up from the table, grabbed her martini off the bar, and headed toward the karaoke stage. Holden watched her go, then finished off the scotch he'd been nursing for the past two hours and got up.\n\nFor a moment there, he'd had a vision of the two of them staggering back to the room together, then falling into bed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He'd have hated himself in the morning for taking advantage, but he'd still have done it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Naomi was looking at him from the stage, and he realized he'd been staring. He gave a little wave, then headed out the door with only ghosts—Ade, Captain McDowell, Gomez and Kelly and Shed—to keep him company.\n\nThe suite was comfortable and huge and depressing. He'd lain on the bed less than five minutes before he was up and out the door again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He walked the corridor for half an hour, finding the big intersections that led to other parts of the ring." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He found an electronics store and a teahouse and what on closer inspection turned out to be a very expensive brothel. He declined the video menu of services the desk clerk offered and wandered out again, wondering if Amos was somewhere inside.\n\nHe was halfway down a corridor he hadn't seen before when a small knot of teenage girls passed him. Their faces looked no older than fourteen, but they were already as tall as he was." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They got quiet as he walked by, then burst out laughing when he was behind them, and hurried away." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tycho was a city, and he suddenly felt very much like a foreigner, unsure of where to go or what to do.\n\nIt was no surprise to him when he looked up from his wanderings and discovered he'd come to the elevator to the docking area. He punched the button and climbed inside, remembering to turn on his boot mags just in time to avoid being flung off his feet when the gravity twisted sideways and vanished.\n\nEven though he'd only had possession of the ship for three weeks, climbing back onto the Rocinante felt like going home." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Using gentle touches on the keel ladder, he made his way up to the cockpit." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He pulled himself into the copilot's couch, strapped in, and closed his eyes.\n\nThe ship was silent. With the reactor off-line, and no one aboard, nothing was moving at all. The flexible docking tube that connected the Roci to the station transmitted very little vibration to the ship." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden could close his eyes and drift in the straps and disconnect from everything around him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It would have been peaceful except that every time he'd closed his eyes for the past month, the fading ghost lights behind his eyelids had been Ade winking and blowing away like dust. The voice at the back of his head was McDowell's as he tried to save his ship right up to the very last second. He wondered if he'd have them for the rest of his life, coming out to haunt him every time he found a moment of quiet.\n\nHe remembered the old-timers from his navy days." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Grizzled lifers who could soundly sleep while two meters away their shipmates played a raucous game of poker or watched the vids with the volume all the way up." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Back then he'd assumed it was just learned behavior, the body adapting so it could get enough rest in an environment that never really had downtime. Now he wondered if those vets found the constant noise preferable. A way to keep their lost shipmates away. They probably went home after their twenty and never slept again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He opened his eyes and watched a small green telltale blink on the pilot's console." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was the only light in the room, and it illuminated nothing. But its slow fade in and out was somehow comforting. A quiet heartbeat for the ship.\n\nHe told himself that Fred was right; a trial was the right thing to hope for." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But he wanted that stealth ship in Alex's gun sights." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Now write approximately five sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He wanted that unknown crew to live through the terrifying moment when all the countermeasures have failed, the torpedoes are seconds from impact, and absolutely nothing can stop them.\n\nHe wanted them to have that same last gasp of fear he'd heard through Ade's mic.\n\nFor a time, he displaced the ghosts in his head with violent vengeance fantasies. When they stopped working, he floated down to the personnel deck, strapped into his cot, and tried to sleep. The Rocinante sang him a lullaby of air recyclers and silence." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Task: Cooperative storytelling\nMy role: Provide a brief opening\nYour role: Expand upon my opening with 4 sentences, emulating the writing style of James S. A. Corey." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller sat at an open café, the tunnel wide above him. Grass grew tall and pale in the public commons, and the ceiling glowed full-spectrum white. Ceres Station had come unmoored. Orbital mechanics and inertia kept it physically where it had always been, but the stories about it had changed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The point defenses were the same." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The tensile strength of the port blast doors was the same. The ephemeral shield of political status was all they'd lost, and it was everything.\n\nMiller leaned forward and sipped his coffee.\n\nThere were children playing on the commons." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He thought of them as children, though he remembered thinking of himself as an adult at that age." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fifteen, sixteen years old. They wore OPA armbands. The boys spoke in loud, angry voices about tyranny and freedom. The girls watched the boys strut." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The ancient, animal story, the same whether it was on a spinning rock surrounded by hard vacuum or the stamp-sized chimpanzee preserves on Earth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even in the Belt, youth brought invulnerability, immortality, the unshakable conviction that for you, things would be different. The laws of physics would cut you a break, the missiles would never hit, the air would never hiss out into nothing. Maybe for other people—the patched-together fighting ships of the OPA, the water haulers, the Martian gunships, the Scopuli, the Canterbury, the Donnager, the hundred other ships that had died in small actions since the system had turned itself into a battlefield—but not you. And when youth was lucky enough to survive its optimism, all Miller had left was a little fear, a little envy, and the overwhelming sense of life's fragility." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But he had three month's worth of company script in his account and a lot of free time, and the coffee wasn't bad." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You need anything, sir?\" the waiter asked. He didn't look any older than the kids on the grass. Miller shook his head.\n\nFive days had passed since Star Helix pulled its contract." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The governor of Ceres was gone, smuggled out on a transport before the news had gone wide." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Outer Planets Alliance had announced the inclusion of Ceres among official OPA-held real estate, and no one had said otherwise. Miller had spent the first day of his unemployment drunk, but his bender had an oddly pro forma feel. He'd descended into the bottle because it was familiar, because it was what you did when you'd lost the career that defined you.\n\nThe second day, he'd gotten through the hangover." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The third, he'd gotten bored." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All through the station, security forces were making the kind of display he'd expected, preemptive peacekeeping. The few political rallies and protests ended fast and hard, and the citizens of Ceres didn't much care. Their eyes were on their monitors, on the war. A few locals with busted heads getting thrown into prison without charges were beneath notice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And Miller was personally responsible for none of it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The fourth day, he'd checked his terminal and discovered that 80 percent of his docking log requests had come through before Shaddid had shut his access down. Over a thousand entries, any one of which could be the only remaining lead to Julie Mao. So far, no Martian nukes were on their way to crack Ceres. No demands of surrender." }, { "from": "human", "value": "No boarding forces. It could all change in a moment, but until it did, Miller was drinking coffee and auditing ship records, about one every fifteen minutes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller figured that if Holden was the last ship in the log, he'd find him in about six weeks.\n\nThe Adrianopole, a third-gen prospector, had docked at Pallas within the arrival window. Miller checked the open registration, frustrated again at how little information was there compared to the security databases. Owned by Strego Anthony Abramowitz." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Eight citations for substandard maintenance, banned from Eros and Ceres as a danger to the port." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "An idiot and an accident waiting to happen, but the flight plan seemed legitimate, and the history of the ship was deep enough not to smell new-minted. Miller deleted the entry.\n\nThe Badass Motherfucker, a freight hauler doing a triangle between Luna, Ganymede, and the Belt. Owned by MYOFB Corporation out of Luna." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A query to the public bases at Ganymede showed it had left the port there at the listed time and just hadn't bothered to file a flight plan." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller tapped the screen with a fingernail. Not exactly how he'd fly under the radar. Anyone with authority would roust that ship just for the joy of doing it. He deleted the entry." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His terminal chimed. An incoming message." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller flipped over to it. One of the girls on the commons shrieked and the others laughed. A sparrow flew past, its wings humming in the constant recycler-driven breeze.\n\nHavelock looked better than when he'd been on Ceres." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Happier. The dark circles were gone from his eyes, and the shape of his face had subtly softened, as if the need to prove himself in the Belt had changed his bones and now he was falling back into his natural form." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Miller!\" the recording said. \"I heard about Earth cutting Ceres just before I got your message. Bad luck. I'm sorry to hear Shaddid fired you. Between the two of us, she's a pompous idiot. The rumor I've heard is Earth is doing everything it can to stay out of the war, including giving up any station that it's expecting to be a point of contention. You know how it is. You've got a pit bull on one side of you and a rottweiler on the other, first thing you do is drop your steak.\"\n\nMiller chuckled.\n\n\"I've signed on with Protogen security, big-company private army bullshit. But the pay is worth putting up with their delusions of grandeur. The contract's supposed to be on Ganymede, but with the crap going on right now, who knows how it'll really play out? Turns out Protogen's got a training base in the Belt. I'd never heard about it, but it's supposed to be quite the gymnasium. I know they're hiring on, and I'd be happy to put in a word for you. Just let me know, and I'll get you together with the induction recruiter, get you off that damned rock.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Havelock smiled." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Take care of yourself, partner,\" the Earther said. \"Keep in touch.\"\n\nProtogen. Pinkwater. Al Abbiq. Small corporate security forces that the big transorbital companies used as private armies and mercenary forces to rent out as needed. AnnanSec had the Pallas security contract, and had for years, but it was Mars-based." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The OPA was probably hiring, but probably not him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It had been years since he'd tried to find work. He'd assumed that particular struggle was behind him, that he was going to die working the Ceres Station security contract. Now that events had thrown him out, everything had an odd floating feeling. Like the gap between getting hit and feeling the pain." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He needed to find another job." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He needed to do more than send a couple messages out to his old partners. There were employment firms. There were bars on Ceres that would hire an ex-cop for a bouncer. There were gray markets that would take anyone capable of giving them a veneer of legality." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The last thing that made sense was to sit around, ogling girls in the park and chasing down leads on a case that he hadn't been meant to follow up on in the first place." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Dagon had come into Ceres just a little ahead of the arrival window. Owned by the Glapion Collective, who were, he was pretty sure, an OPA front. That made it a good fit. Except the flight plan had been put in just a few hours after the Donnager blew, and the exit record from Io looked solid." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller shifted it into a file he was keeping for ships that earned a second look." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Rocinante, owned by Silencieux Courant Holdings out of Luna, was a gas hauler that had landed at Tycho just hours before the end of the arrival window. Silencieux Courant was a medium-sized corporate entity with no obvious ties to the OPA, and the flight plan from Pallas was plausible. Miller put his fingertip over the delete key, then paused. He sat back.\n\nWhy was a gas hauler going between Pallas and Tycho?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Both stations were gas consumers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Flying from consumer to consumer without hitting a supply in the middle was a good way to not cover your docking fees. He put in a request for the flight plan that had taken the Rocinante to Pallas from wherever it had been before, then sat back to wait. If the records were cached in the Ceres servers, the request shouldn't take more than a minute or two. The notification bar estimated an hour and a half, so that meant the request was getting forwarded to the docking systems at Pallas." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It hadn't been in the local backup." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller stroked his chin; five days of stubble had almost reached the beginning of a beard. He felt a smile starting. He did a definition search on Rocinante. Literally meaning \"no longer a workhorse,\" its first entry was as the name of Don Quixote's horse." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That you, Holden?\" Miller said to the screen." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You out tilting at windmills?\"\n\n\"Sir?\" the waiter said, but Miller waved him away.\n\nThere were hundreds of entries still to be looked at and dozens at least in his second-look folder. Miller ignored them, staring at the entry from Tycho as if by sheer force of will he could make more information appear on the screen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then, slowly, he pulled up the message from Havelock, hit the respond key, and looked into the tiny black pinprick of the terminal's camera." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hey, partner,\" he said. \"Thanks for the offer. I may take you up on it, but I've got some kinks I need to work out before I jump. You know how it is. If you can do me a favor, though... I need to keep track of a ship, and I've only got the public databases to work from, plus which Ceres may be at war with Mars by now. Who knows, you know? Anyway, if you can put a level one watch on any flight plans for her, drop me a note if anything comes up... I'd buy you a drink sometime.\"\n\nHe paused. There had to be something more to say.\n\n\"Take care of yourself, partner.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He reviewed the message." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On-screen, he looked tired, the smile a little fake, the voice a little higher than it sounded in his head. But it said what it needed to say. He sent it.\n\nThis was what he'd been reduced to. Access gone, service gun confiscated—though he still had a couple of drops in his hole—money running out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had to play the angles, call in favors for things that should have been routine, outthink the system for any scrap." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He'd been a cop, and they'd turned him into a mouse. Still, he thought, sitting back in the chair. Pretty good work for a mouse.\n\nThe sound of detonation came from spinward, then voices raised in anger." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The kids on the commons stopped their games of touch-me touch-you and stared." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller stood up. There was smoke, but he couldn't see flames. The breeze picked up as the station air cleaners raised the flow to suck away particulates so the sensors didn't think there was a risk of fanning a fire. Three gunshots rang out in fast succession, and the voices came together in a rough chant. Miller couldn't make words out of it, but the rhythm told him all he needed to know." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Not a disaster, not a fire, not a breach. Just a riot." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The kids were walking toward the commotion. Miller caught one by the elbow. She couldn't have been more than sixteen, her eyes near black, her face a perfect heart shape.\n\n\"Don't go over there,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Get your friends together and walk the other way.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The girl looked at him, his hand on her arm, the distant commotion.\n\n\"You can't help,\" he said.\n\nShe pulled her arm free.\n\n\"Gotta try, yeah?\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Podría intentar, you know.\" You could too." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Just did,\" Miller said as he put his terminal in its case and walked away. Behind him, the sounds of the riot grew. But he figured the police could take care of it.\n\nOver the next fourteen hours, the system net reported five riots on the station, some minor structural damage." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Someone he'd never heard of announced a tri-phase curfew; people out of their holes more than two hours before or after their work shifts would be subject to arrest." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Whoever was running the show now thought they could lock down six million people and create stability and peace. He wondered what Shaddid thought about that.\n\nOutside Ceres, things were getting worse. The deep astronomy labs on Triton had been occupied by a band of prospectors sympathetic to the OPA." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They'd turned the array in-system and had been broadcasting the location of every Martian ship in the system along with high-definition images of the surface of Mars, down to the topless sunbathers in the dome parks." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The story was that a volley of nukes was on its way to the station, and the array would be bright dust within a week. Earth's imitation of a snail was picking up the pace as Earth- and Luna-based companies pulled back down the gravity well. Not all of them, not even half, but enough to send the Terran message: Count us out. Mars appealed for solidarity; the Belt appealed for justice or, more often, told the birthplace of humanity to go fuck itself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It wasn't out of control yet, but it was ramping up." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Another few incidents and it wouldn't matter how it had started. It wouldn't matter what the stakes were. Mars knew the Belt couldn't win, and the Belt knew it had nothing to lose. It was a recipe for death on a scale humanity had never seen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And, like Ceres, there wasn't much Miller could do about that either." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But he could find James Holden, find out what had happened to the Scopuli, follow the leads back to Julie Mao. He was a detective. It was what he did.\n\nAs he packed up his hole, throwing out the collected detritus that grew over decades like a crust, he talked to her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He tried to explain why he'd given up everything to find her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After his discovery of the Rocinante, he could hardly avoid the word quixotic.\n\nHis imaginary Julie laughed or was touched. She thought he was a sad, pathetic little man, since just tracking her down was the nearest to a purpose in life he could find. She dressed him down as being a tool of her parents." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She wept and put her arms around him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She sat with him in some almost unimaginable observation lounge and watched the stars.\n\nHe fit everything he had into a shoulder bag. Two changes of clothes, his papers, his hand terminal. A picture of Candace from back in better days." }, { "from": "human", "value": "All the hard copy of Julie's case he'd made before Shaddid wiped his partition, including three pictures of Julie." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He thought that everything he'd lived through should have added up to more, and then changed his mind. It was probably about right.\n\nHe spent one last day ignoring the curfew, making his rounds of the station, saying goodbye to the few people he felt he might miss or might miss him. To his surprise, Muss, who he found at a tense and uncomfortable police bar, actually teared up and hugged him until his ribs ached from it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He booked passage on a transport to Tycho." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His bunk ran him a quarter of his remaining funds. It occurred to him, not for the first time, that he had to find Julie pretty damn quick or find a job to support him through the investigation. But it hadn't happened yet, and the universe wasn't stable enough anymore to make long-range planning more than a sour joke.\n\nAs if to prove the point, his terminal chimed as he was in the line to board the transport." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hey, partner,\" Havelock said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That favor you needed? I got a bite. Your package just put in a flight plan for Eros. I'm sending the public-access data attached. I'd get you the good stuff, but these Protogen guys are tight. I mentioned you to the recruiter and she seemed interested. So let me know, right? Talk to you soon.\"\n\nEros.\n\nGreat.\n\nMiller nodded at the woman behind him, stepped out of line, and walked to the kiosk." }, { "from": "human", "value": "By the time a screen was open, they were calling final boarding for the Tycho transport." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller turned in his ticket, got a nominal refund, and spent a third of what he still had in his account for a ticket to Eros. Still, it could have been worse. He could have been on the way before he got word. He had to start thinking about it as good luck, not bad." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Continue with the same vibes as James S. A. Corey" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ships were small. Space was always at a premium, and even on a monster like the Donnager, the corridors and compartments were cramped and uncomfortable. On the Rocinante, the only rooms where Holden could spread out his arms without touching two walls were the galley and the cargo bay. No one who flew for a living was claustrophobic, but even the most hardened Belt prospector could recognize the rising tension of being ship-bound. It was the ancient stress response of the trapped animal, the subconscious knowledge that there was literally nowhere to go that you couldn't see from where you were already standing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Getting off the ship at port was a sudden and sometimes giddying release of tension." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It often took the form of a drinking game.\n\nLike all professional sailors, Holden had sometimes ended long flights by drinking himself into a stupor. More than once he'd wandered into a brothel and left only when they threw him out with an emptied account, a sore groin, and a prostate as dry as the Sahara desert. So when Amos staggered into his room after three days on station, Holden knew exactly what the big mechanic felt like." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden and Alex were sharing the couch and watching a newsfeed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Two talking heads were discussing the Belter actions with words like criminal, terrorist, and sabotage. The Martians were \"peacekeepers.\" It was a Martian news channel. Amos snorted and collapsed on the couch." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden muted the screen." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Having a good shore leave, sailor?\" Holden asked with a grin.\n\n\"I'll never drink again,\" Amos groaned.\n\n\"Naomi's comin' over with some chow she got at that sushi place,\" Alex said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Nice raw fish wrapped in fake seaweed.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amos groaned again.\n\n\"That's not nice, Alex,\" Holden said. \"Let the man's liver die in peace.\"\n\nThe door to the suite slid open again, and Naomi came in carrying a tall stack of white boxes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Food's here,\" she said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alex opened all the boxes and started handing around small disposable plates.\n\n\"Every time it's your turn to get food, you get salmon rolls. It shows a lack of imagination,\" Holden said as he began putting food on his plate.\n\n\"I like salmon,\" Naomi replied.\n\nThe room got quiet as people ate; the only sounds were the clack of plastic chopsticks and the wet squish of things being dipped in wasabi and soy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When the food was gone, Holden wiped his eyes, made runny by the heat in his sinuses, and leaned his chair all the way back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amos used one of his chopsticks to scratch under the cast on his leg.\n\n\"You guys did a pretty good job setting this,\" he said. \"It's the thing on my body that hurts the least right now.\"\n\nNaomi grabbed the remote off Holden's armrest and turned the volume back on." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She began spooling through the different feeds." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alex closed his eyes and slid down on the loveseat, lacing his fingers across his belly and sighing contentedly. Holden felt a sudden and irrational annoyance at his crew for being so comfortable.\n\n\"Everyone had enough of sucking on Fred's teat yet?\" he said. \"I know I have.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What the fuck are you talking about?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amos said, shaking his head. \"I'm just getting started.\"\n\n\"I mean,\" Holden said, \"how long are we going to hang around on Tycho, drinking and whoring and eating sushi on Fred's expense account?\"\n\n\"As long as I can?\" Alex said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You have a better plan, then,\" Naomi said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't have a plan, but I want to get back in the game. We were full of righteous anger and dreams of vengeance when we got here, and a couple of blowjobs and hangovers later, it's like nothing ever happened.\"\n\n\"Uh, vengeance kinda requires someone to avenge upon, Cap,\" Alex said. \"Case you ain't noticed, we're lackin' in that department.\"\n\n\"That ship is still out there, somewhere. The people who ordered it to shoot are, too,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So,\" Alex replied slowly, \"we take off and start flyin' in a spiral until we run into it?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Naomi laughed and threw a soy packet at him.\n\n\"I don't know what we do,\" Holden said, \"but sitting here while the people who killed our ship keep doing whatever it is they're doing is making me nuts.\"\n\n\"We've been here three days,\" Naomi said. \"We deserve some comfortable beds and decent food and a chance to blow off steam. Don't try to make us feel bad for taking it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Besides, Fred said we'll get those bastards at the trial,\" Amos said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If there's a trial,\" Holden replied. \"If. It won't happen for months, or maybe even years. And even then, Fred's looking at those treaties. Amnesty might be another bargaining chip, right?\"\n\n\"You were quick enough to agree to his terms, Jim,\" Naomi said. \"Changed your mind?\"\n\n\"If Fred wants depositions in exchange for letting us patch up and rest, the price was cheap. That doesn't mean I think a trial will fix everything, or that I want to be sidelined until it happens.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He gestured at the faux-leather couch and huge wall screen around them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Besides, this can be a prison. It's a nice one, but as long as Fred controls the purse strings, he owns us. Make no mistake.\"\n\nNaomi's brow crinkled; her eyes grew serious.\n\n\"What's the option, sir?\" she asked. \"Leave?\"\n\nHolden folded his arms, his mind turning over everything he'd said as if he was hearing it for the first time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Saying things out loud actually made them clearer." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm thinking we look for work,\" he said. \"We've got a good ship. More importantly, we have a sneaky ship. It's fast. We can run without a transponder if we need to. Lots of people will need things moved from place to place with a war on. Gives us something to do while we wait for Fred's trial, and a way to put money in our pockets so we can get off the dole. And, as we fly from place to place, we can keep our ears and eyes open. Never know what we'll find. And seriously, how long can you three stand to be station rats?\"\n\nThere was a moment's silence.\n\n\"I could station rat for another... week?\" Amos said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It ain't a bad idea, Cap,\" Alex said with a nod." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's your decision, Captain,\" Naomi said. \"I'll stick with you, and I like the idea of getting my own money again. But I hope you're not in a hurry. I could really use a few more days off.\"\n\nHolden clapped his hands and jumped to his feet.\n\n\"Nope,\" he said. \"Having a plan makes all the difference. Downtime's easier to enjoy when I know it'll end.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alex and Amos got up together and headed for the door." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alex had won a few dollars playing darts, and now he and Amos were in the process of turning it into even more money at the card tables.\n\n\"Don't wait up, Boss,\" Amos said to Naomi. \"I'm feeling lucky today.\"\n\nThey left, and Holden went to the small kitchen nook to make coffee." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Naomi followed him in." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"One other thing,\" she said.\n\nHolden tore open the sealed coffee packet, the strong odor filling the room.\n\n\"Shoot,\" he said.\n\n\"Fred is taking care of all the arrangements for Kelly's body. He'll hold it here in state until we go public with our survival. Then he'll ship it back to Mars.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden filled the coffeemaker with water from the tap and started the machine." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It made soft gurgling sounds.\n\n\"Good. Lieutenant Kelly deserves all the respect and dignity we can give him.\"\n\n\"It got me thinking about that data cube he had. I haven't been able to hack it. It's some kind of military über-encryption that makes my head hurt. So...\"\n\n\"Just say it,\" Holden said with a frown." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I want to give it to Fred. I know it's a risk. We have no idea what's on it, and for all his charm and hospitality, Fred's still OPA. But he was also high-ranking UN military. And he's got a serious brain trust here on the station. He might be able to open it up.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden thought for a moment, then nodded.\n\n\"Okay, let me sit with that. I want to know what Yao was trying to get off the ship, but—\"\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\nThey shared a companionable silence as the coffee brewed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When it was finished, Holden poured two mugs and handed one to Naomi." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Captain,\" she said, then paused. \"Jim. I've been a pain-in-the-ass XO so far. I've been stressed out and scared shitless about eighty percent of the time.\"\n\n\"You do an amazing job of hiding that fact,\" Holden replied.\n\nNaomi nodded the compliment away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Anyway, I've been pushy about some things that I probably shouldn't have been.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not a big deal.\"\n\n\"Okay, let me finish,\" she said. \"I want you to know I think you've done a great job of keeping us alive. You keep us focused on the problems we can solve instead of feeling sorry for ourselves. You keep everyone in orbit around you. Not everyone can do that, I couldn't do it, and we've needed that stability.\"\n\nHolden felt a glow of pride." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He hadn't expected it, and he didn't trust it, but it felt good all the same." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Thank you,\" Holden said.\n\n\"I can't speak for Amos and Alex, but I plan to stick it out. You're not just the captain because McDowell is dead. You're our captain, as far as I'm concerned. Just so you know.\"\n\nShe looked down, blushing as if she'd just confessed something. Maybe she had.\n\n\"I'll try not to blow it,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'd appreciate that, sir.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fred Johnson's office was like its occupant: big, intimidating, and overflowing with things that needed to be done. The room was easily two and a half square meteres, making it larger than any single compartment on the Rocinante. His desk was made of actual wood, looked at least a hundred years old, and smelled of lemon oil. Holden sat in a chair that was just a little lower than Fred's, and looked at the mounds of file folders and papers covering every flat surface." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fred had sent for him and then spent the first ten minutes after he'd arrived speaking on the phone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Whatever he was talking about, it sounded technical. Holden assumed it was related to the giant generation ship outside. It didn't bother him to be ignored for a few minutes, since the wall behind Fred was entirely covered by a bleedingly high-definition screen pretending to be a window. It was showing a spectacular view of the Nauvoo moving past as the station spun." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fred spoiled the scene by putting the phone down." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sorry about that,\" he said. \"The atmosphere processing system has been a nightmare from day one. When you're going a hundred plus years on only the air you can bring with you, the loss tolerances are... stricter than usual. Sometimes it's difficult to impress the importance of fine details on the contractors.\"\n\n\"I was enjoying the view,\" Holden said, gesturing at the screen.\n\n\"I'm starting to wonder if we'll be able to get it done on schedule.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fred sighed and leaned his chair back with a squeak.\n\n\"It's the war between Mars and the Belt.\"\n\n\"Material shortages, then?\"\n\n\"Not just that. Pirate casts claiming to speak for the OPA are working into a frenzy. Belt prospectors with homemade torpedo launchers are firing on Martian warships. They get wiped out in response, but every now and then one of those torpedoes hits and kills a few Martians.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Which means Mars starts shooting first.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fred nodded and then got up and started pacing the room.\n\n\"And then even honest citizens on legitimate business start getting worried about going out of the house,\" he said. \"We've had over a dozen late shipments so far this month, and I'm worried it will stop being delays and start being cancellations.\"\n\n\"You know, I've been thinking about the same thing,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fred acted as though he hadn't heard." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I've been on that bridge,\" Fred said. \"Unidentified ship coming on you, and a decision to make? No one wants to press the button. I've watched a ship get bigger and bigger on the scope while my finger was on the trigger. I remember begging them to stop.\"\n\nHolden said nothing. He'd seen it too. There was nothing to say." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fred let silence hang in the air for a moment, then shook his head and straightened up." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I need to ask you a favor,\" Fred said.\n\n\"You can always ask, Fred. You've paid for that much,\" Holden replied.\n\n\"I need to borrow your ship.\"\n\n\"The Roci?\" Holden said. \"Why?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I need to have something picked up and delivered here, and I need a ship that can stay quiet and run past Martian picket ships if it needs to.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The Rocinante is definitely the right ship, then, but that didn't answer my question. Why?\"\n\nFred turned his back to Holden and looked at the view screen. The nose of the Nauvoo was just vanishing from sight. The view turned to the flat, star-speckled black of forever." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I need to pick someone up on Eros,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Someone important. I've got people who can do it, but the only ships we've got are light freighters and a couple of small shuttles. Nothing that can make the trip quickly enough or have a hope of running away if trouble starts.\"\n\n\"Does this person have a name? I mean, you keep saying you don't want to fight, but the other unique thing about my ship is that it's the only one here with guns. I'm sure the OPA has a whole list of things they'd like blown up.\"\n\n\"You don't trust me.\"\n\n\"Nope.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fred turned back around and gripped the back of his chair." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His knuckles were white. Holden wondered if he'd gone too far.\n\n\"Look,\" Holden said, \"you talk a good game about peace and trials and all that. You disavow the pirate casts. You have a nice station filled with nice people. I have every reason to believe you are what you say you are. But we've been here three days, and the first time you tell me about your plans, you ask to borrow my ship for a secret mission. Sorry. If I'm part of this, I get full access; no secrets. Even if I knew for a fact, which I don't, that you had nothing but good intentions, I still wouldn't go along with the cloak-and-dagger bullshit.\"\n\nFred stared at him for a few seconds, then came around his chair and sat down." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden found he was tapping his fingers on his thigh nervously and forced himself to stop." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fred's eyes flicked down at Holden's hand and then back up. He continued to stare.\n\nHolden cleared his throat.\n\n\"Look, you're the big dog here. Even if I didn't know who you used to be, you'd scare the shit out of me, so don't feel the need to prove it. But no matter how scared I am, I'm not backing down on this.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fred's hoped-for laughter didn't come." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden tried to swallow without gulping.\n\n\"I bet every captain you ever flew under thought you were a gigantic pain in the ass,\" Fred said finally.\n\n\"I believe my record reflects that,\" Holden said, trying to hide his relief.\n\n\"I need to fly to Eros and find a man named Lionel Polanski, and then bring him back to Tycho.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's only a week out if we push,\" Holden said, doing the math in his head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The fact that Lionel doesn't actually exist complicates the mission.\"\n\n\"Yeah, okay. Now I'm confused,\" Holden agreed.\n\n\"You wanted in?\" Fred said, the words taking on a quiet ferocity. \"Now you're in. Lionel Polanski exists only on paper, and owns things that Mr. Tycho doesn't want to own. Including a courier ship called the Scopuli.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden leaned forward in his chair, his face intense." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You now have my undivided attention,\" he said.\n\n\"The nonexistent owner of the Scopuli checked into a flophouse on one of the shit levels of Eros. We only just got the message. We have to work on the assumption that whoever got the room knows our operations intimately, needs help, and can't ask for it openly.\"\n\n\"We can leave in an hour,\" Holden said breathlessly.\n\nFred held up his hands in a gesture that was surprisingly Belter for an Earth man." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"When,\" Fred asked, \"did this turn into you leaving?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I won't loan my ship, but I'll definitely rent it out. My crew and I were talking about getting jobs, actually. Hire us. Deduct whatever's fair for services you've already rendered.\"\n\n\"No,\" Fred said. \"I need you.\"\n\n\"You don't,\" Holden replied. \"You need our depositions. And we're not going to sit here waiting a year or two for sanity to reign. We'll all do video depositions, sign whatever affidavits you want us to as to their authenticity, but we're leaving to find work one way or the other. You might as well make use of it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No,\" Fred said. \"You're too valuable to take risks with your lives.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What if I throw in the data cube the captain of the Donnager was trying to liberate?\"\n\nThe silence was back, but it had a different feel to it.\n\n\"Look,\" Holden said, pressing on. \"You need a ship like the Roci. I've got one. You need a crew for her. I've got that too. And you're as hungry to know what's on that cube as I am.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't like the risk.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Your other option is to throw us in the brig and commandeer the ship. There's some risks in that too.\"\n\nFred laughed. Holden felt himself relax.\n\n\"You'll still have the same problem that brought you here,\" Fred said. \"Your ship looks like a gunship, no matter what its transponder is saying.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden jumped up and grabbed a piece of paper from Fred's desk." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He started writing on it with a pen snatched from a decorative pen set.\n\n\"I've been thinking about that. You've got full manufacturing facilities here. And we're supposed to be a light gas freighter. So,\" he said as he sketched a rough outline of the ship, \"we weld on a bunch of empty compressed-gas storage tanks in two bands around the hull. Use them to hide the tubes. Repaint the whole thing. Weld on a few projections to break up the hull profile and hide us from ship-recognition software. It'll look like shit and screw up the aerodynamics, but we won't be near atmo anytime soon. It'll look exactly like what it is: something a bunch of Belters slapped together in a hurry.\"\n\nHe handed the paper to Fred. Fred began laughing in earnest, either at the terrible drawing or at the absurdity of the whole thing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You could give a pirate a hell of a surprise,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If I do this, you and your crew will record my depositions and hire on as an independent contractor for errands like the Eros run and appear on my behalf when the peace negotiations start.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"I want the right to outbid anyone else who tries to hire you. No contracts without my counteroffer.\"\n\nHolden held out his hand, and Fred shook it." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Mode:\nCo-writing\n\nLength:\n4 sentences\n\nStyle:\nJames S. A. Corey" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The people-mover to Eros was small, cheap, and overcrowded." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The air recyclers had the plastic-and-resin smell of long-life industrial models that Miller associated with warehouses and fuel depots. The lights were cheap LEDs tinted a false pink that was supposed to flatter the complexion but instead made everyone look like undercooked beef. There were no cabins, only row after row of formed laminate seating and two long walls with five-stacks of bunks that the passengers could hot-swap. Miller had never been on a cheapjack transport before, but he knew how they worked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If there was a fight, the ship's crew would pump riot gas into the cabin, knock everyone out, and put anyone who'd been in the scuffle under restraint." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was a draconian system, but it did tend to keep passengers polite. The bar was always open and the drinks were cheap. Not long ago Miller would have found that enticing.\n\nInstead, he sat on one of the long seats, his hand terminal open." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Julie's case file—what he had reconstructed of it—glowed before him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The picture of her, proud and smiling, in front of the Razorback, the dates and records, her jiu jitsu training. It seemed like very little, considering how large the woman had grown in his life.\n\nA small newsfeed crawled down the terminal's left side. The war between Mars and the Belt escalated, incident after incident, but the secession of Ceres Station was the top news." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Earth was taken to task by Martian commentators for failing to stand united with its fellow inner planet, or at least for not handing over the Ceres security contract to Mars." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The scattershot reaction of the Belt ran the gamut from pleasure at seeing Earth's influence fall back down the gravity well, to strident near-panic at the loss of Ceres' neutrality, to conspiracy theories that Earth was fomenting the war for its own ends.\n\nMiller reserved judgment.\n\n\"I always think of pews.\"\n\nMiller looked over. The man sitting next to him was about Miller's age; the fringe of gray hair, the soft belly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The man's smile told Miller the guy was a missionary, out in the vacuum saving souls." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Or maybe it was the name tag and Bible.\n\n\"The seats, I mean,\" the missionary said. \"They always make me think of going to church, the way they're all lined up, row after row. Only instead of a pulpit, we have bunk beds.\"\n\n\"Our Lady of Sleeping Through It,\" Miller said, knowing he was getting drawn into conversation but unable to stop himself. The missionary laughed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Something like that,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do you attend church?\"\n\n\"Haven't in years,\" Miller said. \"I was a Methodist when I was anything. What flavor are you selling?\"\n\nThe missionary lifted his hands in a gesture of harmlessness that went back to the African plains of the Pleistocene." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I have no weapon; I seek no fight." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm just going back to Eros from a conference on Luna,\" he said. \"My proselytizing days are long behind me.\"\n\n\"I didn't think those ever ended,\" Miller said.\n\n\"They don't. Not officially. But after a few decades, you come to a place where you realize that there's really no difference between trying and not trying. I still travel. I still talk to people. Sometimes we talk about Jesus Christ. Sometimes we talk about cooking. If someone is ready to accept Christ, it doesn't take much effort on my part to help them. If they aren't, no amount of hectoring them does any good. So why try?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do people talk about the war?\" Miller asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Often,\" the missionary said.\n\n\"Anyone make sense of it?\"\n\n\"No. I don't believe war ever does. It's a madness that's in our nature. Sometimes it recurs; sometimes it subsides.\"\n\n\"Sounds like a disease.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The herpes simplex of the species?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "the missionary said with a laugh. \"I suppose there are worse ways to think of it. I'm afraid that as long as we're human, it will be with us.\"\n\nMiller looked over at the wide, moon-round face.\n\n\"As long as we're human?\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Some of us believe that we shall all eventually become angels,\" the missionary said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not the Methodists.\"\n\n\"Even them, eventually,\" the man said, \"but they probably won't go first. And what brings you to Our Lady of Sleeping Through It?\"\n\nMiller sighed, sitting back against the unyielding chair. Two rows down, a young woman shouted at two boys to stop jumping on the seats and was ignored." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A man behind them coughed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller took a long breath and let it out slowly.\n\n\"I was a cop on Ceres,\" he said.\n\n\"Ah. The change of contract.\"\n\n\"That,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Taking up work on Eros, then?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"More looking up an old friend,\" Miller said. Then, to his own surprise, he went on. \"I was born on Ceres. Lived there my whole life. This is the... fifth? Yeah, fifth time I've been off station.\"\n\n\"Do you plan to go back?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No,\" Miller said. He sounded more certain that he'd known." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, I think that part of my life is pretty much over.\"\n\n\"That must be painful,\" the missionary said.\n\nMiller paused, letting the comment settle. The man was right; it should have been painful." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Everything he'd ever had was gone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His job, his community. He wasn't even a cop anymore, his checked-in-luggage handgun notwithstanding. He would never eat at the little East Indian cart at the edge of sector nine again. The receptionist at the station would never nod her greeting to him as he headed in for his desk again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "No more nights at the bar with the other cops, no more off-color stories about busts gone weird, no more kids flying kites in the high tunnels." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He probed himself like a doctor searching for inflammation. Did it hurt here? Did he feel the loss there?\n\nHe didn't. There was only a sense of relief so profound it approached giddiness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm sorry,\" the missionary said, confused." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Did I say something funny?\"\n\nEros supported a population of one and a half million, a little more than Ceres had in visitors at any given time. Roughly the shape of a potato, it had been much more difficult to spin up, and its surface velocity was considerably higher than Ceres' for the same internal g. The old shipyards protruded from the asteroid, great spiderwebs of steel and carbon mesh studded with warning lights and sensor arrays to wave off any ships that might come in too tight. The internal caverns of Eros had been the birthplace of the Belt." }, { "from": "human", "value": "From raw ore to smelting furnace to annealing platform and then into the spines of water haulers and gas harvesters and prospecting ships." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Eros had been a port of call in the first generation of humanity's expansion. From there, the sun itself was only a bright star among billions.\n\nThe economics of the Belt had moved on. Ceres Station had spun up with newer docks, more industrial backing, more people." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The commerce of shipping moved to Ceres, while Eros remained a center of ship manufacture and repair." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The results were as predictable as physics. On Ceres, a longer time in dock meant lost money, and the berth fee structure reflected that. On Eros, a ship might wait for weeks or months without impeding the flow of traffic. If a crew wanted a place to relax, to stretch, to get away from one another for a while, Eros was the port of call." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And with the lower docking fees, Eros Station found other ways to soak money from its visitors: Casinos. Brothels. Shooting galleries." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Vice in all its commercial forms found a home in Eros, its local economy blooming like a fungus fed by the desires of Belters.\n\nA happy accident of orbital mechanics put Miller there half a day ahead of the Rocinante. He walked through the cheap casinos, the opioid bars and sex clubs, the show fight areas where men or women pretended to beat one another senseless for the pleasure of the crowds. Miller imagined Julie walking with him, her sly smile matching his own as he read the great animated displays." }, { "from": "human", "value": "RANDOLPH MAK, HOLDER OF THE BELT FREEFIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP FOR SIX YEARS, AGAINST MARTIAN KIVRIN CARMICHAEL IN A FIGHT TO THE DEATH!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Surely not fixed, Julie said drily in his mind.\n\nWonder which one's going to win, he thought, and imagined her laughing.\n\nHe'd stopped at a noodle cart, two new yens' worth of egg noodles in black sauce steaming in their cone, when a hand clapped on his shoulder.\n\n\"Detective Miller,\" a familiar voice said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I think you're outside your jurisdiction.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why, Inspector Sematimba,\" Miller said. \"As I live and breathe. You give a girl the shakes, sneaking up like that.\"\n\nSematimba laughed. He was a tall man, even among Belters, with the darkest skin Miller had ever seen. Years before, Sematimba and Miller had coordinated on a particularly ugly case." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A smuggler with a cargo of designer euphorics had broken with his supplier." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Three people on Ceres had been caught in the crossfire, and the smuggler had shipped out for Eros. The traditional competitiveness and insularity of the stations' respective security forces had almost let the perp slip away. Only Miller and Sematimba had been willing to coordinate outside the corporate channels.\n\n\"What brings you,\" Sematimba said, leaning against a thin steel railing and gesturing at the tunnel, \"to the navel of the Belt, the glory and power that is Eros?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Following up on a lead,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There's nothing good here,\" Sematimba said. \"Ever since Protogen pulled out, things have been going from bad to worse.\"\n\nMiller sucked up a noodle.\n\n\"Who's the new contract?\" he asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"CPM,\" Sematimba said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Never heard of them.\"\n\n\"Carne Por la Machina,\" Sematimba said, and pulled a face: exaggerated bluff masculinity. He thumped his breast and growled, then let the imitation go and shook his head. \"New corporation out of Luna. Mostly Belters on the ground. Make themselves out to be all hard core, but they're mostly amateurs. All bluster, no balls. Protogen was inner planets, and that was a problem, but they were serious as hell. They broke heads, but they kept the peace. These new assholes? Most corrupt bunch of thugs I've ever worked for. I don't think the board of governors is going to renew when the contract's up. I didn't say that, but it's true.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I've got an old partner signed up with Protogen,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They're not bad,\" Sematimba said. \"Almost wish I'd picked them in the divorce, you know?\"\n\n\"Why didn't you?\" Miller asked.\n\n\"You know how it is. I'm from here.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yeah,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So. You didn't know who was running the playhouse? You aren't here looking for work.\"\n\n\"Nope,\" Miller said. \"I'm on sabbatical. Doing some travel for myself these days.\"\n\n\"You've got money for that?\"\n\n\"Not really. But I don't mind going on the cheap. For a while, you know. You heard anything about a Juliette Mao? Goes by Julie?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sematimba shook his head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Mao-Kwikowski Mercantile,\" Miller said. \"Came up the well and went native. OPA. It was an abduction case.\"\n\n\"Was?\"\n\nMiller leaned back. His imagined Julie raised her eyebrows." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's changed a little since I got it,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"May be connected to something. Kind of big.\"\n\n\"How big are we talking about?\" Sematimba said. All trace of jocularity had vanished from his expression. He was all cop now." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Anyone but Miller would have found the man's empty, almost angry face intimidating." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The war,\" Miller said. Sematimba folded his arms.\n\n\"Bad joke,\" he said.\n\n\"Not joking.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I consider us friends, old man,\" Sematimba said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But I don't want any trouble around here. Things are unsettled as it stands.\"\n\n\"I'll try to stay low-profile.\"\n\nSematimba nodded. Down the tunnel, an alarm blared. Only security, not the earsplitting ditone of an environmental alert." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sematimba looked down the tunnel as if squinting would let him see through the press of people, bicycles, and food carts." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'd better go look,\" he said with an air of resignation. \"Probably some of my fellow officers of the peace breaking windows for the fun of it.\"\n\n\"Great to be part of a team like that,\" Miller said.\n\n\"How would you know?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sematimba said with a smile." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If you need something...\"\n\n\"Likewise,\" Miller said, and watched the cop wade into the sea of chaos and humanity. He was a large man, but something about the passing crowd's universal deafness to the alarm's blare made him seem smaller. A stone in the ocean, the phrase went." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One star among millions." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller checked the time, then pulled up the public docking records. The Rocinante showed as on schedule. The docking berth was listed. Miller sucked down the last of his noodles, tossed the foam cone with the thin smear of black sauce into a public recycler, found the nearest men's room, and when he was done there, trotted toward the casino level." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The architecture of Eros had changed since its birth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Where once it had been like Ceres—webworked tunnels leading along the path of widest connection—Eros had learned from the flow of money: All paths led to the casino level. If you wanted to go anywhere, you passed through the wide whale belly of lights and displays. Poker, blackjack, roulette, tall fish tanks filled with prize trout to be caught and gutted, mechanical slots, electronic slots, cricket races, craps, rigged tests of skill. Flashing lights, dancing neon clowns, and video screen advertisements blasted the eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Loud artificial laughter and merry whistles and bells assured you that you were having the time of your life." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All while the smell of thousands of people packed into too small a space competed with the scent of heavily spiced vat-grown meat being hawked from carts rolling down the corridor. Greed and casino design had turned Eros into an architectural cattle run.\n\nWhich was exactly what Miller needed.\n\nThe tube station that arrived from the port had six wide doors, which emptied to the casino floor." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Hey can you write like James S. A. Corey and use whatever i write as a jumping off point?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The casino level of Eros was an all-out assault on the senses. Holden hated it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I love this place,\" Amos said, grinning.\n\nHolden pushed his way through a knot of drunk middle-aged gamblers, who were laughing and yelling, to a small open space near a row of pay-by-the-minute wall terminals.\n\n\"Amos,\" he said, \"we'll be going to a less touristy level, so watch our backs. The flophouse we're looking for is in a rough neighborhood.\"\n\nAmos nodded. \"Gotcha, Cap.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "While Naomi, Alex, and Amos blocked him from view, Holden reached behind his back to adjust the pistol that pulled uncomfortably on his waistband." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The cops on Eros were pretty uptight about people walking around with guns, but there was no way he was going to \"Lionel Polanski\" unarmed. Amos and Alex were both carrying too, though Amos kept his in the right pocket of his jacket and his hand never left it. Only Naomi flatly refused to carry a gun.\n\nHolden led the group toward the nearest escalators, with Amos, casting the occasional glance behind, in the rear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The casinos of Eros stretched for three seemingly endless levels, and even though they moved as quickly as possible, it took half an hour to get away from the noise and crowds." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The first level above was a residential neighborhood and disorientingly quiet and neat after the casino's chaos and noise. Holden sat down on the edge of a planter with a nice array of ferns in it and caught his breath.\n\n\"I'm with you, Captain. Five minutes in that place gives me a headache,\" Naomi said, and sat down next to him.\n\n\"You kidding me?\" Amos said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I wish we had more time. Alex and I took almost a grand off those fish at the Tycho card tables. We'd probably walk out of here fucking millionaires.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You know it,\" Alex said, and punched the big mechanic on the shoulder.\n\n\"Well, if this Polanski thing turns out to be nothing, you have my permission to go make us a million dollars at the card tables. I'll wait for you on the ship,\" Holden said.\n\nThe tube system ended at the first casino level and didn't start again until the level they were on. You could choose not to spend your money at the tables, but they made sure you were punished for doing so." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Once the crew had climbed into a car and started the ride to Lionel's hotel, Amos sat down next to Holden." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Somebody's following us, Cap,\" he said conversationally. \"Wasn't sure till he climbed on a couple cars down. Behind us all through the casinos too.\"\n\nHolden sighed and put his face in his hands.\n\n\"Okay, what's he look like?\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Belter. Fifties, or maybe forties with a lot mileage. White shirt and dark pants. Goofy hat.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Cop?\"\n\n\"Oh yeah. But no holster I can see,\" Amos said.\n\n\"All right. Keep an eye on him, but no need to get too worried. Nothing we're doing here is illegal,\" Holden said.\n\n\"You mean, other than arriving in our stolen Martian warship, sir?\" Naomi asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You mean our perfectly legitimate gas freighter that all the paperwork and registry data says is perfectly legitimate?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden replied with a thin smile. \"Yeah, well, if they'd seen through that, they would have stopped us at the dock, not followed us around.\"\n\nAn advertising screen on the wall displayed a stunning view of multicolored clouds rippling with flashes of lightning, and encouraged Holden to take a trip to the amazing dome resorts on Titan. He'd never been to Titan." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Suddenly he wanted to go there very much." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A few weeks of sleeping late, eating in fine restaurants, and lying on a hammock, watching Titan's colorful atmosphere storm above him sounded like heaven. Hell, as long as he was fantasizing, he threw in Naomi walking over to his hammock with a couple of fruity-looking drinks in her hands.\n\nShe ruined it by talking.\n\n\"This is our stop,\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Amos, watch our friend, see if he gets off the train with us,\" Holden said as he got up and headed to the door." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After they got off and walked a dozen steps down the corridor, Amos whispered, \"Yep,\" at his back. Shit. Well, definitely a tail, but there wasn't really any reason not to go ahead and check up on Lionel. Fred hadn't asked them to do anything with whoever was pretending to be the Scopuli's owner. They couldn't very well be arrested for knocking on a door." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden whistled a loud and jaunty tune as he walked, to let his crew and whoever was following them know he wasn't worried about a thing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He stopped when he saw the flophouse.\n\nIt was dark and dingy and exactly the sort of place where people got mugged or worse. Broken lights created dark corners, and there wasn't a tourist in sight. He turned to give Alex and Amos meaningful looks, and Amos shifted his hand in his pocket." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alex reached under his coat." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The lobby was mostly empty space, with a pair of couches at one end next to a table covered with magazines. A sleepy-looking older woman sat reading one. Elevators were recessed into the wall at the far end, next to a door marked STAIRS. In the middle was the check-in desk, where, in lieu of a human clerk, a touch screen terminal let guests pay for their rooms." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden stopped next to the desk and turned around to look at the woman sitting on the couch." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Graying hair, but good features and an athletic build. In a flophouse like this, that probably meant a prostitute reaching the end of her shelf life. She pointedly ignored his stare.\n\n\"Is our tail still with us?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden asked in a quiet voice." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Stopped outside somewhere. Probably just watching the door now,\" Amos replied.\n\nHolden nodded and hit the inquiry button on the check-in screen. A simple menu would let him send a message to Lionel Polanski's room, but Holden exited the system. They knew Lionel was still checked in, and Fred had given them the room number." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If it was someone playing games, no reason to give him a heads-up before Holden knocked on the door." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Okay, he's still here, so let's—\" Holden said, and then stopped when he saw the woman from the couch standing right behind Alex. He hadn't heard or seen her approach.\n\n\"You need to come with me,\" she said in a hard voice. \"Walk to the stairwell slowly, stay at least three meters ahead of me the entire time. Do it now.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are you a cop?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden asked, not moving.\n\n\"I'm the person with the gun,\" she said, a small weapon appearing like magic in her right hand. She pointed it at Alex's head. \"So do what I say.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her weapon was small and plastic and had some kind of battery pack." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amos pulled his heavy slug thrower out and aimed it at her face.\n\n\"Mine's bigger,\" he said.\n\n\"Amos, don't—\" was all Naomi had time to say before the stairwell door burst open and half a dozen men and women armed with compact automatic weapons came into the room, yelling at them to drop their guns.\n\nHolden started to put his hands up when one of them opened fire, the weapon coughing out rounds so fast it sounded like someone ripping construction paper; it was impossible to hear the separate shots." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Amos threw himself to the floor." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A line of bullet holes stitched across the chest of the woman with the taser, and she fell backward with a soft, final sound.\n\nHolden grabbed Naomi by one hand and dragged her behind the check-in desk. Someone in the other group was yelling, \"Cease fire! Cease fire!\" but Amos was already shooting back from his position, prone on the floor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A yelp of pain and a curse told Holden he'd probably hit someone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amos rolled sideways to the desk, just in time to avoid a hail of slugs that tore up the floor and wall and made the desk shudder.\n\nHolden reached for his gun, but the front sight caught in his waistband. He yanked it out, tearing his underwear, then crawled on his knees to the edge of the desk and looked out. Alex was lying on the floor on the other side of one of the couches, gun drawn and face white." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As Holden looked, a burst of gunfire hit the couch, blowing stuffing into the air and making a line of holes in the back of the couch not more than twenty centimeters above Alex's head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The pilot reached his pistol around the corner of the couch and blindly fired off half a dozen shots, yelling at the same time.\n\n\"Fucking assholes!\" Amos yelled, then rolled out and fired a couple more shots and rolled back before the return fire started.\n\n\"Where are they?\" Holden yelled at him.\n\n\"Two are down, the rest in the stairwell!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Amos yelled back over the sound of return fire." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Out of nowhere a burst of rounds bounced off the floor past Holden's knee. \"Shit, someone's flanking us!\" Amos cried out, then moved farther behind the desk and away from the shots.\n\nHolden crawled to the other side of the desk and peeked out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Someone was moving low and fast toward the hotel entrance." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden leaned out and took a couple shots at him, but three guns opened up from the stairwell doorway and forced him back behind the desk.\n\n\"Alex, someone's moving to the entrance!\" Holden screamed at the top of his lungs, hoping the pilot might be able to get off a shot before they were all chopped to pieces by crossfire.\n\nA pistol barked three times by the entrance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden risked a look." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Their tail with the goofy hat crouched by the door, a gun in his hand, the machine gun–toting flanker lying still at his feet. Instead of looking at them, the tail was pointing his gun toward the stairwell.\n\n\"No one shoot the guy with the hat!\" Holden yelled, then moved back to the edge of the desk." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Amos put his back to the desk and popped the magazine from his gun." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As he fumbled around in his pocket for another, he said, \"Guy is probably a cop.\"\n\n\"Extra especially do not shoot any cops,\" Holden said, then fired a few shots at the stairwell door.\n\nNaomi, who'd spent the entire gunfight so far on the floor with her arms over her head, said, \"They might all be cops.\"\n\nHolden squeezed off a few more shots and shook his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Cops don't carry small, easily concealable machine guns and ambush people from stairwells. We call those death squads,\" he said, though most of his words were drowned out by a barrage of gunfire from the stairwell." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Afterward came a few seconds of silence.\n\nHolden leaned back out in time to see the door swing shut.\n\n\"I think they're bugging out,\" he said, keeping his gun trained on the door anyway. \"Must have another exit somewhere. Amos, keep your eye on that door. If it opens, start shooting.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He patted Naomi on the shoulder. \"Stay down.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden rose from behind the now ruined check-in kiosk. The desk facade had splintered and the underlying stone showed through. Holden held his gun barrel-up, his hands open. The man in the hat stood, considering the corpse at his feet, then looked up as Holden came near." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Thanks. My name is Jim Holden. You are?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The man didn't speak for a second. When he did, his voice was calm. Almost weary. \"Cops will be here soon. I need to make a call or we're all going to jail.\"\n\n\"Aren't you the cops?\" Holden asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The other man laughed; it was a bitter, short sound, but with some real humor behind it." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your next one should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Apparently Holden had said something funny.\n\n\"Nope. Name's Miller.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Hey can you write like James S. A. Corey and use whatever i write as a jumping off point?" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller looked at the dead man—the man he'd just killed—and tried to feel something. There was the trailing adrenaline rush still ramping up his heartbeat. There was a sense of surprise that came from walking into an unexpected firefight. Past that, though, his mind had already fallen into the long habit of analysis." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One plant in the main room so Holden and his crew wouldn't see anything too threatening." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A bunch of trigger-happy yahoos in the stairwell to back her up. That had gone well.\n\nIt was a slapdash effort. The ambush had been set by people who either didn't know what they were doing or didn't have the time or resources to do it right." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If it hadn't been improvised, Holden and his three buddies would have been taken or killed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And him along with them.\n\nThe four survivors of the Canterbury stood in the remains of the firefight like rookies at their first bust. Miller felt his mind shift back half a step as he watched everything without watching anything in particular. Holden was smaller than he'd expected from the video feeds." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It shouldn't have been surprising; he was an Earther." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The man had the kind of face that was bad at hiding things.\n\n\"Thanks. My name is Jim Holden. You are?\"\n\nMiller thought of six different answers and turned them all aside. One of the others—a big man, solid, with a bare scalp—was pacing out the room, his eyes unfocused the same way Miller's were." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Of Holden's four, that was the only guy who'd seen serious gunplay before." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The cops will be here soon,\" Miller said. \"I need to make a call or we're all going to jail.\"\n\nThe other man—thinner, taller, East Indian by the look of him—had been hiding behind a couch. He was sitting on his haunches now, his eyes wide and panicky." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden had some of the same look, but he was doing a better job of keeping control." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The burdens, Miller thought, of leadership.\n\n\"Aren't you the cops?\"\n\nMiller laughed.\n\n\"Nope,\" he said. \"Name's Miller.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Okay,\" the woman said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Those people just tried to kill us. Why did they do that?\"\n\nHolden took a half step toward her voice even before he turned to look at her. Her face was flushed, full lips pressed thin and pale. Her features showed a far-flung racial mix that was unusual even in the melting pot of the Belt." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her hands weren't shaking." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The big one had the most experience, but Miller put the woman down as having the best instincts.\n\n\"Yeah,\" Miller said. \"I noticed.\"\n\nHe pulled out his hand terminal and opened a link to Sematimba. The cop accepted a few seconds later." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Semi,\" Miller said. \"I'm really sorry about this, but you know how I was going stay low-profile?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes?\" the local cop said, drawing the word out to three syllables.\n\n\"Didn't work out. I was heading to a meeting with a friend...\"\n\n\"A meeting with a friend,\" Sematimba echoed. Miller could imagine the man's crossed arms even thought they didn't show in the frame." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And I happened to see a bunch of tourists in the wrong place at the wrong time. It got out of hand.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Where are you?\" Sematimba asked. Miller gave him the station level and address. There was a long pause while Sematimba consulted with some internal communication software that would have been part of Miller's tool set once. The man's sigh was percussive." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't see anything. Were there shots fired?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller looked at the chaos and ruin around them. About a thousand different alerts should have gone out with the first weapon fired. Security should have been swarming toward them.\n\n\"A few,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Strange,\" Sematimba said. \"Stay put. I'll be there.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Will do,\" Miller said, and dropped the connection.\n\n\"Okay,\" Holden said. \"Who was that?\"\n\n\"The real cops,\" Miller said. \"They'll be here soon. It'll be fine.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I think it'll be fine." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It occurred to him that he was treating the situation like he was still on the inside, a part of the machine. That wasn't true anymore, and pretending it was might have consequences.\n\n\"He was following us,\" the woman said to Holden. And then, to Miller, she said, \"You were following us.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I was,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He didn't think he sounded rueful, but the big guy shook his head.\n\n\"It was the hat,\" the big one said. \"Stood out some.\"\n\nMiller swept off his porkpie and considered it. Of course the big one had been the one to make him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The other three were competent amateurs, and Miller knew that Holden had done some time in the UN Navy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But Miller gave it better than even money that the big one's background check would be interesting reading.\n\n\"Why were you following us?\" Holden asked. \"I mean, I appreciate the part where you shot the people who were shooting at us, but I'd still like to know that first part.\"\n\n\"I wanted to talk to you,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm looking for someone.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was a pause. Holden smiled.\n\n\"Anyone in particular?\" he asked.\n\n\"A crew member of the Scopuli,\" Miller said.\n\n\"The Scopuli?\" Holden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He started to glance at the woman and stopped himself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was something there. The Scopuli meant something to him beyond what Miller had seen on the news.\n\n\"There was nobody on her when we got there,\" the woman said.\n\n\"Holy shit,\" the shaky one behind the couch said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was the first thing he'd said since the firefight ended, and he repeated it five or six more times in quick succession." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What about you?\" Miller asked. \"Donnager blew you to Tycho, and now here. What's that about?\"\n\n\"How did you know that?\" Holden said.\n\n\"It's my job,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well, it used to be.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The answer didn't appear to satisfy the Earther. The big guy had fallen in behind Holden, his face a friendly cipher: No trouble, unless there was trouble, and then maybe a whole lot of trouble. Miller nodded, half to the big guy, half to himself.\n\n\"I had a contact in the OPA who told me you didn't die on the Donnager,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They just told you that?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "the woman asked, banked outrage in her voice.\n\n\"He was making a point at the time,\" Miller said. \"Anyway, he said it, and I took it from there. And in about ten minutes, I'm going to make sure Eros security doesn't throw all of you in a hole, and me with you. So if there's anything at all you want to tell me—like what you're doing here, for instance—this would be the right time.\"\n\nThe silence was broken only by the sound of recyclers laboring to clear the smoke and particulate dust of gunfire." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The shaky one stood." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Something about the way he held himself looked military. Ex-something, Miller assumed, but not a ground pounder. Navy, maybe; Martian at a guess. He had the vocal twang some of them affected." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Ah, fuck it, Cap'n,\" the big one said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He shot the flank guy for us. He may be an asshole, but he's okay by me.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Amos,\" Holden said. Miller filed that. The big one was Amos. Holden put his hands behind his back, returning his gun to his waistband." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We're here to look for someone too,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Probably someone from the Scopuli. We were just double-checking the room when everyone decided to start shooting at us.\"\n\n\"Here?\" Miller said. Something like emotion trickled into his veins. Not hope, but dread." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Someone off the Scopuli is in this flop right now?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We think so,\" Holden said.\n\nMiller looked out the flophouse lobby's front doors. A small, curious crowd had started to gather in the tunnel. Crossed arms, nervous glances." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He knew how they felt." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sematimba and his police were on the way. The gunmen who'd attacked Holden and his crew weren't mounting another attack, but that didn't mean they were gone. There might be another wave. They could have fallen back to a better position to wait for Holden to advance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But what if Julie was here right now?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "How could he come this far and stop in the lobby? To his surprise, he still had his gun drawn. That was unprofessional. He should have holstered it. The only other one still drawn was the Martian's." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller shook his head. Sloppy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He needed to stop that.\n\nStill, he had more than half a magazine left in the pistol.\n\n\"What room?\" he asked.\n\nThe flophouse corridors were thin and cramped." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The walls had the impervious gloss of warehouse paint, and the carpet was carbon-silicate weave that would wear out more slowly than bare stone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller and Holden went first, then the woman and the Martian—Naomi and Alex, their names were—then Amos, trailing and looking back over his shoulder. Miller wondered if anyone but he and Amos understood how they were keeping the others safe. Holden seemed to know and be irritated by it; he kept edging ahead.\n\nThe doors of the rooms were identical fiberglass laminates, thin enough to be churned out by the thousand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller had kicked in a hundred like them in his career." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A few here and there were decorated by longtime residents—with a painting of improbably red flowers, a whiteboard with a string where a pen had once been attached, a cheap reproduction of an obscene cartoon acting out its punch line in a dimly glowing infinite loop.\n\nTactically, it was a nightmare. If the ambushing forces stepped out of doors in front of and behind them, all five could be slaughtered in seconds. But no slugs flew, and the only door that opened disgorged an emaciated, long-bearded man with imperfect eyes and a slack mouth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller nodded at the man as they passed, and he nodded back, possibly more surprised by someone's acknowledging his presence than by the drawn pistols. Holden stopped." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This is it,\" he murmured. \"This is the room.\"\n\nMiller nodded. The others came up in a clump, Amos casually hanging back, his eyes on the corridor retreating behind them. Miller considered the door." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It would be easy to kick in." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One strong blow just above the latch mechanism. Then he could go in low and to the left, Amos high and to the right. He wished Havelock were there. Tactics were simpler for people who'd trained together." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He motioned Amos to come up close." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden knocked on the door.\n\n\"What are you...?\" Miller whispered fiercely, but Holden ignored him.\n\n\"Hello?\" Holden called. \"Anyone there?\"\n\nMiller tensed. Nothing happened." }, { "from": "human", "value": "No voice, no gunfire. Nothing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden seemed perfectly at ease with the risk he'd just taken. From the expression on Naomi's face, Miller took it this wasn't the first time he'd done things this way.\n\n\"You want that open?\" Amos said.\n\n\"Kinda do,\" Miller said at the same moment Holden said, \"Yeah, kick it down.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Amos looked from one to the other, not moving until Holden nodded at him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then Amos shifted past them, kicked the door open in one blow, and staggered back, cussing.\n\n\"You okay?\" Miller asked.\n\nThe big man nodded once through a pale grimace.\n\n\"Yeah, busted my leg a while back. Cast just came off. Keep forgetting about that,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller turned back to the room." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Inside, it was as black as a cave. No lights came on, not even the dim glow of monitors and sensory devices. Miller stepped in, pistol drawn. Holden was close behind him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The floor made the crunching sound of gravel under their feet, and there was an odd astringent smell that Miller associated with broken screens." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Behind it was another smell, much less pleasant. He chose not to think about that one.\n\n\"Hello?\" Miller said. \"Anyone here?\"\n\n\"Turn on the lights,\" Naomi said from behind them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller heard Holden patting the wall panel, but no light came up." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They're not working,\" Holden said.\n\nThe dim spill from the corridor gave almost nothing. Miller kept his gun steady in his right hand, ready to empty it toward muzzle flash if anyone opened fire from the darkness. With his left, he took out his hand terminal, thumbed on the backlight, and opened a blank white writing tablet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The room came into monochrome." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Beside him, Holden did the same.\n\nA thin bed pressed against one wall, a narrow tray beside it. The bedding was knotted like the remnant of a bad night's sleep. A closet stood open, empty." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The hulking form of an empty vacuum suit lay on the floor like a mannequin with a misplaced head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "An old entertainment console hung on the wall across from the cot, its screen shattered by half a dozen blows. The wall was dimpled where blows intended to bread the LED sconces had missed. Another hand terminal added its glow, and another. Hints of color started to come into the room—the cheap gold of the walls, the green of the blankets and sheet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Under the cot, something glimmered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "An older-model hand terminal. Miller crouched as the others stepped in.\n\n\"Shit,\" Amos said.\n\n\"Okay,\" Holden said. \"Nobody touches anything. Period. Nothing.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was the most sensible thing Miller had heard the man say." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Someone put up a bitch of a fight,\" Amos muttered.\n\n\"No,\" Miller said. It had been vandalism, maybe. It hadn't been a struggle. He pulled a thin-film evidence bag out of his pocket and turned it inside out over his hand like a glove before picking up the terminal, flipping the plastic over it, and setting off the sealing charge." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Is that... blood?\" Naomi asked, pointing to the cheap foam mattress." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Wet streaks pooled on the sheet and pillow, not more than a fingers' width, but dark. Too dark even for blood.\n\n\"No,\" Miller said, shoving the terminal into his pocket.\n\nThe fluid marked a thin path toward the bathroom." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller raised a hand, pushing the others back as he crept toward the half-open door." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Inside the bathroom, the nasty background smell was much stronger. Something deep, organic, and intimate. Manure in a hothouse, or the aftermath of sex, or a slaughterhouse. All of them. The toilet was brushed steel, the same model they used in prisons. The sink matched." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The LED above it and the one in the ceiling had both been destroyed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the light of his terminal, like the glow of a single candle, black tendrils reached from the shower stall toward the ruined lights, bent and branching like skeletal leaves.\n\nIn the shower stall, Juliette Andromeda Mao lay dead.\n\nHer eyes were closed, and that was a mercy. She'd cut her hair differently since she'd taken the pictures Miller had seen, and it changed the shape of her face, but she was unmistakable." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She was nude, and barely human." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Coils of complex growth spilled from her mouth, ears, and vulva. Her ribs and spine had grown spurs like knives that stretched pale skin, ready to cut themselves free of her. Tubes stretched from her back and throat, crawling up the walls behind her. A deep brown slush had leaked from her, filling the shower pan almost three centimeters high." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He sat silently, willing the thing before him not to be true, trying to force himself awake." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What did they do to you? he thought. Oh, kid. What did they do?\n\n\"Ohmygod,\" Naomi said behind him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't touch anything,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Get out of the room. Into the hall. Do it now.\"\n\nThe light in the next room faded as the hand terminals retreated. The twisting shadows momentarily gave her body the illusion of movement. Miller waited, but no breath lifted the bent rib cage." }, { "from": "human", "value": "No flicker touched her eyelids." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was nothing. He rose, carefully checking his cuffs and shoes, and walked out to the corridor.\n\nThey'd all seen it. He could tell from the expressions, they'd all seen. And they didn't know any better than he did what it was." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gently, he pulled the splintered door closed and waited for Sematimba. It wasn't long." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Five men in police riot armor with shotguns made their way down the hall. Miller walked forward to meet them, his posture better than a badge. He could see them relax. Sematimba came up behind them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Miller?\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The hell is this? I thought you said you were staying put.\"\n\n\"I didn't leave,\" he said. \"Those are the civilians back there. The dead guys downstairs jumped them in the lobby.\"\n\n\"Why?\" Sematimba demanded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Who knows?\" Miller said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Roll them for spare change. That's not the problem.\"\n\nSematimba's eyebrows rose. \"I've got four corpses down there, and they're not the problem.\"\n\nMiller nodded down the corridor.\n\n\"Fifth one's up here,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's the girl I was looking for.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sematimba's expression softened. \"I'm sorry,\" he said.\n\n\"Nah,\" Miller said. He couldn't accept sympathy. He couldn't accept comfort. A gentle touch would shatter him, so he stayed hard instead." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But you're going to want the coroner on this one.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's bad, then?\"\n\n\"You've got no idea,\" Miller said. \"Listen, Semi. I'm in over my head here. Seriously. Those boys down there with the guns? If they weren't hooked in with your security force, there would have been alarms as soon as the first shot was fired. You know this was a setup. They were waiting for these four. And the squat fella with the dark hair? That's James Holden. He's not even supposed to be alive.\"\n\n\"Holden that started the war?\" Sematimba said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's the one,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This is deep. Drowning deep. And you know what they say about going in after a drowning man, right?\"\n\nSematimba looked down the corridor. He nodded.\n\n\"Let me help you,\" Sematimba said, but Miller shook his head.\n\n\"I'm too far gone. Forget me. What happened was you got a call. You found the place. You don't know me, you don't know them, you've got no clue what happened. Or you come along and drown with me. Your pick.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Task: The user will write a bit then you need to write around 4 sentences continuing directly from the user's text.\n\nAuthor style: James S. A. Corey" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller gestured at Holden and headed for the elevator without waiting to see if he was following." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The presumption irritated him, but he went anyway.\n\n\"So,\" Holden said, \"we were just in a gunfight where we killed at least three people, and now we're just leaving? No getting questioned or giving a statement? How exactly does that happen?\" Holden asked.\n\n\"Professional courtesy,\" Miller said, and Holden couldn't tell if he was joking.\n\nThe elevator door opened with a muffled ding, and Holden and the others followed Miller inside." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Naomi was closest to the panel, so she reached out to press the lobby button, but her hand was shaking so badly that she had to stop and clench it into a fist." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After a deep breath, she reached out a now steady finger and pressed the button.\n\n\"This is bullshit. Being an ex-cop doesn't give you a license to get in gunfights,\" Holden said to Miller's back.\n\nMiller didn't move, but he seemed to shrink a little bit. His sigh was heavy and unforced." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His skin seemed grayer than before." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sematimba knows the score. Half the job is knowing when to look the other way. Besides, I promised we wouldn't leave the station without letting him know.\"\n\n\"Fuck that,\" Amos said. \"You don't make promises for us, pal.\"\n\nThe elevator came to a stop and opened onto the bloody scene of the gunfight." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A dozen cops were in the room." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller nodded at them and they nodded back. He led the crew out of the lobby to the corridor, then turned around.\n\n\"We can work that out later,\" Miller said. \"Right now, let's get someplace we can talk.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden agreed with a shrug." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Okay, but you're paying.\"\n\nMiller headed off down the corridor toward the tube station.\n\nAs they followed, Naomi put a hand on Holden's arm and slowed him down a bit so that Miller could get ahead. When he was far enough away, she said, \"He knew her.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Who knew who?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He,\" Naomi said, nodding at Miller, \"knew her.\" She jerked her head back toward the crime scene behind them.\n\n\"How do you know?\" Holden said.\n\n\"He wasn't expecting to find her there, but he knew who she was. Seeing her like that was a shock.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Huh, I didn't get that at all. He's seemed like Mr. Cool all through this.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, they were friends or something. He's having trouble dealing with it, so maybe don't push him too hard,\" she said. \"We might need him.\"\n\nThe hotel room Miller got was only slightly better than the one they'd found the body in. Alex immediately headed for the bathroom and locked the door." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The sound of water running in the sink wasn't quite loud enough to cover the pilot's retching." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden plopped down on the small bed's dingy comforter, forcing Miller to take the room's one uncomfortable-looking chair. Naomi sat next to Holden on the bed, but Amos stayed on his feet, prowling around the room like a nervous animal.\n\n\"So, talk,\" Holden said to Miller.\n\n\"Let's wait for the rest of the gang to finish up,\" Miller replied with a nod toward the bathroom." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alex came out a few moments later, his face still white, but now freshly washed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Are you all right, Alex?\" Naomi asked in a soft voice.\n\n\"Five by five, XO,\" Alex said, then sat down on the floor and put his head in his hands.\n\nHolden stared at Miller and waited." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The older man sat and played with his hat for a minute, then tossed it onto the cheap plastic desk that cantilevered out from the wall." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You knew Julie was in that room. How?\" Miller said.\n\n\"We didn't even know her name was Julie,\" Holden replied. \"We just knew that it was someone from the Scopuli.\"\n\n\"You should tell me how you knew that,\" Miller said, a frightening intensity in his eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden paused a moment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller had killed someone who had been trying to kill them, and that certainly helped make the case that he was a friend, but Holden wasn't about to sell out Fred and his group on a hunch. He hesitated, then went halfway.\n\n\"The fictional owner of the Scopuli had checked into that flophouse,\" he said. \"It made sense that it was a member of the crew raising a flag.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller nodded. \"Who told you?\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm not comfortable telling you that. We believed the information was accurate,\" Holden replied. \"The Scopuli was the bait that someone used to kill the Canterbury. We thought someone from the Scopuli might know why everyone keeps trying to kill us.\"\n\nMiller said, \"Shit,\" and then leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling.\n\n\"You've been looking for Julie. You'd hoped we were looking for her too. That we knew something,\" Naomi said, not making it a question." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yeah,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was Holden's turn to ask why.\n\n\"Parents sent a contract to Ceres looking for her to be sent home. It was my case,\" Miller said.\n\n\"So you work for Ceres security?\"\n\n\"Not anymore.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So what are you doing here?\" Holden asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Her family was connected to something,\" Miller replied. \"I just naturally hate a mystery.\"\n\n\"And how did you know it was bigger than just a missing girl?\"\n\nTalking to Miller felt like digging through granite with a rubber chisel. Miller grinned humorlessly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They fired me for looking too hard.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden consciously decided not to be annoyed by Miller's non-answer. \"So let's talk about the death squad in the hotel.\"\n\n\"Yeah, seriously, what the fuck?\" Amos said, finally pausing in his pacing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alex took his head out of his hands and looked up with interest for the first time." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even Naomi leaned forward on the edge of the bed.\n\n\"No idea,\" Miller replied. \"But someone knew you were coming.\"\n\n\"Yeah, thanks for the brilliant police work,\" Amos said with a snort." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No way we woulda figured that out on our own.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden ignored him. \"But they didn't know why, or they would have already gone up to Julie's room and gotten whatever they wanted.\"\n\n\"Does that mean Fred's been compromised?\" Naomi said.\n\n\"Fred?\" Miller asked.\n\n\"Or maybe someone figured out the Polanski thing too, but didn't have a room number,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But why come out guns blazing like that?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amos said. \"Doesn't make any sense to shoot us.\"\n\n\"That was a mistake,\" Miller said. \"I saw it happen. Amos here drew his gun. Somebody overreacted. They were yelling cease-fire right up until you folks started shooting back.\"\n\nHolden began ticking off points on his fingers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So someone finds out we're headed to Eros, and that it is related to the Scopuli. They even know the hotel, but not the room.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They don't know it's Lionel Polanski either,\" Naomi said. \"They could have looked it up at the desk, just like we did.\"\n\n\"Right. So they wait for us to show, and have a squad of gunmen ready to take us in. But that goes to shit and it turns into a gunfight in the lobby. They absolutely don't see you coming, Detective, so they aren't omniscient.\"\n\n\"Right,\" Miller said. \"The whole thing screams last minute. Grab you guys and find out what you're looking for. If they'd had more time, they could have just searched the hotel. Might have taken two or three days, but it could have been done. They didn't, so that means grabbing you was easier.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden nodded. \"Yes,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But that means that they already had teams here. Those didn't seem like locals to me.\"\n\nMiller paused, looking disconcerted.\n\n\"Now you say it, me either,\" he agreed.\n\n\"So whoever it is, they already have teams of gunmen on Eros, and they can redeploy them to come at a moment's notice to pick us up,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And enough pull with security that they could have a firefight and nobody came,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Police didn't know anything was happening until I called them.\"\n\nHolden cocked his head to one side, then said, \"Shit, we really need to get out of here.\"\n\n\"Wait a minute,\" Alex said loudly. \"Just wait a goddamn minute here. How come no one is talkin' about the mutant horror show in that room? Was I the only one that saw that?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yeah, Jesus, what was that all about?\" Amos said quietly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller reached into his coat pocket and took out the evidence bag with Julie's hand terminal in it.\n\n\"Any of you guys a techie?\" he asked. \"Maybe we could find out.\"\n\n\"I could probably hack it,\" Naomi said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But there's no way I'm touching that thing until we know what did that to her and that it isn't catching. I'm not pushing my luck by handling anything she's touched.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You don't have to touch it. Keep the bag sealed. Just use it right through the plastic. The touch screen should still work.\"\n\nNaomi paused for a second, then reached out and took the bag.\n\n\"Okay, give me a minute,\" she said, then set to work on it.\n\nMiller leaned back in his chair again, letting out another heavy sigh." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So,\" Holden said. \"Did you know Julie before this? Naomi seems to think finding her dead like that really knocked you for a loop.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller shook his head slowly. \"You get a case like that, you look into whoever it is. You know, personal stuff. Read their e-mail. Talk to the people they know. You get a picture.\"\n\nMiller stopped talking and rubbed his eyes with his thumbs. Holden didn't push him, but he started talking again anyway." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Julie was a good kid,\" Miller said as if he were confessing something." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She flew a mean racing ship. I just... I wanted to get her back alive.\"\n\n\"It's got a password,\" Naomi said, holding up the terminal. \"I could hack the hardware, but I'd have to open the case.\"\n\nMiller reached out and said, \"Let me give it a try.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Naomi handed the terminal to him, and he tapped a few characters on the screen and handed it back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Razorback,\" Naomi said. \"What's that?\"\n\n\"It's a sled,\" Miller replied.\n\n\"Is he talking to us?\" Amos said, pointing his chin at Miller." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"'Cause there's no one else here, but I swear half the time I don't know what the fuck he's on about.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sorry,\" Miller said. \"I've been working more or less solo. Makes for bad habits.\"\n\nNaomi shrugged and went back to work with Holden and Miller now looking over her shoulders.\n\n\"She's got a lot of stuff on here,\" Naomi said. \"Where to start?\"\n\nMiller pointed at a text file simply labeled notes sitting on the terminal's desktop." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Start there,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She's a fanatic about putting things in the right folders. If she left that on the desktop, it means she wasn't sure where it went.\"\n\nNaomi tapped on the document to open it up. It expanded into a loosely organized collection of text that read like someone's diary.\n\nFirst off, get your shit together." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Panic doesn't help. It never helps." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Deep breaths, figure this out, make the right moves. fear is the mind-killer. Ha. Geek.\n\nShuttle Pros:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "No reactor, just batteries. V. low radiation." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Supplies for eight\n\nLots of reaction mass\n\nShuttle Cons:\n\nNo Epstein, no torch" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Comm not just disabled, but physically removed (feeling a little paranoid about leaks, guys?)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Closest transit is Eros. Is that where we were going? Maybe go someplace else? On just teakettle, this is gonna be a slow boat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Another transit adds seven more weeks. Eros, then." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I've got the Phoebe bug, no way around it. Not sure how, but that brown shit was everywhere. It's anaerobic, must have touched some. Doesn't matter how, just work the problem." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I just slept for THREE WEEKS." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Didn't even get up to pee. What does that?\n\nI'm so fucked.\n\nThings you need to remember:\n\n* BA834024112" }, { "from": "human", "value": "* Radiation kills. No reactor on this shuttle, but keep the lights off." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Keep the e-suit on. Video asshat said this thing eats radiation. Don't feed it.\n\n* Send up a flag. Get some help. You work for the smartest people in the system." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They'll figure something out." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "* Stay away from people. Don't spread the bug. Not coughing up the brown goo yet. No idea when that starts." }, { "from": "human", "value": "* Keep away from bad guys—as if you know who they are." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fine. So keep away from everyone. Incognito is my name. Hmm. Polanski?\n\nDamn. I can feel it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I'm hot all the time, and I'm starving. Don't eat." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Don't feed it. Feed a cold, starve a flu? Other way around? Eros is a day out, and then help is on the way. Keep fighting.\n\nSafe on Eros. Sent up the flag." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hope the home office is watching. Head hurts." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Something's happening on my back. Lump over my kidneys. Darren turned into goo. Am I going to be a suit full of jelly?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sick now. Things coming out of my back and leaking that brown stuff everywhere." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Have to take the suit off. If you read this, don't let anyone touch the Brown stuff. Burn me. I'm burning up.\n\nNaomi put the terminal down, but no one spoke for a moment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Finally, Holden said, \"Phoebe bug. Anyone have an idea?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There was a science station on Phoebe,\" Miller said. \"Inner planets place, no Belters allowed. It got hit. Lots of dead people, but...\"\n\n\"She talks about being on a shuttle,\" Naomi said. \"The Scopuli didn't have a shuttle.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There had to be another ship,\" Alex said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Maybe she got the shuttle off it.\"\n\n\"Right,\" Holden said. \"They got on another ship, they got infected with this Phoebe bug, and the rest of the crew... I don't know. Dies?\"\n\n\"She gets out, not realizing she's infected till she's on the shuttle,\" Naomi continued. \"She comes here, she sends up the flag to Fred, and she dies in that hotel room of the infection.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Not, however, turned to goo,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Just really badly... I don't know. Those tubes and bone spurs. What kind of disease does that?\"\n\nThe question hung in the air. Again no one spoke. Holden knew they were all thinking the same thing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They hadn't touched anything in the flophouse room." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Did that mean they were safe from it? Or did they have the Phoebe bug, whatever the hell it was? But she'd said anaerobic. Holden was pretty sure that meant you couldn't get it by breathing it in the air. Pretty sure..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Where do we go from here, Jim?\" Naomi asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How about Venus?\" Holden said, his voice higher and tighter than he'd expected. \"Nothing interesting happening on Venus.\"\n\n\"Seriously,\" Naomi said.\n\n\"Okay. Seriously, I think Miller there lets his cop friend know the story, and then we get the hell off of this rock. It's got to be a bioweapon, right? Someone steals it off a Martian science lab, seeds this shit in a dome, a month later every human being in the city is dead.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Amos interrupted with a grunt." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There's some holes in that, Cap'n,\" Amos said. \"Like what the fuck does that have to do with taking down the Cant and the Donnager?\"\n\nHolden looked Naomi in the eye and said, \"We have a place to look now, don't we?\"\n\n\"Yeah, we do,\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"BA834024112. That's a rock designation.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What do you think is out there?\" Alex asked.\n\n\"If I was a betting man, I'd say it's whatever ship she stole that shuttle from,\" Holden replied.\n\n\"Makes sense,\" Naomi said. \"Every rock in the Belt is mapped. You want to hide something, put it in a stable orbit next to one and you can always find it later.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller turned toward Holden, his face even more drawn." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If you're going there, I want in,\" he said.\n\n\"Why?\" Holden asked. \"No offense, but you found your girl. Your job's over, right?\"\n\nMiller looked at him, his lips a thin line." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Different case,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your next one should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Now it's about who killed her.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Expand the story by adding four sentences." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Your police friend put a lockdown order on my ship,\" Holden said. He sounded outraged.\n\nAround them, the hotel restaurant was busy. Last shift's prostitutes mixed with the next shift's tourists and businessmen at the cheap pink-lit buffet. The pilot and the big guy—Alex and Amos—were vying for the last bagel." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Naomi sat at Holden's side, her arms crossed, a cup of bad coffee cooling before her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We did kill some people,\" Miller said gently.\n\n\"I thought you got us out of that with your secret police handshake,\" Holden said. \"So why's my ship in lockdown?\"\n\n\"You remember when Sematimba said we shouldn't leave the station without telling him?\" Miller said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I remember you making some kind of deal,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't remember agreeing to it.\"\n\n\"Look, he's going to keep us here until he's sure he won't get fired for letting us go. Once he knows his ass is covered, the lock goes down. So let's talk about the part where I rent a berth on your ship.\"\n\nJim Holden and his XO exchanged a glance, one of those tiny human burst communications that said more than words could have. Miller didn't know either of them well enough to decode all of it, but he guessed they were skeptical." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They had reason to be." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller had checked his credit balance before he'd called them. He had enough left for another night in the hotel or a good dinner, but not both. He was spending it on a cheap breakfast that Holden and his crew didn't need and probably wouldn't enjoy, buying good will.\n\n\"I need to make very, very sure I understand what you're saying,\" Holden said as the big one—Amos—returned and sat at his other side holding the bagel." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are you saying that unless I let you on my ship, your friend is going to keep us here? Because that's blackmail.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Extortion,\" Amos said.\n\n\"What?\" Holden said.\n\n\"It's not blackmail,\" Naomi said. \"That would be if he threatened to expose information we didn't want known. If it's just a threat, that's extortion.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And it's not what I'm talking about,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Freedom of the station while the investigation rolls? That's no trouble. Leaving jurisdiction's another thing. I can't hold you here any more than I can cut you loose. I'm just looking for a ride when you go.\"\n\n\"Why?\" Holden said.\n\n\"Because you're going to Julie's asteroid,\" Miller said.\n\n\"I'm willing to bet there's no port there,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Did you plan on going anyplace after that?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm kind of low on solid plans. Haven't had one yet that actually happened.\"\n\n\"I hear that,\" Amos said. \"We've been fucked eighteen different ways since we got into this.\"\n\nHolden folded his hands on the table, one finger tapping a complicated rhythm on the wood-textured concrete top." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It wasn't a good sign." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You seem like a... well, like an angry, bitter old man, actually. But I've been working water haulers for the past five years. That just means you'd fit in.\"\n\n\"But,\" Miller said, and let the word hang there.\n\n\"But I've been shot at a lot recently, and the machine guns yesterday were the least lethal thing I've had to deal with,\" Holden said. \"I'm not letting anyone on my ship that I wouldn't trust with my life, and I don't actually know you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I can get the money,\" Miller said, his belly sinking." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If it's money, I can cover it.\"\n\n\"It's not about negotiating a price,\" Holden said.\n\n\"Get the money?\" Naomi said, her eyes narrowing. \"'Get the money,' as in you don't have it now?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm a little short,\" Miller said. \"It's temporary.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You have an income?\" Naomi said.\n\n\"More like a strategy,\" Miller said. \"There's some independent rackets down on the docks. There always are at any port. Side games. Fights. Things like that. Most of them, the fix is in. It's how you bribe cops without actually bribing cops.\"\n\n\"That's your plan?\" Holden said, incredulity in his voice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Go collect some police bribes?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Across the restaurant, a prostitute in a red nightgown yawned prodigiously; the john across the table from her frowned.\n\n\"No,\" Miller said reluctantly. \"I play the side bets. A cop goes in, I make a side bet that he's going to win. I know who the cops are mostly. The house, they know because they're bribing them. The side bets are with fish looking to feel edgy because they're playing unlicensed.\"\n\nEven as he said it, Miller knew how weak it sounded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alex, the pilot, came and sat beside Miller." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His coffee smelled bright and acidic.\n\n\"What's the deal?\" Alex asked.\n\n\"There isn't one,\" Holden said. \"There wasn't one before and there still isn't.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It works better than you'd think,\" Miller said gamely, and four hand terminals chimed at once." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden and Naomi exchanged another, less complicit glance and pulled up their terminals. Amos and Alex already had theirs up. Miller caught the red-and-green border that meant either a priority message or an early Christmas card. There was a moment's silence as they all read something; then Amos whistled low." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Stage three?\" Naomi said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Can't say as I like the sound of that,\" Alex said.\n\n\"You mind if I ask?\" Miller said.\n\nHolden slid his terminal across the table. The message was plaintext, encoded from Tycho." }, { "from": "human", "value": "CAUGHT MOLE IN TYCHO COMM STATION." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "YOUR PRESENCE AND DESTINATION LEAKED TO UNKNOWN PERSONS ON EROS. BE CAREFUL.\n\n\"Little late on that,\" Miller said.\n\n\"Keep reading,\" Holden said.\n\nMOLE'S ENCRYPTION CODE ALLOWED INTERCEPT OF SUBSIGNAL BROADCAST FROM EROS FIVE HOURS AGO." }, { "from": "human", "value": "INTERCEPTED MESSAGE FOLLOWS: HOLDEN ESCAPED BUT PAYLOAD SAMPLE RECOVERED." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "REPEAT: SAMPLE RECOVERED. PROCEEDING TO STAGE THREE.\n\n\"Any idea what that means?\" Holden asked.\n\n\"I don't,\" Miller said, pushing the terminal back. \"Except... if the payload sample is Julie's body.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Which I think we can assume it is,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller tapped his fingertips on the tabletop, unconsciously copying Holden's rhythm, his mind working through the combinations.\n\n\"This thing,\" Miller said. \"The bioweapon or whatever. They were shipping it here. So now it's here. Okay. There's no reason to take out Eros. It's not particularly important to the war when you hold it up to Ceres or Ganymede or the shipyard at Callisto. And if you wanted it dead, there're easier ways. Blow a big fusion bomb on the surface, and crack it like an egg.\"\n\n\"It's not a military base, but it is a shipping hub,\" Naomi said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And, unlike Ceres, it's not under OPA control.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They're shipping her out, then,\" Holden said. \"They're taking their sample out to infect whatever their original target was, and once they're off the station, there's no way we're going to stop it.\"\n\nMiller shook his head. Something about the chain of logic felt wrong." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was missing something." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His imaginary Julie appeared across the room, but her eyes were dark, black filaments pouring down her cheeks like tears.\n\nWhat am I looking at here, Julie? he thought. I'm seeing something here, but I don't know what it is.\n\nThe vibration was a slight, small thing, less than a transport tube's braking stutter." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A few plates rattled; the coffee in Naomi's cup danced in a series of concentric circles." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Everyone in the hotel went silent with the sudden shared dread of thousands of people made aware of their fragility in the same moment.\n\n\"Oh-kay,\" Amos said. \"The fuck was that?\" and the emergency Klaxons started blaring.\n\n\"Or possibly stage three is something else,\" Miller said over the noise." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The public-address system was muddy by its nature." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The same voice spoke from consoles and speakers that might have been as close as a meter from each other or as far out as earshot would take them. It made every word reverberate, a false echo. Because of that, the voice of the emergency broadcast system enunciated very carefully, each word bitten off separately.\n\n\"Attention, please. Eros Station is in emergency lockdown. Proceed immediately to the casino level for radiological safety confinement. Cooperate with all emergency personnel. Attention, please. Eros station is in emergency lockdown...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "And on in a loop that would continue, if no one coded in the override, until every man, woman, child, animal, and insect on the station had been reduced to dust and humidity." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was the nightmare scenario, and Miller did what a lifetime on pressurized rocks had trained him to do. He was up from the table, in the corridor, and heading down toward the wider passages, already clogged with bodies. Holden and his crew were on his heels.\n\n\"That was an explosion,\" Alex said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Ship drive at the least. Maybe a nuke.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They are going to kill the station,\" Holden said. There was a kind of awe in his voice. \"I never thought I'd miss the part where they just blew up the ships I was on. But now it's stations.\"\n\n\"They didn't crack it,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You're sure of that?\" Naomi asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I can hear you talking,\" Miller said. \"That tells me there's air.\"\n\n\"There are airlocks,\" Holden said. \"If the station got holed and the locks closed down...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "A woman pushed hard against Miller's shoulder, forcing her way forward." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If they weren't damn careful, there was going to be a stampede. This was too much fear and not enough space. It hadn't happened yet, but the impatient movement of the crowd, vibrating like molecules in water just shy of boiling, made Miller very uncomfortable.\n\n\"This isn't a ship,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's a station. This is rock we're on. Anything big enough to get to the parts of the station with atmosphere would crack the place like an egg. A great big pressurized egg.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The crowd was stopped, the tunnel full. They were going to need crowd control, and they were going to need it fast. For the first time since he'd left Ceres, Miller wished he had a badge. Someone pushed into Amos' side, then backed away through the press when the big guy growled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Besides,\" Miller said, \"it's a rad hazard. You don't need air loss to kill everyone in the station. Just burn a few quadrillion spare neutrons through the place at C, and there won't be any trouble with the oxygen supply.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Cheerful fucker,\" Amos said.\n\n\"They build stations inside of rocks for a reason,\" Naomi said. \"Not so easy to force radiation through this many meters of rock.\"\n\n\"I spent a month in a rad shelter once,\" Alex said as they pushed through the thickening crowd." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Ship I was on had magnetic containment drop. Automatic cutoffs failed, and the reactor kept runnin' for almost a second. Melted the engine room. Killed five of the crew on the next deck up before they knew we had a problem, and it took them three days to carve the bodies free of the melted decking for burial. The rest of us wound up eighteen to a shelter for thirty-six days while a tug flew to get us.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sounds great,\" Holden said.\n\n\"End of it, six of 'em got married, and the rest of us never spoke to each other again,\" Alex said.\n\nAhead of them, someone shouted. It wasn't in alarm or even anger, really. Frustration. Fear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Exactly the things Miller didn't want to hear." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That may not be our big problem,\" Miller said, but before he could explain, a new voice cut in, drowning out the emergency-response loop.\n\n\"Okay, everybody! We're Eros security, que no? We got an emergency, so you do what we tell you and nobody gets hurt.\"\n\nAbout time, Miller thought.\n\n\"So here's the rule,\" the new voice said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Next asshole who pushes anyone, I'm going to shoot them. Move in an orderly fashion. First priority: orderly. Second priority is move! Go, go, go!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At first nothing happened. The knot of human bodies was tied too tightly for even the most heavy-handed crowd control to free quickly, but a minute later, Miller saw some heads far ahead of him in the tunnel start to shift, then move away. The air in the tunnel was thickening and the hot plastic smell of overloaded recyclers reached him just as the clot came free. Miller's breath started coming easier." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do they have hard shelters?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "a woman behind them asked her companion, and then was swept away by the currents. Naomi plucked Miller's sleeve.\n\n\"Do they?\" she asked.\n\n\"They should, yes,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Enough for maybe a quarter million, and essential personnel and medical crews would get first crack at them.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And everyone else?\" Amos said.\n\n\"If they survive the event,\" Holden said, \"station personnel will save as many people as they can.\"\n\n\"Ah,\" Amos said. Then: \"Well, fuck that. We're going for the Roci, right?\"\n\n\"Oh, hell yes,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Ahead of them, the fast-shuffling crowd in their tunnel was merging with another flow of people from a lower level." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Five thick-necked men in riot gear were waving people on. Two of them were pointing guns at the crowd. Miller was more than half tempted to go up and slap the little idiots. Pointing guns at people was a lousy way to avoid panic." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One of the security men was also far too wide for his gear, the Velcro fasteners at his belly reaching out for each other like lovers at the moment of separation." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller looked down at the floor and slowed his steps, the back of his mind suddenly and powerfully busy. One of the cops swung his gun out over the crowd. Another one—the fat guy—laughed and said something in Korean.\n\nWhat had Sematimba said about the new security force?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "All bluster, no balls." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A new corporation out of Luna. Belters on the ground. Corrupt.\n\nThe name. They'd had a name. CPM. Carne Por la Machina." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Meat for the machine." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One of the gun-wielding cops lowered his weapon, swept off his helmet, and scratched violently behind one ear. He had wild black hair, a tattooed neck, and a scar that went from one eyelid down almost to the joint of his jaw.\n\nMiller knew him. A year and a half ago, he'd arrested him for assault and racketeering. And the equipment—armor, batons, riot guns—also looked hauntingly familiar." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dawes had been wrong." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller had been able to find his own missing equipment after all.\n\nWhatever this was, it had been going on a long time before the Canterbury had picked up a distress call from the Scopuli. A long time before Julie had vanished. And putting a bunch of Ceres Station thugs in charge of Eros crowd control using stolen Ceres Station equipment had been part of the plan. The third phase." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Ah, he thought. Well." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That can't be good.\n\nMiller slid to the side, letting as many bodies as he plausibly could fill the space between him and the gunmen dressed as police.\n\n\"Get down to the casino level,\" one of the gunmen shouted over the crowd. \"We'll get you into the radiation shelters from there, but you've got to get to the casino level!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden and his crew hadn't noticed anything odd." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were talking among themselves, strategizing about how to get to their ship and what to do once they got there, speculating about who might have attacked the station and where Julie Mao's twisted, infected corpse might be headed. Miller fought the impulse to interrupt them. He needed to stay calm, to think things through. They couldn't attract attention." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He needed the right moment." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 5 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The corridor turned and widened. The press of bodies lightened a little bit. Miller waited for a dead zone in the crowd control, a space where none of the fake security men could see them. He took Holden by the elbow.\n\n\"Don't go,\" he said." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "expand on the story like James S. A. Corey would" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What do you mean, don't go?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden asked, yanking his elbow out of Miller's grasp. \"Somebody just nuked the station. This has escalated beyond our capacity to respond. If we can't get to the Roci, we're doing whatever they tell us to until we can.\"\n\nMiller took a step back and put up his hands; he was clearly doing his best to look nonthreatening, which just pissed Holden off even more. Behind him, the riot cops were motioning the people milling in the corridors toward the casinos." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The air echoed with the electronically amplified voices of the police directing the crowds and the buzz of anxious citizens." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Over it all, the public-address system told everyone to remain calm and cooperate with emergency personnel.\n\n\"See that bruiser over there in the police riot gear?\" Miller said. \"His name is Gabby Smalls. He supervises a chunk of the Golden Bough protection racket on Ceres. He also runs a little dust on the side, and I suspect he's tossed more than a few people out airlocks.\"\n\nHolden looked at the guy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Wide shoulders, thick gut." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now that Miller pointed him out, there was something about him that didn't seem right for a cop.\n\n\"I don't get it,\" Holden said.\n\n\"A couple months ago, when you started a bunch of riots by saying Mars blew up your water hauler, we found out—\"\n\n\"I never said—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"—found out that most of the police riot gear on Ceres was missing. A few months before that, a bunch of our underworld muscle went missing. I just found out where both of them are.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller pointed at the riot-gear-equipped Gabby Smalls.\n\n\"I wouldn't go wherever he's sending people,\" he said. \"I really wouldn't.\"\n\nA thin stream of people bumped past.\n\n\"Then where?\" Naomi asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yeah, I mean, if the choice is radiation or mobsters, I gotta go with the mobsters,\" Alex said, nodding emphatically at Naomi." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller pulled out his hand terminal and held it up so everyone could see the screen.\n\n\"I've got no radiation warnings,\" he said. \"Whatever happened outside isn't a danger on this level. Not right now. So let's just calm down and make the smart move.\"\n\nHolden turned his back on Miller and motioned to Naomi." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He pulled her aside and said in a quiet voice, \"I still think we go back to the ship and get out of here. Take our chances getting past these mobsters.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If there's no radiation danger, then I agree,\" she said with a nod.\n\n\"I disagree,\" Miller said, not even pretending he hadn't been eavesdropping. \"To do that we have to walk through three levels of casino filled with riot gear and thugs. They're going to tell us to get in one of those casinos for our own protection. When we don't, they'll beat us unconscious and throw us in anyway. For our own protection.\"\n\nAnother crowd of people poured out of a branch corridor, heading for the reassuring presence of the police and the bright casino lights." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden found it difficult not to be swept along with the crowd." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A man with two enormous suitcases bumped into Naomi, almost knocking her down. Holden grabbed her hand.\n\n\"What's the alternative?\" he asked Miller.\n\nMiller glanced up and down the corridor, seeming to measure the flow of people." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He nodded at a yellow-and-black-striped hatch down a small maintenance corridor." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That one,\" he said. \"It's marked HIGH VOLTAGE, so the guys sweeping for stragglers won't bother with it. It's not the kind of place citizens hide.\"\n\n\"Can you get that door open quickly?\" Holden said, looking at Amos." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Can I break it?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If you need to.\"\n\n\"Then sure,\" Amos said, and began pushing his way through the crowd toward the maintenance hatch. At the door, he pulled out his multi-tool and popped off the cheap plastic housing for the card reader. After he twisted a couple of wires together, the hatch slid open with a hydraulic hiss." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Ta-da,\" Amos said. \"The reader won't work anymore, so anyone who wants in comes in.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Let's worry about that if it happens,\" Miller replied, then led them into the dimly lit passageway beyond.\n\nThe service corridor was filled with electrical cable held together with plastic ties. It stretched through the dim red light for thirty or forty feet before falling into gloom. The light came from LEDs mounted on the metal bracing that sprouted from the wall every five feet or so to hold the cable up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Naomi had to duck to enter, her frame about four centimeters too tall for the ceiling." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She put her back to the wall and slid down onto her haunches.\n\n\"You'd think they'd make the maintenance corridors tall enough for Belters to work in,\" she said irritably.\n\nHolden touched the wall almost reverently, tracing a corridor identification number carved right into the stone.\n\n\"The Belters who built this place weren't tall,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"These are some of the main power lines. This tunnel goes back to the first Belt colony. The people who carved it grew up in gravity.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller, who also had to duck his head, sat on the floor with a grunt and popping knees.\n\n\"History lesson later,\" he said. \"Let's figure a way off this rock.\"\n\nAmos, studying the bundles of cable intently, said over his shoulder, \"If you see a frayed spot, don't touch it. This thick fucker right here is a couple million volts. That'd melt your shit down real good.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alex sat down next to Naomi, grimacing when his butt hit the cold stone floor." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You know,\" he said, \"if they decide to seal up the station, they might pump all the air outta these maintenance corridors.\"\n\n\"I get it,\" Holden said loudly. \"It's a shitty and uncomfortable hiding spot. You have my permission to now shut up about that.\"\n\nHe squatted down across the corridor from Miller and said, \"Okay, Detective. Now what?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Now,\" Miller said, \"we wait for the sweep to pass us by, and get behind it, try to get to the docks. The folks in the shelters are easy to avoid. Shelters are up deep. Trick's going to be getting through the casino levels.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Can't we just use these maintenance passages to move around?\" Alex asked.\n\nAmos shook his head. \"Not without a map, we won't. You get lost in here, you're in trouble,\" he said.\n\nIgnoring them, Holden said, \"Okay, so we wait for everyone to move to the radiation shelters and then we leave.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller nodded at him, and then the two men sat staring at each other for a moment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The air between them seemed to thicken, the silence taking on a meaning of its own. Miller shrugged like his jacket itched.\n\n\"Why do you think a bunch of Ceres mobsters are moving everyone to radiation shelters when there's no actual radiation danger?\" Holden finally said. \"And why are the Eros cops letting them?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Good questions,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If they were using these yahoos, it helps explain why their attempted kidnapping at the hotel went so poorly. They don't seem like pros.\"\n\n\"Nope,\" Miller said. \"That's not their usual area of expertise.\"\n\n\"Would you two be quiet?\" Naomi said.\n\nFor almost a minute they were." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It'd be really stupid,\" Holden said, \"to go take a look at what's going on, wouldn't it?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes. Whatever's going on at those shelters, you know that's where all the guards and patrols will be,\" Miller said.\n\n\"Yeah,\" Holden said.\n\n\"Captain,\" Naomi said, a warning in her voice.\n\n\"Still,\" Holden said, talking to Miller, \"you hate a mystery.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I do at that,\" Miller replied with a nod and a faint smile." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And you, my friend, are a damn busybody.\"\n\n\"It's been said.\"\n\n\"Goddamn it,\" Naomi said quietly.\n\n\"What is it, Boss?\" Amos asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"These two just broke our getaway plan,\" Naomi replied." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then she said to Holden, \"You guys are going to be very bad for each other and, by extension, us.\"\n\n\"No,\" Holden replied. \"You aren't coming along. You stay here with Amos and Alex. Give us\"—he looked at his terminal—\"three hours to go look and come back. If we aren't here—\"\n\n\"We leave you to the gangsters and the three of us get jobs on Tycho and live happily ever after,\" Naomi said.\n\n\"Yeah,\" Holden said with a grin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't be a hero.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Wouldn't even consider it, sir.\"\n\nHolden crouched in the shadows outside the maintenance hatch and watched as Ceres mobsters dressed in police riot gear led the citizens of Eros away in small groups. The PA system continued to declare the possibility of radiological danger and exhorted the citizens and guests of Eros to cooperate fully with emergency personnel. Holden had selected a group to follow and was getting ready to move when Miller placed a hand on his shoulder." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Wait,\" Miller said. \"I want to make a call.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He quickly dialed up a number on his hand terminal, and after a few moments, a flat gray Network Not Available message appeared.\n\n\"Phone is down?\" Holden asked.\n\n\"That's the first thing I'd do, too,\" Miller replied.\n\n\"I see,\" Holden said even though he really didn't." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well, I guess it's just you and me,\" Miller said, then took the magazine out of his gun and began reloading it with cartridges he pulled out of his coat pocket." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even though he'd had enough of gunfights to last him the rest of his life, Holden took out his gun and checked the magazine as well. He'd replaced it after the shoot-out in the hotel, and it was full. He racked it and put it back in the waistband of his pants. Miller, he noticed, kept his out, holding it close to his thigh, where his coat mostly covered it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It wasn't difficult following the groups up through the station toward the inner sections where the radiation shelters were." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As long as they kept moving in the same direction as the crowds, no one gave them a second look. Holden made a mental note of the many corridor intersections where men in riot gear stood guard. It would be much tougher coming back down.\n\nWhen the group they were following eventually stopped outside a large metal door marked with the ancient radiation symbol, Holden and Miller slipped off to the side and hid behind a large planter filled with ferns and a couple of stunted trees." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden watched the fake riot cops order everyone into the shelter and then seal the door behind them with the swipe of a card." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All but one of them left, the remaining one standing guard outside the door.\n\nMiller whispered, \"Let's ask him to let us in.\"\n\n\"Follow my lead,\" Holden replied, then stood up and began walking toward the guard.\n\n\"Hey, shithead, you supposed to be in a shelter or in the casino, so get the fuck back to your group,\" the guard said, his hand on the butt of his gun." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden held up his hands placatingly, smiled, and kept walking." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hey, I lost my group. Got mixed up somehow. I'm not from here, you know,\" he said.\n\nThe guard pointed down the corridor with the stun baton in his left hand.\n\n\"Go that way till you hit the ramps down,\" he said.\n\nMiller seemed to appear out of nowhere in the dimly lit corridor, his gun already out and pointed at the guard's head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He thumbed off the safety with an audible click." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How about we just join the group already inside?\" he said. \"Open it up.\"\n\nThe guard looked at Miller out of the corners of his eyes, not turning his head at all. His hands went up, and he dropped the baton." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You don't want to do that, man,\" the fake cop said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I kind of think he does,\" Holden said. \"You should do what he says. He's not a very nice person.\"\n\nMiller pushed the barrel of his gun against the guard's head and said, \"You know what we used to call a 'no-brainer' back at the station house? It's when a shot to the head actually blows the entire brain out of someone's skull. It usually happens when a gun is pressed to the victim's head right about here. The gas's got nowhere to go. Pops the brain right out through the exit wound.\"\n\n\"They said not to open these up once they'd been sealed, man,\" the guard said, speaking so fast he ran all the words together." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They were pretty serious about that.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This is the last time I ask,\" Miller said. \"Next time I just use the card I took off your body.\"\n\nHolden turned the guard around to face the door and pulled the handgun out of the man's belt holster. He hoped all Miller's threats were just threats." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He suspected they weren't." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Just open the door, and we'll let you go, I promise,\" Holden said to the guard.\n\nThe guard nodded and moved up to the door, then slid his card through it and punched in a number on the keypad. The heavy blast door slid open. Beyond it, the room was even darker than the corridor outside." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A few emergency LEDs glowed a sullen red." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the faint illumination, Holden could see dozens... hundreds of bodies scattered across the floor, unmoving.\n\n\"Are they dead?\" Holden asked.\n\n\"I don't know nothing about—\" the guard said, but Miller cut him off.\n\n\"You go in first,\" Miller said, and pushed the guard forward." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hold on,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't think it's a good idea to just charge in here.\"\n\nThree things happened at once. The guard took four steps forward and then collapsed on the floor. Miller sneezed once, loudly, and then started to sway drunkenly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And both Holden's and Miller's hand terminals began an angry electric buzzing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller staggered back and said, \"The door...\"\n\nHolden hit the button and the door slid shut again.\n\n\"Gas,\" Miller said, then coughed. \"There's gas in there.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "While the ex-cop leaned against the corridor wall and coughed, Holden took out his terminal to shut off the buzzing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But the alarm flashing on its screen wasn't an air-contamination alert. It was the venerable three wedge shapes pointing inward. Radiation. As he watched, the symbol, which should have been white, shifted through an angry orange color to dark red.\n\nMiller was looking at his too, his expression unreadable." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We've been dosed,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I've never actually seen the detector activate,\" Miller said, his voice rough and faint after his coughing fit. \"What does it mean when the thing is red?\"\n\n\"It means we'll be bleeding from our rectums in about six hours,\" Holden said. \"We have to get to the ship. It'll have the meds we need.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What,\" Miller said, \"the fuck... is going on?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden grabbed Miller by the arm and led him back down the corridor toward the ramps. Holden's skin felt warm and itchy. He didn't know if it was radiation burn or psychosomatic. With the amount of radiation he'd just taken, it was a good thing he had sperm tucked away in Montana and on Europa." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Thinking that made his balls itch." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They nuke the station,\" Holden said. \"Hell, maybe they just pretend to nuke it. Then they drag everyone down here and toss them into radiation shelters that are only radioactive on the inside. Gas them to keep them quiet.\"\n\n\"There are easier ways to kill people,\" Miller said, his breathing coming in ragged gasps as they ran down the corridor.\n\n\"So it has to be more than that,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The bug, right? The one that killed that girl. It... fed on radiation.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Incubators,\" Miller said, nodding in agreement.\n\nThey arrived at one of the ramps to the lower levels, but a group of citizens led by two fake riot cops were coming up. Holden grabbed Miller and pulled him to one side, where they could hide in the shadow of a closed noodle shop.\n\n\"So they infected them, right?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden said in a whisper, waiting for the group to pass." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Maybe fake radiation meds with the bug in it. Maybe that brown goo just spread around on the floor. Then whatever was in the girl, Julie—\"\n\nHe stopped when Miller walked away from him straight at the group that had just come up the ramp.\n\n\"Officer,\" said Miller to one of the fake cops.\n\nThey both stopped, and one of them said, \"You supposed to be—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller shot him in the throat, right below his helmet's faceplate." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then he swiveled smoothly and shot the other guard in the inside of the thigh, just below the groin. When the man fell backward, yelling in pain, Miller walked up and shot him again, this time in the neck.\n\nA couple of the citizens started screaming. Miller pointed his gun at them and they got quiet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Go down a level or two and find someplace to hide,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do not cooperate with these men, even though they're dressed like police. They do not have your best interests at heart. Go.\"\n\nThe citizens hesitated, then ran. Miller took a few cartridges out of his pocket and began replacing the three he'd fired. Holden started to speak, but Miller cut him off." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Take the throat shot if you can. Most people, the faceplate and chest armor don't quite cover that gap. If the neck is covered, then shoot the inside of the thigh. Very thin armor there. Mobility issue. Takes most people down in one shot.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden nodded, as though that all made sense.\n\n\"Okay,\" Holden said. \"Say, let's get back to the ship before we bleed to death, right? No more shooting people if we can help it.\" His voice sounded calmer than he felt.\n\nMiller slapped the magazine back into his gun and chambered a round." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm guessing there's a lot more people need to be shot before this is over,\" he said." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your next one should be approximately one sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But sure. First things first.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Write 4 sentences sentences in the style of James S. A. Corey spawning from what the user wrote." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The first time Miller killed anyone was in his third year working security. He'd been twenty-two, just married, talking about having kids. As the new guy on the contract, he'd gotten the shit jobs: patrolling levels so high the Coriolis made him seasick, taking domestic disturbance calls in holes no wider than a storage bin, standing guard on the drunk tank to keep predators from raping the unconscious. The normal hazing. He'd known to expect it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He'd thought he could take it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The call had been from an illegal restaurant almost at the mass center. At less than a tenth of a g, gravity had been little more than a suggestion, and his inner ear had been confused and angered by the change in spin. If he thought about it, he could still remember the sound of raised voices, too fast and slurred for words. The smell of bathtub cheese." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The thin haze of smoke from the cheap electric griddle." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It had happened fast. The perp had come out of the hole with a gun in one hand, dragging a woman by the hair with the other. Miller's partner, a ten-year veteran named Carson, had shouted out the warning. The perp had turned, swinging the gun out at arm's length like a stuntman in a video." }, { "from": "human", "value": "All through training, the instructors had said that you couldn't know what you'd do until the moment came." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Killing another human being was hard. Some people couldn't. The perp's gun came around; the gunman dropped the woman and shouted. It turned out that, for Miller at least, it wasn't all that hard.\n\nAfterward, he'd been through mandatory counseling." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He'd cried. He'd suffered the nightmares and the shakes and all the things that cops suffered quietly and didn't talk about." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But even then, it seemed to be happening at a distance, like he'd gotten too drunk and was watching himself throw up. It was just a physical reaction. It would pass.\n\nThe important thing was he knew the answer to the question. Yes, if he needed to, he could take a life." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It wasn't until now, walking through the corridors of Eros, that he'd taken joy in it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even taking down the poor bastard in that first firefight had felt like the sad necessity of work. Pleasure in killing hadn't come until after Julie, and it wasn't really pleasure as much as a brief cessation of pain.\n\nHe held the gun low. Holden started down the ramp, and Miller followed, letting the Earther take point." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden walked faster than he did and with the uncommented athleticism of someone who lived in a wide variety of gravities." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller had the feeling he'd made Holden nervous, and he regretted that a little. He hadn't intended to, and he really needed to get aboard Holden's ship if he was going to find Julie's secrets.\n\nOr, for that matter, not die of radiation sickness in the next few hours. That seemed a finer point than it probably was." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Okay,\" Holden said at the bottom of the ramp." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We need to get back down, and there are a lot of guards between us and Naomi that are going to be really confused by two guys walking the wrong direction.\"\n\n\"That's a problem,\" Miller agreed.\n\n\"Any thoughts?\"\n\nMiller frowned and considered the flooring." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Eros floors were different than Ceres'." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Laminate with flecks of gold.\n\n\"Tubes aren't going to be running,\" he said. \"If they are, it'll be in lockdown mode, where it only stops at the holding pen down in the casino. So that's out.\"\n\n\"Maintenance corridor again?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If we can find one that goes between levels,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Might be a little tricky, but it seems like a better bet than shooting our way past a couple dozen assholes in armor. How long have we got before your friend takes off?\"\n\nHolden looked at his hand terminal. The radiation alarm was still deep red. Miller wondered how long those took to reset." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"A little more than two hours,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Shouldn't be a problem.\"\n\n\"Let's see what we can find,\" Miller said.\n\nThe corridors nearest the radiation shelters—the death traps, the incubators—had been emptied. Wide passages built to accommodate the ancient construction equipment that had carved Eros into a human habitation were eerie with only Holden's and Miller's footsteps and the hum of the air recyclers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller hadn't noticed when the emergency announcements had stopped, but the absence of them now seemed ominous." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If it had been Ceres, he would have known where to go, where everything led, how to move gracefully from one stage to another. On Eros, all he had was an educated guess. That wasn't so bad.\n\nBut he could tell it was taking too long, and worse than that—they weren't talking about it; neither one spoke—they were walking more slowly than normal." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It wasn't up to the threshold of consciousness, but Miller knew that both of their bodies were starting to feel the radiation damage." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It wasn't going to get better.\n\n\"Okay,\" Holden said. \"Somewhere around here there has to be a maintenance shaft.\"\n\n\"Could also try the tube station,\" Miller said. \"The cars run in vacuum, but there might be some service tunnels running parallel.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't you think they'd have shut those down as part of the big roundup?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Probably,\" Miller said.\n\n\"Hey! You two! What the fuck you think you're doing up here?\"\n\nMiller looked back over his shoulder. Two men in riot gear were waving at them menacingly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden said something sharp under his breath." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller narrowed his eyes.\n\nThe thing was these men were amateurs. The beginning of an idea moved in the back of Miller's mind as he watched the two approach. Killing them and taking their gear wouldn't work." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was nothing like scorch marks and blood to make it clear something had happened. But..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Miller,\" Holden said, a warning in his voice.\n\n\"Yeah,\" Miller said. \"I know.\"\n\n\"I said what the fuck are you two doing here?\" one of the security men said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The station's on lockdown. Everyone goes down to the casino level or up to the radiation shelters.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We were just looking for a way to... ah... get down to the casino level,\" Holden said, smiling and being nonthreatening. \"We're not from around here, and—\"\n\nThe closer of the two guards jabbed the butt of his rifle neatly into Holden's leg. The Earther staggered, and Miller shot the guard just below the faceplate, then turned to the one still standing, mouth agape." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You're Mikey Ko, right?\" Miller said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The man's face went even paler, but he nodded. Holden groaned and stood.\n\n\"Detective Miller,\" Miller said. \"Busted you on Ceres about four years ago. You got a little happy in a bar. Tappan's, I think? Hit a girl with a pool cue?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh, hey,\" the man said with a frightened smile." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yeah, I remember you. How you been doing?\"\n\n\"Good and bad,\" Miller said. \"You know how it is. Give the Earther your gun.\"\n\nKo looked from Miller to Holden and back, licking his lips and judging his chances." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller shook his head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Seriously,\" Miller said. \"Give him the gun.\"\n\n\"Sure, yeah. No problem.\"\n\nThis was the kind of man who'd killed Julie, Miller thought. Stupid. Shortsighted. A man born with a sense for raw opportunity where his soul should have been." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller's mental Julie shook her head in disgust and sorrow, and Miller found himself wondering if she meant the thug now handing his rifle to Holden or himself. Maybe both." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What's the deal here, Mikey?\" Miller asked.\n\n\"What do you mean?\" the guard said, playing stupid, like they were in an interrogation cell. Stalling for time. Walking through the old script of cop and criminal as if it still made sense." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As if everything hadn't changed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller was surprised by a tightness in his throat. He didn't know what it was there for.\n\n\"The job,\" he said. \"What's the job?\"\n\n\"I don't know—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hey,\" Miller said gently." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I just killed your buddy.\"\n\n\"And that's his third today,\" Holden said. \"I saw him.\"\n\nMiller could see it in the man's eyes: the cunning, the shift, the move from one strategy to another. It was old and familiar and as predictable as water moving down." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hey,\" Ko said, \"it's just a job. They told us about a year ago how we were making a big move, right? But no one knows what it is. So a few months back, they start moving guys over. Training us up like we were cops, you know?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Who was training you?\" Miller said.\n\n\"The last guys. The ones who were working the contract before us,\" Ko said.\n\n\"Protogen?\"\n\n\"Something like that, yeah,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then they took off, and we took over. Just muscle, you know. Some smuggling.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Smuggling what?\"\n\n\"All kinds of shit,\" Ko said. He was starting to feel safe, and it showed in the way he held himself and the way he spoke. \"Surveillance equipment, communication arrays, serious-as-fuck servers with their own little gel software wonks already built in. Scientific equipment too. Stuff for checking the water and the air and shit. And these ancient remote-access robots like you'd use in a vacuum dig. All sorts of shit.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Where was it going to?\" Holden asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Here,\" Ko said, gesturing to the air, the stone, the station. \"It's all here. They were like months installing it all. And then for weeks, nothing.\"\n\n\"What do you mean, nothing?\" Miller asked.\n\n\"Nothing nothing. All this buildup and then we sat around with our thumbs up our butts.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Something had gone wrong." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Phoebe bug hadn't made its rendezvous, but then Julie had come, Miller thought, and the game had turned back on. He saw her again as if he were in her apartment. The long, spreading tendrils of whatever the hell it was, the bone spurs pressing out against her skin, the black froth of filament pouring from her eyes.\n\n\"The pay's good, though,\" Ko said philosophically." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And it was kind of nice taking some time off.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller nodded in agreement, leaned close, tucking the barrel of his gun through the interleaving of armor at Ko's belly, and shot him.\n\n\"What the fuck!\" Holden said as Miller put his gun into his jacket pocket.\n\n\"What did you think was going to happen?\" Miller said, squatting down beside the gut-shot man." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's not like he was going to let us go.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yeah, okay,\" Holden said. \"But...\"\n\n\"Help me get him up,\" Miller said, hooking an arm behind Ko's shoulder. Ko shrieked when Miller lifted him.\n\n\"What?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Get his other side,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Man needs medical attention, right?\"\n\n\"Um. Yes,\" Holden said.\n\n\"So get his other side.\"\n\nIt wasn't as far back to the radiation shelters as Miller had expected, which had its good points and its bad ones." }, { "from": "human", "value": "On the upside, Ko was still alive and screaming." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The chances were better that he'd be lucid, which wasn't what Miller had intended. But as they came near the first group of guards, Ko's babbling seemed scattered enough to work.\n\n\"Hey!\" Miller shouted. \"Some help over here!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "At the head of the ramp, four of the guards looked at one another and then started moving toward them, curiosity winning out over basic operating procedures." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden was breathing hard. Miller was too. Ko wasn't that heavy. It was a bad sign.\n\n\"What the hell is this?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "one of the guards said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There's a bunch of people holed up back there,\" Miller said. \"Resistance. I thought you people swept this level.\"\n\n\"That wasn't our job,\" the guy said. \"We're just making sure the groups from the casino get to the shelters.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well, someone screwed up,\" Miller snapped. \"You have transport?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The guards looked at each other again.\n\n\"We can call for one,\" a guy at the back said.\n\n\"Never mind,\" Miller said. \"You boys go find the shooters.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Wait a minute,\" the first guy said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Exactly who the hell are you?\"\n\n\"The installers from Protogen,\" Holden said. \"We're replacing the sensors that failed. This guy was supposed to help us.\"\n\n\"I didn't hear about that,\" the leader said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller dug a finger under Ko's armor and squeezed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ko shrieked and tried to writhe away from him.\n\n\"Talk to your boss about it on your own time,\" Miller said. \"Come on. Let's get this asshole to a medic.\"\n\n\"Hold on!\" the first guard said, and Miller sighed. Four of them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If he dropped Ko and jumped for cover... but there wasn't much cover." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And who the hell knew what Holden would do?\n\n\"Where are the shooters?\" the guard asked. Miller kept himself from smiling.\n\n\"There's a hole about a quarter klick anti-spinward,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The other one's body's still there. You can't miss it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller turned down the ramp. Behind him, the guards were talking among themselves, debating what to do, who to call, who to send.\n\n\"You're completely insane,\" Holden said over Ko's semiconscious weeping.\n\nMaybe he was right." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When, Miller wondered, does someone stop being human?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There had to be a moment, some decision that you made, and before it, you were one person, and after it, someone else. Walking down through the levels of Eros, Ko's bleeding body slung between him and Holden, Miller reflected. He was probably dying of radiation damage. He was lying his way past half a dozen men who were only letting him by because they were used to people being scared of them and he wasn't." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had killed three people in the last two hours." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Four if he counted Ko. Probably safer to say four, then.\n\nThe analytical part of his mind, the small, still voice he had cultivated for years, watched him move and replayed all his decisions. Everything he'd done had made perfect sense at the time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Shooting Ko. Shooting the other three." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Leaving the safety of the crew's hideout to investigate the evacuation. Emotionally, it had all been obvious at the time. It was only when he considered it from outside that it seemed dangerous. If he'd seen it in someone else—Muss, Havelock, Sematimba—he wouldn't have taken more than a minute to realize they'd gone off the rails." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Since it was him, he had taken longer to notice." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But Holden was right. Somewhere along the line, he'd lost himself.\n\nHe wanted to think it had been finding Julie, seeing what had happened to her body, knowing he hadn't been able to save her, but that was only because it seemed like the sentimental moment. The truth was his decisions before then—leaving Ceres to go on a wild hunt for Julie, drinking himself out of a career, remaining a cop for even a day after that first kill all those years earlier—none of them seemed to make sense, viewed objectively." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He'd lost a marriage to a woman he'd loved once." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He'd lived hip deep in the worst humanity had to offer. He'd learned firsthand that he was capable of killing another human being. And nowhere along the line could he say that there, at that moment, he had been a sane, whole man, and that afterward, he hadn't.\n\nMaybe it was a cumulative process, like smoking cigarettes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One didn't do much." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Five didn't do much more. Every emotion he'd shut down, every human contact he'd spurned, every love and friendship and moment of compassion from which he'd turned had taken him a degree away from himself. Until now, he'd been able to kill men with impunity. To face his impending death with a denial that let him make plans and take action." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In his mind, Julie Mao tilted her head, listening to his thoughts." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In his mind, she held him, her body against his in a way that was more comforting than erotic. Consoling. Forgiving.\n\nThis was why he had searched for her. Julie had become the part of him that was capable of human feeling. The symbol of what he could have been if he hadn't been this." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was no reason to think his imagined Julie had anything in common with the real woman." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Meeting her would have been a disappointment for them both.\n\nHe had to believe that, the same way he'd had to believe everything that had cut him off from love before.\n\nHolden stopped, the body—corpse now—of Ko tugging Miller back to himself.\n\n\"What?\" Miller said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden nodded at the access panel in front of them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller looked at it, uncomprehending, and then recognized it. They'd made it. They were back at the hideout.\n\n\"Are you all right?\" Holden said.\n\n\"Yeah,\" Miller said. \"Just woolgathering. Sorry.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He dropped Ko, and the thug slid to the floor with a sad thud." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller's arm had fallen asleep. He shook it, but the tingling didn't go away. A wave of vertigo and nausea passed through him. Symptoms, he thought.\n\n\"How'd we do for time?\" Miller asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We're a little past deadline. Five minutes. It'll be fine,\" Holden said, and slid the door open." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The space beyond, where Naomi and Alex and Amos had been, was empty.\n\n\"Fuck me,\" Holden said." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "The user will write a bit then you need to write around four sentences continuing directly from the user's text. Try to mimic the style of James S. A. Corey.Produce four sentences using the prose and structure of James S. A. Corey every time its your turn using what the user wrote as a seed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Fuck me,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And a moment later: \"They left us.\"\n\nNo. She had left him. Naomi had said she would, but confronted with the reality of it, Holden realized that he hadn't really believed her. But here it was—the proof." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The empty space where she used to be." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His heart hammered and his throat tightened, breath coming in gasps. The sick feeling in his gut was either despair or his colon sloughing off its lining. He was going to die sitting outside a cheap hotel on Eros because Naomi had done exactly what she'd said she would. What he himself had ordered her to do." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His resentment refused to listen to reason." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We're dead,\" he said, and sat down on the edge of a fern-filled planter.\n\n\"How long do we have?\" Miller asked, looking up and down the corridor while he fidgeted with his gun.\n\n\"No idea,\" Holden replied, gesturing vaguely at his terminal's flashing red radiation symbol." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hours before we really start to feel it, I think, but I don't know. God, I wish Shed was still here.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Shed?\"\n\n\"Friend of mine,\" Holden said, not feeling up to elaborating. \"Good med tech.\"\n\n\"Call her,\" Miller said.\n\nHolden looked at his terminal and tapped the screen a few times." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Network's still down,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"All right,\" Miller said. \"Let's go to your ship. See if it's still in dock.\"\n\n\"They'll be gone. Naomi's keeping the crew alive. She warned me, but I—\"\n\n\"So let's go anyway,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was shifting from one foot to the other and looking down the corridor as he spoke." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Miller,\" Holden said, then stopped. Miller was clearly on edge, and he'd shot four people. Holden was increasingly frightened of the former cop. As if reading his mind, Miller stepped close, the two-meter man towering over him where he sat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller smiled ruefully, his eyes unnervingly gentle." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden would almost have preferred they be threatening.\n\n\"Way I see it, there's three ways this can go,\" Miller said. \"One, we find your ship still in dock, get the meds we need, and maybe we live. Two, we try to get to the ship, and along the way we run into a bunch of mafia thugs. Die gloriously in a hail of bullets. Three, we sit here and leak out of our eyes and assholes.\"\n\nHolden said nothing; he just stared up at the cop and frowned." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm liking the first two better than the last one,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His voice made it sound like an apology. \"How about you come with?\"\n\nHolden laughed before he could catch himself, but Miller didn't look like he was taking offense.\n\n\"Sure,\" Holden said. \"I just needed to feel sorry for myself for a minute. Let's go get killed by the mafia.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He said it with much more bravado than he felt." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The truth was he didn't want to die. Even during his time in the navy, the idea of dying in the line of duty had always seemed distant and unreal. His ship would never be destroyed, and if it was, he would make it to the escape shuttle. The universe without him in it didn't make any sense at all." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He'd taken risks; he'd seen other people die." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even people he loved. Now, for the first time, his own death was a real thing.\n\nHe looked at the cop. He'd known the man less than a day, didn't trust him, and wasn't sure he much liked him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And this was who he'd die with." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden shuddered and stood up, pulling his gun out of his waistband. Under the panic and fear, there was a deep feeling of calm. He hoped it would last.\n\n\"After you,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If we make it, remind me to call my mothers.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The casinos were a powder keg waiting for a match. If the evacuation sweeps had been even moderately successful, there were probably a million or more people crammed into three levels of the station. Hard-looking men in riot gear moved through the crowds, telling everyone to stay put until they were taken to the radiation shelters, keeping the crowd frightened. Every now and then, a small group of citizens would be led away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Knowing where they were going made Holden's stomach burn." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He wanted to yell out that cops were fake, that they were killing people. But a riot with this many people in such a confined space would be a meat grinder. Maybe that was inevitable but he wasn't going to be the one to start it.\n\nSomeone else did." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden could hear raised voices, the angry rumble of the mob, followed by the electronically amplified voice of someone in a riot helmet yelling for people to get back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And then a gunshot, a brief pause, then a fusillade. People screamed. The entire crowd around Holden and Miller surged in two opposing directions, some of the people rushing toward the sound of the conflict, but many more of them running away from it. Holden spun in the current of bodies; Miller reached out and grabbed the back of his shirt, gripping it in his fist and yelling for Holden to stay close.\n\nAbout a dozen meters down the corridor, in a coffee shop seating area separated by a waist-high black iron fence, one of the mafia thugs had been cut off from his group by a dozen citizens." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gun drawn, he was backing up and yelling at them to move aside." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They kept advancing, their faces wild with the drunken frenzy of mob violence.\n\nThe mafia thug fired once, and one small body staggered forward, then fell to the ground at the thug's feet. Holden couldn't tell if it was a boy or a girl, but they couldn't be more than thirteen or fourteen years old. The thug moved forward, looking down at the small thin figure at his feet, and pointed his gun at them again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was too much." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden found himself running down the corridor toward the thug, gun drawn and screaming for people to get out of the way. When he was about seven meters away, the crowd split apart enough for him to begin firing. Half his shots went wild, hitting the coffee shop counter and walls, one round blowing a stack of ceramic plates into the air. But a few of them hit the thug, staggering him back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden vaulted the waist-high metal fence and came to a sliding halt about three meters from the fake cop and his victim." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden's gun fired one last time and then the slide locked in the open position to let him know it was empty.\n\nThe thug didn't fall down. He straightened up, looked down at his torso, and then looked up and pointed his gun at Holden's face. Holden had time to count the three bullets that were smashed against the heavy chest armor of the thug's riot gear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Die gloriously in a hail of bullets, he thought." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The thug said, \"Stupid mother fu—\" and his head snapped back in a spray of red. He slumped to the floor.\n\n\"Gap at the neck, remember?\" Miller said from behind him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Chest armor's too thick for a pistol.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Suddenly dizzy, Holden bent over at the waist, gasping for air. He tasted lemon at the back of his throat and swallowed twice to stop himself from throwing up. He was afraid it would be full of blood and stomach lining. He didn't need to see that." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Thanks,\" he gasped out, turning his head toward Miller." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller just nodded vaguely in his direction, then walked over to the guard and nudged him with one foot. Holden stood up and looked around the corridor, waiting for the inevitable wave of vengeful mafia enforcers to come crashing down on them. He didn't see any. He and Miller were standing in a quiet island of calm in the midst of Armageddon." }, { "from": "human", "value": "All around them, tendrils of violence were whipping into high gear." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "People were running in every direction; the mafia goons were yelling in booming amplified voices and punctuating the threats with periodic gunfire. But there were only hundreds of them, and there were many thousands of angry and panicked civilians. Miller gestured at the chaos.\n\n\"This is what happens,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Give a bunch of yahoos the equipment, and they think they know what they're doing.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden crouched beside the fallen child. It was a boy, maybe thirteen, with Asian features and dark hair. His chest had a gaping wound in it, blood trickling out instead of gushing. He didn't have a pulse that Holden could find." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden picked him up anyway, looking around for someplace to take him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He's dead,\" Miller said as he replaced the cartridge he'd fired.\n\n\"Go to hell. We don't know. If we can get him to the ship, maybe...\"\n\nMiller shook his head, a sad but distant expression on his face as he looked at the child in Holden's arms.\n\n\"He took high-caliber round to the center of mass,\" Miller said. \"He's gone.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Fuck me,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You keep saying that.\"\n\nA bright neon sign flashed above the corridor that led out of the casino levels and onto the ramps down to the docks. THANK YOU FOR PLAYING, it read. And YOU'RE ALWAYS A WINNER ON EROS." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Below it, two ranks of men in heavy combat armor blocked the way." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They might have given up on crowd control in the casinos, but they weren't letting anyone go.\n\nHolden and Miller crouched behind an overturned coffee cart a hundred meters from the soldiers. As they watched, a dozen or so people made a dash toward the guards and were summarily mowed down by machine gun fire, then fell to the deck beside those who had tried before.\n\n\"I count thirty-four of them,\" Miller said." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Mode:\nCo-writing\n\nLength:\n4 sentences\n\nStyle:\nJames S. A. Corey" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They sat on the floor with their backs to a bank of pachinko machines no one was playing, watching the ebb and flow of the violence around them like it was a soccer game. Miller's hat was perched on his bent knee. He felt the vibration against his back when one of the displays cycled through its dupe-call. The lights glittered and glowed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden, beside him, was breathing hard, like he'd run a race." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Out beyond them, like something from Hieronymous Bosch, the casino levels of Eros prepared for death.\n\nThe riot's momentum had spent itself for now. Men and women gathered together in small groups. Guards strode through, threatening and scattering any bunch that got too large or unruly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Something was burning fast enough that the air scrubbers couldn't get out the smell of melting plastic." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The bhangra Muzak mixed with weeping and screaming and wails of despair. Some idiot was shouting at one of the so-called cops: he was a lawyer; he was getting all of this on video; whoever was responsible was going to be in big trouble. Miller watched a bunch of people start to gather around the confrontation. The guy in the riot gear listened, nodded, and shot the lawyer once in the kneecap." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The crowd dispersed except for one woman, the lawyer's wife or girlfriend, bent down over him screaming." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And in the privacy of Miller's skull, everything slowly fell apart.\n\nHe was aware of having two different minds. One was the Miller he was used to, familiar with. The one who was thinking about what was going to happen when he got out, what the next step would be in connecting the dots between Phoebe Station, Ceres, Eros, and Juliette Mao, how to work the case." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That version of him was scanning the crowd the way he might have watched the line at a crime scene, waiting for some detail, some change to catch his attention." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Send him in the right direction to solve the mystery. It was the shortsighted, idiotic part of him that couldn't conceive of his own personal extinction, and it thought surely, surely there was going to be an after.\n\nThe other Miller was different. Quieter. Sad, maybe, but at peace." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He'd read a poem many years before called \"The Death-Self,\" and he hadn't understood the term until now." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A knot at the middle of his psyche was untying. All the energy he'd put into holding things together—Ceres, his marriage, his career, himself—was coming free. He'd shot and killed more men in the past day than in his whole career as a cop. He'd started—only started—to realize that he'd actually fallen in love with the object of his search after he knew for certain that he'd lost her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He'd seen unequivocally that the chaos he'd dedicated his life to holding at bay was stronger and wider and more powerful than he would ever be." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No compromise he could make would be enough. His death-self was unfolding in him, and the dark blooming took no effort. It was a relief, a relaxation, a long, slow exhale after decades of holding it in.\n\nHe was in ruins, but it was okay, because he was dying." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hey,\" Holden said. His voice was stronger than Miller had expected it might be." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yeah?\"\n\n\"Did you ever watch Misko and Marisko when you were a kid?\"\n\nMiller frowned. \"The kids' show?\" he asked.\n\n\"The one with the five dinosaurs and the evil guy in the big pink hat,\" Holden said, then starting humming a bright, boppy tune." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller closed his eyes and then started singing along." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The music had had words once. Now it was only a series of rises and falls, runs up and down a major scale, with every dissonance resolved in the note that followed.\n\n\"Guess I must have,\" Miller said when they reached the end.\n\n\"I loved that show. I must have been eight or nine last time I saw it,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Funny how that stuff stays with you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yeah,\" Miller said. He coughed, turned his head, and spat out something red. \"How are you holding together?\"\n\n\"I think I'm okay,\" Holden said. Then, a moment later, he added, \"As long as I don't stand up.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Nauseated?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yeah, some.\"\n\n\"Me too.\"\n\n\"What is this?\" Holden asked. \"I mean, what the hell is this all about? Why are they doing this?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was a fair question." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Slaughtering Eros—slaughtering any station in the Belt—was a pretty easy job. Anyone with first-year orbital mechanics skills could find a way to sling a rock big enough and fast enough to crack the station open. With the effort Protogen had put in, they could have killed the air supply or drugged it or whatever the hell they wanted to do. This wasn't a murder." }, { "from": "human", "value": "This wasn't even a genocide." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And then there was all the observation equipment. Cameras, communications arrays, air and water sensors. There were only two reasons for that kind of shit. Either the mad bastards at Protogen got off on watching people die, or..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They don't know,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What?\"\n\nHe turned to look at Holden. The first Miller, the detective, the optimist, the one who needed to know, was driving now. His death-self didn't fight, because of course it didn't." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It didn't fight anything." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller raised his hand, like he was giving a lecture to a rookie.\n\n\"They don't know what it's about, or... you know, at least they don't know what's going to happen. This isn't even built like a torture chamber. It's all being watched, right? Water and air sensors. It's a petri dish. They don't know what that shit that killed Julie does, and this is how they're finding out.\"\n\nHolden frowned.\n\n\"Don't they have laboratories? Places where you could maybe put that crap on some animals or something? Because as experimental design goes, this seems a little messed up.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Maybe they need a really big sample size,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Or maybe it's not about the people. Maybe it's about what happens to the station.\"\n\n\"There's a cheery thought,\" Holden said.\n\nThe Julie Mao in Miller's mind brushed a lock of hair out of her eyes. She was frowning, looking thoughtful, interested, concerned." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It all had to make sense." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was like one of those basic orbital mechanics problems where every hitch and veer seemed random until all the variables slipped into place. What had been inexplicable became inevitable. Julie smiled at him. Julie as she had been." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As he imagined she had been." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Miller who hadn't resigned himself to death smiled back. And then she was gone, his mind shifting to the noise from the pachinko machines and the low, demonic wailing of the crowds.\n\nAnother group—twenty men hunkered low, like linebackers—made a rush toward the mercenaries guarding the opening to the port. The gunmen mowed them down." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If we had enough people,\" Holden said after the sound of machine guns fell away, \"we could make it. They couldn't kill all of us.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's what the patrol goons are for,\" Miller said. \"Make sure no one can organize a big enough push. Keep stirring the pot.\"\n\n\"But if it was a mob, I mean a really big mob, it could...\"\n\n\"Maybe,\" Miller agreed. Something in his chest clicked in a way it hadn't a minute before." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He took a slow, deep breath, and the click happened again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He could feel it deep in his left lung.\n\n\"At least Naomi got away,\" Holden said.\n\n\"That is good.\"\n\n\"She's amazing. She'd never put Amos and Alex in danger if she could help it. I mean, she's serious. Professional. Strong, you know? I mean, she's really, really...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Pretty, too,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Great hair. Love the eyes.\"\n\n\"No, that wasn't what I meant,\" Holden said.\n\n\"You don't think she's a good-looking woman?\"\n\n\"She's my XO,\" Holden said. \"She's... you know...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Off-limits.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden sighed.\n\n\"She got away, didn't she?\" Holden asked.\n\n\"Almost for sure.\"\n\nThey were silent. One of the linebackers coughed, stood up, and limped back into the casino, trailing blood from a hole in his ribs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The bhangra gave way to an afropop medley with a low, sultry voice singing in languages Miller didn't know." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She'd wait for us,\" Holden said. \"Don't you think she'd wait for us?\"\n\n\"Almost for sure,\" Miller's death-self said, not particularly caring if it was a lie. He thought about it for a long moment, then turned to face Holden again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hey. Just so you know it? I'm not exactly at my best right now.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Okay.\"\n\n\"All right.\"\n\nThe glowing orange lockdown lights on the tube station across the level clicked to green. Miller sat forward, interested." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His back felt sticky, but it was probably just sweat." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Other people had noticed the change too. Like a current in a water tank, the attention of the nearby crowds shifted from the mercenaries blocking the way to the port to the brushed-steel doors of the tube station.\n\nThe doors opened, and the first zombies appeared. Men and women, their eyes glassy and their muscles slack, stumbled out through the open doors." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller had seen a documentary feed about hemorrhagic fevers as part of his training on Ceres Station." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Their movements were the same: listless, driven, autonomic. Like rabid dogs whose minds had already been given over to their disease.\n\n\"Hey,\" Miller said, his hand on Holden's shoulder. \"Hey, it's happening.\"\n\nAn older man in a pair of emergency services scrubs approached the shambling newcomers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His hands were out before him, as if he could corral them by simple force of will." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The first zombie in the pack turned empty eyes toward him and vomited up a spray of very familiar brown goo.\n\n\"Look,\" Holden said.\n\n\"I saw.\"\n\n\"No, look!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "All down the casino level, tube station lights were going off lockdown." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Doors were opening. The people were pulsing toward the open tubes and the implicit, empty promise of escape, and away from the dead men and women walking out from them.\n\n\"Vomit zombies,\" Miller said.\n\n\"From the rad shelters,\" Holden said. \"The thing, the organism. It goes faster in radiation, right? That's why what's-her-name was so freaky about the lights and the vac suit.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Her name's Julie. And yeah. Those incubators were for this. Right here,\" Miller said, and sighed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He thought about standing up. \"Well. We may not die of radiation poisoning after all.\"\n\n\"Why not just pump that shit into the air?\" Holden asked.\n\n\"Anaerobic, remember?\" Miller said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Too much oxygen kills 'em.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The vomit-covered emergency medicine guy was still trying to treat the shambling zombies like they were patients. Like they were still humans. There were smears of the brown goo on people's clothes, on the walls. The tube doors opened again, and Miller saw half a dozen people dodge into a tube car coated in brown." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The mob churned, unsure what to do, the group mind stretched past its breaking point." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A riot cop jumped forward and started spraying down the zombies with gunfire. The entrance and exit wounds spilled out fine loops of black filament, and the zombies went down. Miller chuckled even before he knew what was funny. Holden looked at him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They didn't know,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The bully boys in riot gear? They aren't gonna get pulled out. Meat for the machine, just like the rest of us.\"\n\nHolden made a small approving sound. Miller nodded, but something was niggling at the back of his mind. The thugs from Ceres in their stolen armor were being sacrificed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That didn't mean everyone was. He leaned forward." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The archway leading to the port was still manned. Mercenary fighters in formation, guns at the ready. If anything, they looked more disciplined now than they had before. Miller watched as the guy in the back with extra insignia on his armor barked into a mic." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller had thought hope was dead." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He'd thought all his chances had been played, and then, like a bitch, it all hauled itself up out of the grave.\n\n\"Get up,\" Miller said.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Get up. They're going to pull back.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Who?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller nodded at the mercenaries.\n\n\"They knew,\" he said. \"Look at them. They aren't freaking out. They aren't confused. They were waiting for this.\"\n\n\"And you think that means they'll fall back?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They aren't going to be hanging out. Stand up.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Almost as if he'd been giving the order to himself, Miller groaned and creaked to his feet. His knees and spine ached badly. The click in his lung was getting worse. His belly made a soft, complicated noise that would have been concerning under different circumstances." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As soon as he started moving, he could feel how far the damage had gone, his skin not yet in pain but in the soft presentiment of it, like the gap between a serious burn and the blisters that followed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If he lived, it was going to hurt.\n\nIf he lived, everything was going to hurt.\n\nHis death-self tugged at him. The sense of release, of relief, of rest felt like something precious being lost." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Even while the chattering, busy, machinelike mind kept grinding, grinding, grinding forward, the soft, bruised center of Miller's soul urged him to pause, sit back down, let the problems go away." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What are we looking for?\" Holden said. He'd stood up. A blood vessel in the man's left eye had given way, the white of the sclera turning a bright, meaty red.\n\nWhat are we looking for? the death-self echoed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They're going to fall back,\" Miller said, answering the first question." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We follow. Just outside the range so whoever's going last doesn't feel like he has to shoot us.\"\n\n\"Isn't everyone going to do the same thing? I mean, once they're gone, isn't everyone in this place going to head in for the port?\"\n\n\"I expect so,\" Miller said. \"So let's try to slip in ahead of the rush. Look. There.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "It wasn't much. Just a change in the mercenaries' stance, a shift in their collective center of gravity. Miller coughed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It hurt more than it should have.\n\nWhat are we looking for? his death-self asked again, its voice more insistent. An answer? Justice? Another chance for the universe to kick us in the balls?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "What is through that archway that there isn't a faster, cleaner, less painful version of in the barrel of our gun?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The mercenary captain took a casual step back and strode down the exterior corridor and out of sight. Where he had been, Julie Mao sat, watching him go. She looked at Miller. She waved him on." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Not yet,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"When?\" Holden said, his voice surprising Miller. Julie in his head flickered out, and he was back in the real world.\n\n\"It's coming,\" Miller said.\n\nHe should warn the guy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was only fair." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You got into a bad place, and at the very least, you owed your partner the courtesy of letting him know. Miller cleared his throat. That hurt too.\n\nIt's possible I may start hallucinating or become suicidal. You might have to shoot me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden glanced over at him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The pachinko machines lit them blue and green and shrieked in artificial delight.\n\n\"What?\" Holden said.\n\n\"Nothing. Getting my balance,\" Miller said.\n\nBehind them, a woman shouted." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller glanced back to see her pushing a vomit zombie away, a slick of brown goo already covering the live woman." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At the archway, the mercenaries quietly stepped back and started down the corridor.\n\n\"Come on,\" Miller said.\n\nHe and Holden walked toward the archway, Miller pulling his hat on. Loud voices, screams, the low, liquid sound of people being violently ill." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The air scrubbers were failing, the air taking on a deep, pungent odor like beef broth and acid." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller felt like there was a stone in his shoe, but he was almost certain if he looked, there would be only a point of redness where his skin was starting break down.\n\nNo one shot at them. No one told them to stop.\n\nAt the archway, Miller led Holden against the wall, then ducked his head around the corner." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A quarter second was all it took to know the long, wide corridor was empty." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The mercs were done here and leaving Eros to its fate. The window was open. The way was clear.\n\nLast chance, he thought, and he meant both the last chance to live and the last one to die." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Miller?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yeah,\" he said. \"It looks good. Come on. Before everyone gets the idea.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Write 4 sentences sentences in the style of James S. A. Corey spawning from what the user wrote." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Something was moving in Holden's gut. He ignored it and kept his eyes on Miller's back. The lanky detective barreled down the corridor toward the port, stopping occasionally at junctions to peek around the corner and look for trouble. Miller had become a machine." }, { "from": "human", "value": "All Holden could do was try to keep up." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Always the same distance ahead were the mercenaries who'd been guarding the exit from the casino. When they moved, Miller moved. When they slowed down, he slowed. They were clearing a path to the port, but if they thought that any of the citizens were getting too close, they'd probably open fire." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were definitely shooting anyone they ran into along the way." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They'd already shot two people who'd run at them. Both had been vomiting brown goo. Where the hell did those vomit zombies come from so fast?\n\n\"Where the hell did those vomit zombies come from so fast?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "he said to Miller's back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The detective shrugged with his left hand, his right still clutching his pistol.\n\n\"I don't think enough of that crap came out of Julie to infect the whole station,\" he replied without slowing down. \"I'm guessing they were the first batch. The ones they incubated to get enough goo to infect the shelters with.\"\n\nThat made sense. And when the controlled portion of the experiment went to shit, you just turned them loose on the populace." }, { "from": "human", "value": "By the time people figured out what was going on, half of them were infected already." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then it was just a matter of time.\n\nThey paused briefly at a corridor intersection, watching as the leader of the merc group stopped a hundred meters ahead and talked on his radio for a minute. Holden was gasping and trying to catch his breath when the group started up again, and Miller moved to follow. He reached out and grabbed the detective's belt and let Miller drag him along." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Where did the skinny Belter keep this reserve of energy?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The detective stopped. His expression was blank.\n\n\"They're arguing,\" Miller said.\n\n\"Huh?\"\n\n\"The leader of that group and some of the men. Arguing about something,\" Miller replied." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So?\" Holden asked, then coughed something wet into his hand." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He wiped it off on the back of his pants, not looking to see if it was blood. Please don't let it be blood.\n\nMiller shrugged with his hand again.\n\n\"I don't think everyone's on the same team here,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The merc group turned down another corridor, and Miller followed, yanking Holden along behind him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "These were the outer levels, filled with warehouse space and ship repair and resupply depots. They didn't see a lot of foot traffic at the best of times. Now the corridor echoed like a mausoleum with their footsteps. Up ahead, the merc group turned again, and before Miller and Holden could reach the junction, a lone figure wandered into view." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He didn't appear to be armed, so Miller moved toward him cautiously, impatiently reaching behind himself and pulling Holden's hand off his belt." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Once he was free, Miller held up his left hand in an unmistakably cop-like gesture.\n\n\"This is a dangerous place to be wandering around, sir,\" he said.\n\nThe man was now less than fifteen meters ahead of them and began moving toward them at a lurch. He was dressed for a party in a cheap tuxedo with a frilly shirt and sparkly red bow tie." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was wearing one shiny black shoe, the other foot covered with only a red sock." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Brown vomit trickled from the corners of his mouth and stained the front of his white shirt.\n\n\"Shit,\" Miller said, and brought up his gun.\n\nHolden grabbed his arm and yanked it back down.\n\n\"He's innocent in this,\" Holden said, the sight of the injured and infected man making his eyes burn. \"He's innocent.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He's still coming,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So walk faster,\" Holden said. \"And if you shoot anyone else and I haven't given you permission to, you don't get a ride on my ship. Got me?\"\n\n\"Trust me,\" Miller said. \"Dying is the best thing that could happen to that guy today. You're not doing him any favors.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You don't get to decide that,\" Holden replied, his tone edging into real anger." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller started to reply, but Holden held up one hand and cut him off.\n\n\"You want on the Roci? I'm the boss, then. No questions, no bullshit.\"\n\nMiller's smirk turned into a smile. \"Yes, sir,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Our mercs are getting ahead of us.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He pointed down the corridor.\n\nMiller nodded and moved off again at his steady, machinelike pace. Holden didn't turn around, but he could hear the man Miller had almost shot crying in the corridor behind him for a long time. To cover up the sound, which probably existed only in his head once they'd made a couple more turns in the corridor, he began humming the theme to Misko and Marisko again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mother Elise, who'd been the one to stay home with him when he was very young, had always brought him something to eat while he watched, and then sat by him with her hand on his head, playing with his hair." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She'd laughed at the dinosaur antics even harder than he had. One Halloween she'd made him a big pink hat to wear so that he could be the evil Count Mungo. Why had that guy been trying to capture the dinosaurs, anyway? It had never really been clear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Maybe he just liked dinosaurs." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One time he'd used a shrink ray and—\n\nHolden slammed into Miller's back. The detective had stopped suddenly and now moved quickly to one side of the corridor, crouching low to keep himself in the shadows. Holden followed suit. About thirty meters ahead, the mercenary group had gotten much bigger and had split into two factions." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yep,\" Miller said. \"Whole lot of people having really bad days today.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden nodded and wiped something wet off his face. It was blood. He didn't think he'd hit Miller's back hard enough to bloody his nose, and he had a suspicion it wasn't going to stop on its own. Mucous membranes getting fragile. Wasn't that part of radiation burning?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He tore strips off his shirt and stuffed them up his nostrils while he watched the scene at the end of the corridor." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were two clear groups, and they did seem to be engaged in some sort of heated argument. Normally, that would have been fine. Holden didn't care about the social lives of mercenaries. But these mercenaries numbered by this time close to a hundred, were heavily armed, and blocked the corridor that led to his ship." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That made their argument worth watching." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not everyone from Protogen left, I think,\" Miller said quietly, pointing at one of the two groups. \"Those guys on the right don't look like the home team.\"\n\nHolden looked at the group and nodded. They were definitely the more professional-looking soldiers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Their armor fit well." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The other group looked like it was largely made up of guys dressed in police riot gear, with only a few men in combat armor.\n\n\"Want to guess what the argument is about?\" Miller asked.\n\n\"Hey, can we have a ride too?\" Holden said mockingly with a Ceres accent." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Uh, no, we need you guys to stay here and, uh, keep an eye on things, which we promise will be totally safe and absolutely not involve you turning into vomit zombies.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He actually got a chuckle from Miller and then the corridor erupted in a barrage of gunfire. Both sides of the discussion were firing automatic weapons at each other from point-blank range. The noise was deafening. Men screamed and flew apart, spraying the corridor and each other with blood and body parts." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden dropped flat to the floor but continued watching the firefight." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After the initial barrage, the survivors from both groups began falling back in opposite directions, still firing as they moved. The floor at the corridor junction was littered with bodies. Holden estimated that twenty or more men had died in that first second of the fight. The sounds of gunfire grew more distant as the two groups fired at each other down the corridor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the middle of the junction, one of the bodies on the floor suddenly stirred and raised its head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even before the wounded man could get to his feet, a bullet hole appeared in the middle of his face shield and he dropped back to the floor with limp finality.\n\n\"Where's your ship?\" Miller asked.\n\n\"The lift is at the end of this corridor,\" Holden replied.\n\nMiller spat what looked like bloody phlegm on the floor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And the corridor that crosses it is now a war zone, with armed camps sniping at each other from both sides,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I guess we could try just running through it.\"\n\n\"Is there another option?\" Holden asked.\n\nMiller looked at his terminal.\n\n\"We're fifty-three minutes past the deadline Naomi set,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How much more time do you want to waste?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Look, I was never particularly good at math,\" Holden said. \"But I'd guess there are as many as forty guys in either direction down that other corridor. A corridor which is a good three, maybe three and a half meters wide. Which means that we give eighty guys three meters worth of shots at us. Even dumb luck means we get hit a lot and then die. Let's think of a plan B.\"\n\nAs if to underline his argument, another fusillade broke out in the cross corridor, gouging chunks out of the rubbery wall insulation and chewing up the bodies lying on the floor.\n\n\"They're still withdrawing,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Those shots came from farther away. I guess we can just wait them out. I mean, if we can.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The rags Holden had stuffed up his nose hadn't stopped the bleeding; they had just dammed it up. He could feel a steady trickle down the back of his throat that made his stomach heave with nausea. Miller was right. They were getting down to the last of their ability to wait anyone out at this point.\n\n\"Goddamn, I wish we could call and see if Naomi is even there,\" Holden said, looking at the flashing Network Not Available on his terminal." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Shhh,\" Miller whispered, putting one finger on his lips." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He pointed back down the corridor in the direction they'd come, and now Holden could hear heavy footsteps approaching.\n\n\"Late guests to the party,\" Miller said, and Holden nodded. The two men swiveled around, pointing their guns down the corridor and waiting.\n\nA group of four men in police riot armor rounded the corner." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They didn't have their guns out, and two of them had their helmets off." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Apparently they hadn't heard about the new hostilities. Holden waited for Miller to fire and, when he didn't, turned to look at him. Miller was staring back.\n\n\"I didn't dress real warm,\" Miller said, almost apologetically." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It took Holden half a second to understand what he meant." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden gave him permission by shooting first. He targeted one of the mafia thugs without a helmet and shot him in the face, then continued firing at the group until his gun's slide locked open when the magazine was empty. Miller had begun firing a split second after Holden's first shot and also fired until his gun was empty. When it was over, all four thugs were lying facedown in the corridor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden let out a long breath that turned into a sigh, and sat down on the floor." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller walked to the fallen men and nudged each one in turn with his foot as he replaced the magazine in his gun. Holden didn't bother reloading his. He was done with gunfights. He put the empty pistol in his pocket and got up to join the cop." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He bent down and began unbuckling the least damaged armor he could find." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller raised an eyebrow but didn't move to help.\n\n\"We're making a run for it,\" Holden said, swallowing back the vomit-and-blood taste in his throat as he pulled the chest and back armor free of the first man. \"But maybe if we wear this stuff, it will help.\"\n\n\"Might,\" Miller said with a nod, then knelt down to help strip a second man." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden put on the dead man's armor, working hard to believe that the pink trail down the back was absolutely not part of the man's brain." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Undoing the straps was exhausting. His fingers felt numb and awkward. He picked up the thigh armor, then put it down again. He'd rather run fast." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller had finished buckling his on too and picked up one of the undamaged helmets." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden found one with just a dent in it and slipped it onto his head. It felt greasy inside, and he was glad he had no sense of smell. He suspected that its previous occupant hadn't bathed often.\n\nMiller fiddled with the side of his helmet until the radio came on." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The cop's voice was echoed a split second later over the helmet's tinny speakers as he said, \"Hey, we're coming out into the corridor! Don't shoot! We're coming to join up!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Thumbing off the mic, he turned to Holden and said, \"Well, maybe one side won't be shooting at us now.\"\n\nThey moved back down the corridor and stopped ten meters from the intersection. Holden counted down from three and then took off at the best run he could manage. It was dishearteningly slow; his legs felt like they were filled with lead." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Like he was running in a pool of water." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Like he was in a nightmare. He could hear Miller just behind him, his shoes slapping on the concrete floor, his breath coming in ragged gasps.\n\nThen he heard only the sound of gunfire. He couldn't tell if Miller's plan had worked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Couldn't tell which direction the gunfire was coming from." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was constant and deafening and started the instant he entered the cross corridor. When he was three meters from the other side, he lowered his head and jumped forward. In Eros' light gravity, he seemed to fly, and he was nearly to the other side when a burst of bullets caught him in the armor over his ribs and slammed him into the corridor wall with a spine-jarring crack. He dragged himself the rest of the way as bullets continued to hit all around his legs, one of them passing through the meaty part of his calf." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller tripped over him, flying a few feet farther down the hall and then collapsing in a heap." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden crawled to his side.\n\n\"Still alive?\"\n\nMiller nodded. \"Got shot. Arm's broke. Keep moving,\" he gasped out.\n\nHolden climbed to his feet, his left leg feeling like it was on fire as the muscle in his calf clenched around his gaping wound." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He pulled Miller up and then leaned on him as they limped toward the elevator." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller's left arm was dangling boneless at his side, and blood was pouring off his hand.\n\nHolden punched the button to call the lift, and he and Miller leaned on each other while they waited. He hummed the Misko and Marisko theme to himself, and after a few seconds, Miller started too.\n\nHolden punched the button for the Rocinante's berth and waited for the elevator to stop at a blank gray airlock door with no ship beyond it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That would be when he finally had permission to lie down on the floor and die." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He looked forward to that moment when his exertions could end with a relief that would have surprised him if he'd still been capable of surprise. Miller let go of him and slid down the lift wall, leaving a blood trail on the shiny metal and ending in a pile on the floor. The man's eyes were closed. He could almost have been sleeping." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden watched the detective's chest rise and fall in ragged, painful breaths that grew smoother and more shallow." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden envied him, but he had to see that closed airlock door before he could lie down. He began to feel faintly angry with the elevator for taking so long.\n\nIt stopped, lift doors sliding open with a cheerful ding.\n\nAmos stood in the airlock on the other side, an assault rifle in each hand and two belts of magazines for the rifles slung on his shoulders." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He looked Holden up and down once, then glanced over to Miller and back again." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Jesus, Captain, you look like shit.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Hey can you write like James S. A. Corey and use whatever i write as a jumping off point?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller's mind reassembled slowly and with several false starts." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In his dreams, he was fitting a puzzle together as the pieces kept changing shape, and each time, just as he was on the verge of slipping the whole mechanism together, the dream began again. The first thing he became aware of was the ache at the small of his back, then the heaviness of his arms and legs, then the nausea. The nearer he came to consciousness, the more he tried to postpone it. Imaginary fingers tried to complete the puzzle, and before he could make it all fit, his eyes opened." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He couldn't move his head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Something was in his neck: a thick bundle of black tubes reaching out of him and up past the limits of his vision. He tried to lift his arms, to push the invading, vampiric thing away, but he couldn't.\n\nIt got me, he thought with a thrill of fear. I'm infected.\n\nThe woman appeared from his left." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was surprised she wasn't Julie." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Deep brown skin, dark eyes with just a hint of an epicanthic fold. She smiled at him. Black hair draped down the side of her face.\n\nDown. There was a down. There was gravity." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were under thrust." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That seemed very important, but he didn't know why.\n\n\"Hey, Detective,\" Naomi said. \"Welcome back.\"\n\nWhere am I? he tried to say. His throat felt solid." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Crowded like too many people in a tube station." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't try to get up or talk or anything,\" she said. \"You've been under for about thirty-six hours. Good news is we have a sick bay with a military-grade expert system and supplies for fifteen Martian soldiers. I think we burned half of what we've got on you and the captain.\"\n\nThe captain. Holden. That was right. They'd been in a fight." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There had been a corridor and people shooting." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And someone had been sick. He remembered a woman, covered in brown vomit, with vacant eyes, but he didn't know whether it was part of a nightmare.\n\nNaomi was still talking. Something about full plasma flushes and cell damage." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He tried to lift a hand, to reach out to her, but a strap restrained him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The ache in his back was his kidneys, and he wondered what exactly was getting filtered out of his blood. Miller closed his eyes, asleep before he could decide whether to rest.\n\nNo dreams troubled him this time. He roused again when something deep in his throat shifted, pulled at his larynx, and retreated." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Without opening his eyes, he rolled to his side, coughed, puked, and rolled back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When he woke, he was breathing on his own. His throat felt sore and abused, but his hands weren't tied down. Drainage tubes ran out of his belly and side, and there was a catheter the size of a pencil coming out his penis. Nothing particularly hurt, so he had to assume he was on pretty nearly all the narcotics there were." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His clothes were gone, his modesty preserved only by a thin paper gown and a cast that held his left arm stony and immovable." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Someone had put his hat on the next bed over.\n\nThe sick bay, now that he could see it, looked like a ward on a high-production entertainment feed. It wasn't a hospital; it was the matte-black-and-silver idea of what a hospital was supposed to be. The monitors hung suspended in the air on complex armatures, reporting his blood pressure, nucleic acid concentrations, oxygenation, fluid balance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There were two separate countdowns running, one to the next round of autophagics, the other for pain medication." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And across the aisle, at another station, Holden's statistics looked more or less the same.\n\nHolden looked like a ghost. His skin was pale and his sclera were red with a hundred little hemorrhages. His face was puffy from steroids." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hey,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden lifted a hand, waving gently.\n\n\"We made it,\" Miller said. His voice sounded like it had been dragged down an alley by its ankles.\n\n\"Yeah,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That was ugly.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yeah.\"\n\nMiller nodded. That had taken all the energy he had. He lay back down and fell, if not asleep, at least unconscious. Just before his mind flickered back into forgetfulness, he smiled. He'd made it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was on Holden's ship." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And they were going to find whatever Julie had left behind for them.\n\nVoices woke him.\n\n\"Maybe you shouldn't, then.\"\n\nIt was the woman." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Naomi. Part of Miller cursed her for disturbing him, but there was a buzz in her voice—not fear or anger, but close enough to be interesting." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He didn't move, didn't even swim all the way back to awareness. But he listened.\n\n\"I need to,\" Holden said. He sounded phlegmy, like someone who needed to cough. \"What happened on Eros... it's put a lot of things in perspective. I've been a holding something back.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Captain—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, hear me out. When I was in there thinking that all I was going to have left was half an hour of rigged pachinko games and then death... when that happened, I knew what my regrets were. You know? I felt all the things that I wished I'd done and never had the courage for. Now that I know, I can't just ignore it. I can't pretend it isn't there.\"\n\n\"Captain,\" Naomi said again, and the buzz in her voice was stronger.\n\nDon't say it, you poor bastard, Miller thought.\n\n\"I'm in love with you, Naomi,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The pause lasted no longer than a heartbeat." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, sir,\" she said. \"You aren't.\"\n\n\"I am. I know what you're thinking. I've been through this big traumatic experience and I'm doing the whole thing where I want to affirm life and make connections, and maybe some of that's part of it. But you have to believe that I know what I feel. And when I was down there, I knew that the thing that I wanted the most was to get back to you.\"\n\n\"Captain. How long have we served together?\"\n\n\"What? I don't know exactly...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Ballpark estimate.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Eight and a half runs makes it almost five years,\" Holden said. Miller could hear the confusion in his voice.\n\n\"All right. And in that time, how many of the crew did you share bunks with?\"\n\n\"Does it matter?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Only a little.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A few.\"\n\n\"More than a dozen?\"\n\n\"No,\" he said, but he didn't sound sure.\n\n\"Let's call it ten,\" Naomi said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Okay. But this is different. I'm not talking about having a little shipboard romance to pass the time. Ever since—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller imagined the woman holding up her hand or taking Holden's or maybe just glaring at him. Something to stop the flow of words.\n\n\"And do you know when I fell for you, sir?\"\n\nSorrow. That was what the strain in her voice was. Sorrow." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Disappointment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Regret.\n\n\"When... when you...\"\n\n\"I can tell you the day,\" Naomi said. \"You were about seven weeks into that first run. I was still smarting that some Earther had come in from out of the ecliptic and taken my XO job. I didn't like you much right at the start. You were too charming, too pretty, and too damn comfortable in my chair. But there was a poker game in the engine room. You and me and those two Luna boys out of engineering and Kamala Trask. You remember Trask?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She was the comm tech. The one who was...\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Built like a refrigerator? Face like a bulldog puppy?\"\n\n\"I remember her.\"\n\n\"She had the biggest crush on you. Used to cry herself to sleep at night all through that run. She wasn't in that game because she cared about poker. She just wanted to breathe some of your air, and everyone knew it. Even you. And all that night, I watched you and her, and you never once led her along. You never gave her any reason to think she had a chance with you. And you still treated her with respect. That was the first time I thought you might be a decent XO, and it was the first time I wished that I could be the girl in your bunk at shift's end.\"\n\n\"Because of Trask?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That and you've got a great ass, sir. My point is we flew together for four years and more. And I would have come along with you any day of that if you'd asked me.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I didn't know,\" Holden said. He sounded a little strangled.\n\n\"You didn't ask. You always had your sights set someplace else. And, honestly, I think Belter women just put you off. Until the Cant... Until it was just the five of us. I've seen you looking at me. I know exactly what those looks mean, because I spent four years on the other side of them. But I only got your attention when I was the only female on board, and that's not good enough for me.\"\n\n\"I don't know—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No, sir, you don't. That's my point. I've watched you seduce a lot of women, and I know how you do it. You get fixed on her, you get excited by her. Then you convince yourself that the two of you have some kind of special connection, and by the time you believe it, she usually thinks it's true too. And then you sleep together for a while, and the connection gets a little faded. One or the other of you says something like professional or appropriate boundaries or starts worrying what the crew will think, and the whole thing slides away. Afterwards they still like you. All of them. You do it all so well they don't even feel like they get to hate you for it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's not true.\"\n\n\"It is. And until you figure out that you don't have to love everyone you bed down with, I'm never going to know whether you love me or just want to bed down. And I won't sleep with you until you know which it is. The smart money isn't on love.\"\n\n\"I was just—\"\n\n\"If you want to sleep with me,\" Naomi said, \"be honest. Respect me enough for that. Okay?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller coughed. He hadn't meant to, hadn't even been aware he was going to." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His belly went tight, his throat clamped down, and he coughed wet and deep. Once he started, it was hard to stop. He sat up, eyes watering from the effort. Holden was lying back on his bed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Naomi sat on the next bed over, smiling like there had been nothing to overhear." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden's monitors showed an elevated heart rate and blood pressure. Miller could only hope the poor bastard hadn't gotten an erection with the catheter still in.\n\n\"Hey, Detective,\" Naomi said. \"How're you feeling?\"\n\nMiller nodded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I've felt worse,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then, a moment later: \"No. I haven't. But I'm all right. How bad was it?\"\n\n\"You're both dead,\" Naomi said. \"Seriously, we had to override the triage filters on both of you more than once. The expert system kept clicking you over into hospice care and shooting you full of morphine.\"\n\nShe said it lightly, but he believed her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He tried to sit up." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His body still felt terribly heavy, but he didn't know if it was from weakness or the ship thrust. Holden was quiet, jaw clamped tight. Miller pretended not to notice.\n\n\"Long-term estimates?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You're both going to need to be checked for new cancers every month for the rest of your lives. The captain has a new implant where his thyroid used to be, since his real one was pretty much cooked down. We had to take out about a foot and a half of your small bowel that wouldn't stop bleeding. You're both going to bruise easy for a while, and if you wanted kids, I hope you have some sperm in a bank someplace, because all your little soldiers have two heads now.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller chuckled. His monitors blinked into alarm mode and then back out.\n\n\"You sound like you trained as a med tech,\" he said.\n\n\"Nope. Engineer. But I've been reading the printouts every day, so I've got the lingo down. I wish Shed was still here,\" she said, and sounded sad for the first time.\n\nThat was the second time someone had mentioned Shed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was a story there, but Miller let it drop." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hair going to fall out?\" he asked.\n\n\"Maybe,\" Naomi said. \"The system shot you full of the drugs that are supposed to stop that, but if the follicles die, they die.\"\n\n\"Well. Good thing I've still got my hat. What about Eros?\"\n\nNaomi's false light tone failed her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's dead,\" Holden said from his bed, turning to look at Miller." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I think we were the last ship out. The station isn't answering calls, and all the automatic systems have it in a quarantine lockdown.\"\n\n\"Rescue ships?\" Miller asked, and coughed again. His throat was still sore.\n\n\"Not going to happen,\" Naomi said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There were a million and a half people on station. No one has the resources to put into that kind of rescue op.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"After all,\" Holden said, \"there's a war on.\"\n\nThe ship system dimmed the lights for night. Miller lay on his bed. The expert system had shifted his treatment regimen into a new phase, and for the past three hours, he'd alternated between spiking fevers and teeth-chattering chills." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His teeth and the nail beds of his fingers and toes ached." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sleep wasn't an option, so he lay in the gloom and tried to pull himself together.\n\nHe wondered what his old partners would have made of his behavior on Eros. Havelock. Muss. He tried to imagine them in his place. He'd killed people, and he'd done it cold." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Eros had been a kill box, and when the people in charge of the law wanted you dead, the law didn't apply anymore." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And some of the dead assholes had been the ones who'd killed Julie.\n\nSo. Revenge killing. Was he really down to revenge killing? That was a sad thought." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He tried to imagine Julie sitting beside him the way Naomi had with Holden." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was like she'd been waiting for the invitation. Julie Mao, who he'd never really known. She raised a hand in greeting.\n\nAnd what about us?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "he asked her as he looked into her dark, unreal eyes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Do I love you, or do I just want to love you so bad I can't tell the difference?\n\n\"Hey, Miller,\" Holden said, and Julie vanished. \"You awake?\"\n\n\"Yeah. Can't sleep.\"\n\n\"Me either.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were silent for a moment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The expert system hummed. Miller's left arm itched under its cast as the tissue went through another round of forced regrowth.\n\n\"You doing okay?\" Miller asked.\n\n\"Why wouldn't I be?\" Holden said sharply." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You killed that guy,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Back on the station. You shot him. I mean, I know you shot at guys before that. Back at the hotel. But right at the end there, you actually hit somebody in the face.\"\n\n\"Yeah. I did.\"\n\n\"You good with that?\"\n\n\"Sure,\" Holden said, too quickly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The air recyclers hummed, and the blood pressure cuff on Miller's good arm squeezed him like a hand." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden didn't speak, but when Miller squinted, he could see the elevated blood pressure and the uptick in brain activity.\n\n\"They always made us take time off,\" Miller said.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"When we shot someone. Whether they died or not, they always made us take a leave of absence. Turn in our weapon. Go talk to the headshrinker.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Bureaucrats,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They had a point,\" Miller said. \"Shooting someone does something to you. Killing someone... that's even worse. Doesn't matter that they had it coming or you didn't have a choice. Or maybe a little difference. But it doesn't take it away.\"\n\n\"Seems like you got over it, though.\"\n\n\"Maybe,\" Miller said. \"Look. All that I said back there about how you kill someone? About how leaving them alive wasn't doing them any favors? I'm sorry that happened.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You think you were wrong?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I wasn't. But I'm still sorry it happened.\"\n\n\"Okay.\"\n\n\"Jesus. Look, I'm saying it's good that it bothers you. It's good that you can't stop seeing it or hearing it. That part where it haunts you some? That's the way it's supposed to be.\"\n\nHolden was quiet for a moment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When he spoke again, his voice was gray as stone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I've killed people before, you know. But they were blips in a radar track. I—\"\n\n\"It's not the same, is it?\" Miller said.\n\n\"No, it isn't,\" Holden replied. \"Does this go away?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sometimes, Miller thought." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No,\" he said. \"Not if you've still got a soul.\"\n\n\"Okay. Thanks.\"\n\n\"One other thing?\"\n\n\"Yeah?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I know it's none of my business, but I really wouldn't let her put you off. So you don't understand sex and love and women. Just means you were born with a cock. And this girl? Naomi? She seems like she's worth putting a little effort into it. You know?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yeah,\" Holden said. Then: \"Can we never talk about that again?\"\n\n\"Sure.\"\n\nThe ship creaked and gravity shifted a degree to Miller's right. Course correction. Nothing interesting." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller closed his eyes and tried to will himself to sleep." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His mind was full of dead men and Julie and love and sex. There was something Holden had said about the war that was important, but he couldn't make the pieces fit. They kept changing. Miller sighed, shifted his weight so that he blocked one of his drainage tubes and had to shift back to stop the alarm.\n\nWhen the blood pressure cuff fired off again, it was Julie holding him, pulling herself so close her lips brushed his ear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His eyes opened, his mind seeing both the imaginary girl and the monitors that she would have blocked if she'd really been there." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your next one should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I love you too, she said, and I will take care of you.\n\nHe smiled at seeing the numbers change as his heart raced." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "I'll be your writing partner today. I will set the scene, and you will continue the story with four sentences, channeling the voice and techniques of James S. A. Corey.i'll kick things off by writing a bit, then you'll take over and write the next four sentences in the distinctive voice of James S. A. Corey.Ive got a bit of writers block, im gonna send you something then keep it going four sentences at a time, also im going for a James S. A. Corey sorta thing." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For five more days, Holden and Miller lay on their backs in sick bay while the solar system burned down around them. The reports of Eros' death ran from massive ecological collapse brought about by war-related supply shortages, to covert Martian attack, to secret Belt bioweapon laboratory accident. Analysis from the inner planets had it that the OPA and terrorists like them had finally shown how dangerous they could be to innocent civilian populations. The Belt blamed Mars, or the maintenance crews of Eros, or the OPA for not stopping it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And then a group of Martian frigates blockaded Pallas, a revolt on Ganymede ended in sixteen dead, and the new government of Ceres announced that all ships with Martian registry docked on station were being commandeered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The threats and accusations, all set to the constant human background noise of war drums, moved on. Eros had been a tragedy and a crime, but it was finished, and there were new dangers popping up in every corner of human space.\n\nHolden turned off his newsfeed, fidgeted in his bunk, and tried to wake Miller up by staring at him. It didn't work. The massive radiation exposure had failed to give him superpowers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller began to snore." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden sat up, testing the gravity. Less than a quarter g. Alex wasn't in a hurry, then. Naomi was giving him and Miller time to heal before they arrived at Julie's magical mystery asteroid.\n\nShit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Naomi." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The last few times she'd come into sick bay had been awkward. She never brought the subject of his failed romantic gesture back up, but he could feel a barrier between them now that filled him with regret. And every time she left the room, Miller would look away from him and sigh, which just made it worse.\n\nBut he couldn't avoid her forever, no matter how much he felt like an idiot." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He swung his feet off the edge of the bed and pressed down on the floor." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His legs felt weak but not rubbery. The soles of his feet hurt, but quite a bit less than nearly everything else on his body. He stood up, one hand still on the bed, and tested his balance. He wobbled but remained upright." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Two steps reassured him that walking was possible in the light gravity." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The IV tugged at his arm. He was down to just one bag of something a faint blue. He had no idea what it was, but after Naomi's description of how close to death he'd come, he figured it must be important. He pulled it off the wall hook and held it in his left hand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The room smelled like antiseptic and diarrhea." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was happy to be leaving.\n\n\"Where you going?\" Miller asked, his voice groggy.\n\n\"Out.\" Holden had the sudden, visceral memory of being fifteen.\n\n\"Okay,\" Miller said, then rolled onto his side." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The sick bay hatch was four meters from the central ladder, and Holden covered the ground with a slow, careful shuffle, his paper booties making a whispery scuffing sound on the fabric-covered metal floor." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The ladder itself defeated him. Even though ops was only one deck up, the three-meter climb might as well have been a thousand. He pressed the button to call the lift, and a few seconds later, the floor hatch slid open and the lift climbed through with an electric whine. Holden tried to hop on but managed only a sort of slow-motion fall that ended with his clutching the ladder and kneeling on the lift platform." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He stopped the lift, pulled himself upright, and started it again, then rode it up to the next deck in what he hoped was a less beaten and more captain-like pose." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Jesus, Captain, you still look like shit,\" Amos said as the lift came to a stop. The mechanic was sprawled across two chairs at the sensor stations and munching on what looked like a strip of leather.\n\n\"You keep saying that.\"\n\n\"Keeps bein' true.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Amos, don't you have work to do?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Naomi said. She was sitting at one of the computer stations, watching something flash by on the screen. She didn't look up when Holden came onto the deck. That was a bad sign.\n\n\"Nope. Most boring ship I ever worked, Boss. She don't break, she don't leak, she don't even have an annoying rattle to tighten down,\" Amos replied as he sucked down the last of his snack and smacked his lips." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There's always mopping,\" Naomi said, then tapped out something on the screen in front of her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amos looked from her to Holden and back again.\n\n\"Oh, that reminds me. I better get down to the engine room and look at that... thing I've been meaning to look at,\" Amos said, and jumped to his feet. \"'Scuse me, Cap.\"\n\nHe squeezed past Holden, hopped on the lift, and rode it sternward. The deck hatch closed behind him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hey,\" Holden said to Naomi once Amos was gone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hey,\" she said without turning around. That wasn't good either. When she'd sent Amos away, he'd hoped she wanted to talk. It didn't look like it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden sighed and shuffled over to the chair next to her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He collapsed into it, his legs tingling like he'd run a kilometer instead of just walking twenty-odd steps. Naomi had left her hair down, and it hid her face from him. Holden wanted to brush it back but was afraid she'd snap his elbow with Belter kung fu if he tried.\n\n\"Look, Naomi,\" he started, but she ignored him and hit a button on her panel." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He stopped when Fred's face appeared on the display in front of her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Is that Fred?\" he said, because he couldn't think of anything even more idiotic to say.\n\n\"You should see this. Got it from Tycho a couple hours ago on the tightbeam after I sent them an update on our status.\"\n\nNaomi tapped the play button and Fred's face sprang to life.\n\n\"Naomi, sounds like you guys have had a tough time of it. The air's full of chatter on the station shutdown, and the supposed nuclear explosion. No one knows what to make of it. Keep us informed. In the meantime, we managed to hack open that data cube you left here. I don't think it'll help much, though. Looks like a bunch of sensor data from the Donnager, mostly EM stuff. We've tried looking for hidden messages, but my smartest people can't find anything. I'm passing the data along to you. Let me know if you find anything. Tycho out.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The screen went blank." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What does the data look like?\" Holden asked.\n\n\"It's just what the man said,\" Naomi said. \"EM sensor data from the Donnager during the pursuit by the six ships, and the battle itself. I've dug through raw stuff, looking for anything hidden inside, but for the life of me, I can't find a thing. I've even had the Roci digging through the data for the last couple hours, looking for patterns. She has really good software for that sort of thing. But so far, nothing.\"\n\nShe tapped on the screen again and the raw data began spooling past faster than Holden could follow." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In a small window inside the larger screen, the Rocinante's pattern-recognition software worked to find meaning." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden watched it for a minute, but his eyes quickly unfocused.\n\n\"Lieutenant Kelly died for this data,\" he said. \"He left the ship while his mates were still fighting. Marines don't do that unless it matters.\"\n\nNaomi shrugged and pointed at the screen with resignation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's what was on his cube,\" she said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Maybe there's something steganographic, but I don't have another dataset to compare it to.\"\n\nHolden began tapping on his thigh, his pain and romantic failures momentarily forgotten.\n\n\"So let's say that this data is all that it is. There's nothing hidden. What would this information mean to the Martian navy?\"\n\nNaomi leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes in thought, one finger twisting and untwisting a curl of hair by her temple." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's mostly EM data, so lots of engine-signature stuff. Drive radiation is the best way to keep track of other ships. So that tells you where which ships were during the fight. Tactical data?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Maybe,\" Holden said. \"Would that be important enough to send Kelly out with?\"\n\nNaomi took a deep breath and let it out slowly.\n\n\"I don't think so,\" she said.\n\n\"Me either.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Something tapped at the edge of his conscious mind, asking to be let in." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What was that thing with Amos all about?\" he said.\n\n\"Amos?\"\n\n\"Him showing up at the airlock with two guns when we arrived,\" he said.\n\n\"There was some trouble on our trip back to the ship.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Trouble for who?\" Holden asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Naomi actually smiled at that.\n\n\"Some bad men didn't want us to hack the lockdown on the Roci. Amos talked it over with them. You didn't think it was because we were waiting for you, did you, sir?\"\n\nWas there a smile in her voice? A hint of coyness?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Flirtation? He stopped himself from grinning." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What did the Roci say about the data when you ran it?\" Holden asked.\n\n\"Here,\" Naomi replied, and hit something on her panel. The screen began displaying long lists of data in text. \"Lots of EM and light spectrum stuff, some leakage from damaged—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden yelped. Naomi looked up at him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm such an idiot,\" Holden said.\n\n\"Granted. Elaborate?\"\n\nHolden touched the screen and began scrolling up and down through the data. He tapped one long list of numbers and letters and leaned back with a grin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There, that's it,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's what?\"\n\n\"Hull structure isn't the only recognition metric. It's the most accurate, but it's also got the shortest range and\"—he gestured around him at the Rocinante—\"is the easiest to fool. The next best method is drive signature. Can't mask your radiation and heat patterns. And they're easy to spot even from really far away.\"\n\nHolden turned on the screen next to his chair and pulled up the ship's friend/foe database, then linked it to the data on Naomi's screen.\n\n\"That's what this message is, Naomi. It's telling Mars who killed the Donnager by showing them what the drive signature was.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then why not just say, 'So-and-so killed us,' in a nice easy-to-read text file?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Naomi asked, a skeptical frown on her face.\n\nHolden leaned forward and paused, opened his mouth, then closed it and sat back again with a sigh.\n\n\"I don't know.\"\n\nA hatch banged open with a hydraulic whine; then Naomi looked past Holden to the ladder and said, \"Miller's coming up.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden turned to watch the detective finish the slow climb up from the sick bay deck." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He looked like a plucked chicken, pink-gray skin stippled with gooseflesh. His paper gown went poorly with the hat.\n\n\"Uh, there's a lift,\" Holden said.\n\n\"Wish I'd known that,\" Miller replied, then dragged himself up onto the ops deck with a gasp. \"We there yet?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Trying to figure out a mystery,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I hate mysteries,\" Miller said, then hauled himself to his feet and made his way to a chair.\n\n\"Then solve this one for us. You find out who murdered someone. You can't arrest them yourself, so you send the information to your partner. But instead of just sending the perp's name, you send your partner all the clues. Why?\"\n\nMiller coughed and scratched his chin. His eyes were fixed on something, like he was reading a screen Holden couldn't see." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Because I don't trust myself. I want my partner to arrive at the same conclusion I did, without my biasing him. I give him the dots, see what it looks like when he connects 'em.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Especially if guessing wrong has consequences,\" Naomi said.\n\n\"You don't like to screw up a murder charge,\" Miller said with a nod. \"Looks unprofessional.\"\n\nHolden's panel beeped at him.\n\n\"Shit, I know why they were careful,\" he said after reading his screen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The Roci thinks those were standard light-cruiser engines built by the Bush Shipyards.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They were Earth ships?\" Naomi said. \"But they weren't flying any colors, and... Son of a bitch!\"\n\nIt was the first time Holden had ever heard her yell, and he understood. If UNN black ops ships had killed the Donnager, then that meant Earth was behind the whole thing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Maybe even killing the Canterbury in the first place." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It would mean that Martian warships were killing Belters for no reason. Belters like Naomi.\n\nHolden leaned forward and called up the comm display, then tapped out a general broadcast. Miller caught his breath.\n\n\"That button you just pressed doesn't do what I think it does, does it?\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I finished Kelly's mission for him,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I have no idea who the fuck Kelly is,\" Miller said, \"but please tell me that his mission wasn't broadcasting that data to the solar system at large.\"\n\n\"People need to know what's going on,\" Holden said.\n\n\"Yes, they do, but maybe we should actually know what the hell is going on before we tell them,\" Miller replied, all the weariness gone from his voice. \"How gullible are you?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hey,\" Holden said, but Miller got louder." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You found a Martian battery, right? So you told everyone in the solar system about it and started the single largest war in human history. Only turns out the Martians maybe weren't the ones that left it there. Then, a bunch of mystery ships kill the Donnager, which Mars blames on the Belt, only, dammit, the Belt didn't even know it was capable of killing a Martian battle cruiser.\"\n\nHolden opened his mouth, but Miller grabbed a bulb of coffee Amos had left behind on the console and threw it at his head.\n\n\"Let me finish! And now you find some data that implicates Earth. First thing you do is blab it to the universe, so that Mars and the Belt drag Earth into this thing, making the largest war of all time even bigger. Are you seeing a pattern here?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Naomi said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So what do you think's going to happen?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller said. \"This is how these people work! They made the Canterbury look like Mars. It wasn't. They made the Donnager look like the Belt. It wasn't. Now it looks like the whole damn thing's Earth? Follow the pattern. It probably isn't! You never, never put that kind of accusation out there until you know the score. You look. You listen. You're quiet, fercrissakes, and when you know, then you can make your case.\"\n\nThe detective sat back, clearly exhausted. He was sweating. The deck was silent.\n\n\"You done?\" Holden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller nodded, breathing heavily." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Think I might have strained something.\"\n\n\"I haven't accused anyone of doing anything,\" Holden said. \"I'm not building a case. I just put the data out there. Now it's not a secret. They're doing something on Eros. They don't want it interrupted. With Mars and the Belt shooting at each other, everyone with the resources to help is busy elsewhere.\"\n\n\"And you just dragged Earth into it,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Maybe,\" Holden said. \"But the killers did use ships that were built, at least in part, at Earth's orbital shipyards. Maybe someone will look into that. And that's the point. If everyone knows everything, nothing stays secret.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yeah, well,\" Miller said. Holden ignored him\n\n\"Eventually, someone'll figure out the big picture. This kind of thing requires secrecy to function, so exposing all the secrets hurts them in the end. It's the only way this really, permanently stops.\"\n\nMiller sighed, nodded to himself, took off his hat, and scratched his scalp.\n\n\"I was just going to put 'em out an airlock,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "BA834024112 wasn't much of an asteroid." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Barely thirty meters across, it had long ago been surveyed and found completely devoid of useful or valuable minerals. It existed in the registry only to warn ships not to run into it. Julie had left it tethered to wealth measured in the billions when she flew her small shuttle to Eros.\n\nUp close, the ship that had killed the Scopuli and stolen its crew looked like a shark." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was long and lean and utterly black, almost impossible to see against the backdrop of space with the naked eye." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Its radar-deflecting curves gave it an aerodynamic look almost always lacking in space-going vessels. It made Holden's skin crawl, but it was beautiful.\n\n\"Motherfucker,\" Amos said under his breath as the crew clustered in the cockpit of the Rocinante to look at it.\n\n\"The Roci doesn't even see it, Cap,\" Alex said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm pourin' ladar into it, and all we see is a slightly warmer spot on the asteroid.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Like Becca saw just before the Cant died,\" Naomi said.\n\n\"Her shuttle's been launched, so I'm guessin' this is the right stealth ship someone left tied to a rock,\" Alex added. \"Case there's more than one.\"\n\nHolden tapped his fingers on the back of Alex's chair for a moment as he floated over the pilot's head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's probably full of vomit zombies,\" Holden finally said." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Want to go see?\" said Miller.\n\n\"Oh yeah,\" Holden said." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "I'll be your writing partner today. I will set the scene, and you will continue the story with 4 sentences, channeling the voice and techniques of James S. A. Corey.i'll kick things off by writing a bit, then you'll take over and write the next 4 sentences in the distinctive voice of James S. A. Corey.Ive got a bit of writers block, im gonna send you something then keep it going 4 sentences at a time, also im going for a James S. A. Corey sorta thing." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The environment suit was better than Miller was used to. He'd only done a couple walks outside during his years on Ceres, and the Star Helix equipment had been old back then: thick corrugated joints, separable air-supply unit, gloves that left his hands thirty degrees colder than the rest of his body. The Rocinante's suits were military and recent, no bulkier than standard riot gear, with integrated life support that could probably keep fingers warm after a hand got shot off. Miller floated, one hand on a strap in the airlock, and flexed his fingers, watching the sharkskin pattern of the knuckle joints." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It didn't feel like enough." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"All right, Alex,\" Holden said. \"We're in place. Have the Roci knock for us.\"\n\nA deep, rumbling vibration shook them. Naomi put a hand against the airlock's curved wall to steady herself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Amos shifted forward to take point, a reactionless automatic rifle in his hands." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When he bent his neck, Miller could hear the vertebrae cracking through his radio. It was the only way he could have heard it; they were already in vacuum.\n\n\"Okay, Captain,\" Alex said. \"I've got a seal. The standard security override isn't working, so give me a second... to...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Problem?\" Holden said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Got it. I've got it. We have a connection,\" Alex said. Then, a moment later: \"Ah. It doesn't look like there's much to breathe over there.\"\n\n\"Anything?\" Holden asked.\n\n\"Nope. Hard vacuum,\" Alex said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Both her lock doors are open.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"All right, folks,\" Holden said, \"keep an eye on your air supply. Let's go.\"\n\nMiller took a long breath. The external airlock went from soft red to soft green. Holden slid it open, and Amos launched forward, the captain just behind him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller gestured to Naomi with a nod. Ladies first." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The connecting gantry was reinforced, ready to deflect enemy lasers or slow down slugs. Amos landed on the other ship as the hatch to the Rocinante closed behind them. Miller had a moment's vertigo, the ship before them suddenly clicking from ahead to down in his perception, as if they were falling into something.\n\n\"You all right?\" Naomi asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller nodded, and Amos passed into the other ship's hatch." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One by one, they went in.\n\nThe ship was dead. The lights coming off their environment suits played over the soft, almost streamlined curves of the bulkheads, the cushioned walls, the gray suit lockers. One locker was bent out of shape, like someone or something had forced its way out from within." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Amos pushed off slow." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Under normal circumstances, hard vacuum would have been assurance enough that nothing was about to jump out at them. Right now, Miller figured it was only even money.\n\n\"Whole place is shut down,\" Holden said.\n\n\"Might be backups in the engine room,\" Amos said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So the ass end of the ship from here,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Pretty much.\"\n\n\"Let's be careful,\" Holden said.\n\n\"I'm heading up to ops,\" Naomi said. \"If there's anything running off battery, I can—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No, you aren't,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We aren't splitting up the group until we know what we're looking at. Stay together.\"\n\nAmos moved down, sinking into the darkness. Holden pushed off after him. Miller followed. He couldn't tell from Naomi's body language whether she was annoyed or relieved." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The galley was empty, but signs of struggle showed here and there." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A chair with a bent leg. A long, jagged scratch down the wall where something sharp had flaked the paint. Two bullet holes set high along one bulkhead where a shot had gone wide. Miller put a hand out, grabbed one of the tables, and swung slowly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Miller?\" Holden said. \"Are you coming?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Look at this,\" Miller said.\n\nThe dark spill was the color of amber, flaky and shining like glass in his flashlight beam. Holden hovered closer.\n\n\"Zombie vomit?\" Holden said.\n\n\"Think so.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well. I guess we're on the right ship. For some value of right.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The crew quarters hung silent and empty. They went through each of them, but there were no personal markings—no terminals, no pictures, no clues to the names of the men and women who had lived and breathed and presumably died on the ship. Even the captain's cabin was indicated only by a slightly larger bunk and the face of a locked safe.\n\nThere was a massive central compartment as high and wide as the hull of the Rocinante, the darkness dominated by twelve huge cylinders encrusted with narrow catwalks and scaffolds." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller saw Naomi's expression harden." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What are they?\" Miller asked.\n\n\"Torpedo tubes,\" she said.\n\n\"Torpedo tubes?\" he said. \"Jesus Christ, how many are they packing? A million?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Twelve,\" she said. \"Just twelve.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Capital-ship busters,\" Amos said. \"Built to pretty much kill whatever you're aiming at with the first shot.\"\n\n\"Something like the Donnager?\" Miller asked.\n\nHolden looked back at him, the glow of his heads-up display lighting his features." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Or the Canterbury,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The four of them passed between the wide black tubes in silence.\n\nIn the machine and fabrication shops, the signs of violence were more pronounced. There was blood on the floor and walls, along with wide swaths of the glassy gold resin that had once been vomit. A uniform lay in a ball." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The cloth had been wadded and soaked in something before the cold of space had frozen it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Habits formed from years of walking through crime scenes put a dozen small things in place: the pattern of scratches on the floor and lift doors, the spatter of blood and vomit, the footprints. They all told the story.\n\n\"They're in engineering,\" Miller said.\n\n\"Who?\" Holden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The crew. Whoever was on the ship. All except that one,\" he said, gesturing at half a footprint that led toward the lift." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You see how her footprints are over the top of everything else. And there, where she stepped in that blood, it was already dry. Flaked instead of smearing.\"\n\n\"How you know it was a girl?\" Holden asked.\n\n\"Because it was Julie,\" Miller said.\n\n\"Well, whoever's in there, they've been sucking vacuum for a long time,\" Amos said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Want to go see?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No one said yes, but they all floated forward. The hatch stood open. If the darkness beyond it seemed more solid, more ominous, more personal than the rest of the dead ship had, it was only Miller's imagination playing tricks. He hesitated, trying to summon up the image of Julie, but she wouldn't come." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Floating into the engineering deck was like swimming into a cave." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller saw the other flashlights playing over walls and panels, looking for live controls, or else controls that could come alive. He aimed his own beam into the body of the room, the dark swallowing it.\n\n\"We got batteries, Cap'n,\" Amos said. \"And... looks like the reactor got shut down. Intentional.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Think you can get it back up?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Want to run some diagnostics,\" Amos said. \"There could be a reason they shut it off, and I don't want to find out the hard way.\"\n\n\"Good point.\"\n\n\"But I can at least get us... some... come on, you bastard.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "All around the deck, blue-white lights flared up." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The sudden brilliance blinded Miller for a half second. His vision returned with a sense of growing confusion. Naomi gasped, and Holden yelped. Something in the back of Miller's own mind started to shriek, and he forced it into silence." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was just a crime scene." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were only bodies.\n\nExcept they weren't.\n\nThe reactor stood before him, quiescent and dead. All around it, a layer of human flesh." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He could pick out arms, hands with fingers splayed so wide they hurt to look at." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The long snake of a spine curved, ribs fanning out like the legs of some perverse insect. He tried to make what he was seeing make sense. He'd seen men eviscerated before. He knew that the long, ropy swirl to the left of the thing were intestines." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He could see where the small bowel widened to become a colon." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The familiar shape of a skull looked out at him.\n\nBut then, among the familiar anatomy of death and dismemberment, there were other things: nautilus spirals, wide swaths of soft black filament, a pale expanse of something that might have been skin cut by a dozen gill-like vents, a half-formed limb that looked equally like an insect and a fetus without being either one. The frozen, dead flesh surrounded the reactor like the skin of an orange. The crew of the stealth ship." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Maybe of the Scopuli as well." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All but Julie.\n\n\"Yeah,\" Amos said. \"This could take a little longer than I was thinking, Cap.\"\n\n\"It's okay,\" Holden said. His voice on the radio sounded shaky." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You don't have to.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's no trouble. As long as none of that freaky shit broke the containment, reactor should boot up just fine.\"\n\n\"You don't mind being around... it?\" Holden said.\n\n\"Honest, Cap'n, I'm not thinking about it. Give me twenty minutes, I'll tell you if we got power or if we have to patch a line over from the Roci.\"\n\n\"Okay,\" Holden said. And then again, his voice more solid: \"Okay, but don't touch any of that.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Wasn't going to,\" Amos said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They floated back out through the hatch, Holden and Naomi and Miller coming last.\n\n\"Is that...\" Naomi said, then coughed and started again. \"Is that what's happening on Eros?\"\n\n\"Probably,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Amos,\" Holden said. \"Do you have enough battery power to light up the computers?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was a pause. Miller took a deep breath, the plastic-and-ozone scent of the suit's air system filling his nose.\n\n\"I think so,\" Amos said dubiously. \"But if we can get the reactor up first...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Bring up the computers.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're the captain, Cap'n,\" Amos said. \"Have it to you in five.\"\n\nIn silence, they floated up—back—to the airlock, and past it to the operations deck. Miller hung back, watching the way Holden's trajectory kept him near Naomi and then away from her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Protective and head-shy both, Miller thought. Bad combination." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Julie was waiting in the airlock. Not at first, of course. Miller slid back into the space, his mind churning through everything he'd seen, just like it was a case. A normal case. His gaze drifted toward the broken locker." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was no suit in it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For a moment, he was back on Eros, in the apartment where Julie had died. There had been an environment suit there. And then Julie was there with him, pushing her way out of the locker.\n\nWhat were you doing there? he thought." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No brig,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What?\" Holden said.\n\n\"I just noticed,\" Miller said. \"Ship's got no brig. They aren't built to carry prisoners.\"\n\nHolden made a low agreeing grunt." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Makes you wonder what they were planning to do with the crew of the Scopuli,\" Naomi said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The tone of her voice meant she didn't wonder at all.\n\n\"I don't think they were,\" Miller said slowly. \"This whole thing... they were improvising.\"\n\n\"Improvising?\" Naomi said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Ship was carrying an infectious something or other without enough containment to contain it. Taking on prisoners without a brig to hold 'em in. They were making this up as they went along.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Or they had to hurry,\" Holden said. \"Something happened that made them hurry. But what they did on Eros must have taken months to arrange. Maybe years. So maybe something happened at the last minute?\"\n\n\"Be interesting to know what,\" Miller said.\n\nCompared to the rest of the ship, the ops deck looked peaceful." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Normal. The computers had finished their diagnostics, screens glowing placidly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Naomi went to one, holding the back of the chair with one hand so the gentle touch of her fingers against the screen wouldn't push her backward.\n\n\"I'll do what I can here,\" she said. \"You can check the bridge.\"\n\nThere was a pause that carried weight." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'll be fine,\" Naomi said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"All right. I know you'll... I... C'mon, Miller.\"\n\nMiller let the captain float ahead into the bridge. The screens there were spooling through diagnostics so standard Miller recognized them. It was a wider space than he'd imagined, with five stations with crash couches customized for other people's bodies." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden strapped in at one." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller took a slow turn around the deck. Nothing seemed out of place here—no blood, no broken chairs or torn padding. When it happened, the fight had been down near the reactor. He wasn't sure yet what that meant." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He sat at what, under a standard layout, would have been the security station, and opened a private channel to Holden." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Anything you're looking for in particular?\"\n\n\"Briefings. Overviews,\" Holden said shortly. \"Whatever's useful. You?\"\n\n\"See if I can get into the internal monitors.\"\n\n\"Hoping to find...?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What Julie found,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The security assumed that anyone sitting at the console had access to the low-level feeds. It still took half an hour to parse the command structure and query interface. Once Miller had that down, it wasn't hard. The time stamp on the log listed the feed as the day the Scopuli had gone missing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The security camera in the airlock bay showed the crew—Belters, most of them—being escorted in." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Their captors were in armor, with faceplates lowered. Miller wondered if they'd meant to keep their identities secret. That would almost have suggested they were planning to keep the crew alive. Or maybe they were just wary of some last-minute resistance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The crew of the Scopuli weren't wearing environment suits or armor." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A couple of them weren't even wearing uniforms.\n\nBut Julie was.\n\nIt was strange, watching her move. With a sense of dislocation, Miller realized that he'd never actually seen her in motion." }, { "from": "human", "value": "All the pictures he'd had in his file back on Ceres had been stills." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now here she was, floating with her chosen compatriots, her hair back out of her eyes, her jaw clamped. She looked very small surrounded by her crew and the men in armor. The little rich girl who'd turned her back on wealth and status to be with the downtrodden Belt. The girl who'd told her mother to sell the Razorback—the ship she'd loved—rather than give in to emotional blackmail." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In motion, she looked a little different from the imaginary version he'd built of her—the way she pulled her shoulders back, the habit of reaching her toes toward the floor even in null g—but the basic image was the same." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He felt like he was filling in blanks with the new details rather than reimagining the woman.\n\nThe guards said something—the security feed's audio was playing to vacuum—and the Scopuli crew looked aghast. Then, hesitantly, the captain started taking his uniform off. They were stripping the prisoners." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller shook his head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Bad plan.\"\n\n\"What?\" Holden said.\n\n\"Nothing. Sorry.\"\n\nJulie wasn't moving. One of the guards moved toward her, his legs braced on the wall." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Julie, who'd lived through being raped, maybe, or something as bad." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Who'd studied jiu jitsu to feel safe afterward. Maybe they thought she was just being modest. Maybe they were afraid she was hiding a weapon under her clothes. Either way, they tried to force the point." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One of the guards pushed her, and she latched on to his arm like her life depended on it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller winced when he saw the man's elbow bend the wrong way, but he also smiled.\n\nThat's my girl, he thought. Give 'em hell.\n\nAnd she did. For almost forty seconds, the airlock bay was a battleground. Even some of the cowed Scopuli crew tried to join in." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But then Julie didn't see a thick-shouldered man launch from behind her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller felt it when the gauntleted hand hammered Julie's temple. She wasn't out, but she was groggy. The men with guns stripped her with a cold efficiency, and when there were no weapons or comm devices, they handed her a jumpsuit and shoved her in a locker. The others, they led down into the ship." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller matched time stamps and switched feeds." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The prisoners were taken to the galley, then bound to the tables. One of the guards spent a minute or so talking, but with his faceplate down, the only clues Miller had to the content of the sermon were the reactions of the crew—wide-eyed disbelief, confusion, outrage, and fear. The guard could have been saying anything.\n\nMiller started skipping. A few hours, then a few more." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The ship was under thrust, the prisoners actually sitting at the tables instead of floating near them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He flipped to other parts of the ship. Julie's locker was still closed. If he hadn't known better, he'd have assumed she was dead.\n\nHe skipped ahead." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One hundred and thirty-two hours later, the crew of the Scopuli grew a pair." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller saw it in their bodies even before the violence started. He'd seen holding cells rise up before, and the prisoners had the same sullen-but-excited look. The feed showed the stretch of wall where he'd seen the bullet holes. They weren't there yet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They would be. A man came into the picture with a tray of food rations." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Here it comes, Miller thought.\n\nThe fight was short and brutal. The prisoners didn't stand a chance. Miller watched as they hauled one of them—a sandy-haired man—to the airlock and spaced him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The others were put in heavy restraints." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Some wept. Some screamed. Miller skipped ahead.\n\nIt had to be in there someplace. The moment when it—whatever it was—got loose. But either it had happened in some unmonitored crew quarters or it had been there from the beginning." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Almost exactly one hundred and sixty hours after Julie had gone into the locker, a man in a white jumper, eyes glassy and stance unsure, lurched out of the crew quarters and vomited on one of the guards." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Fuck!\" Amos shouted.\n\nMiller was out of his chair before he knew what had happened. Holden was up too.\n\n\"Amos?\" Holden said. \"Talk to me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hold on,\" Amos said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yeah, it's okay, Cap'n. It's just these fuckers stripped off a bunch of the reactor shielding. We've got her up, but I sucked down a few more rads than I'd have picked.\"\n\n\"Get back to the Roci,\" Holden said. Miller steadied himself against a wall, pushing back down toward the control stations.\n\n\"No offense, sir, but it ain't like I'm about to start pissing blood or anything fun like that,\" Amos said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I got surprised more than anything. I start feeling itchy, I'll head back over, but I can get some atmosphere for us by working out of the machine shop if you give me a few more minutes.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller watched Holden's face as the man struggled. He could make it an order; he could leave it be.\n\n\"Okay, Amos. But you start getting light-headed or anything—I mean anything—and you get over to the sick bay.\"\n\n\"Aye, aye,\" Amos said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Alex, keep an eye on Amos' biomed feed from over there. Give us a heads-up if you see a problem,\" Holden said on the general channel." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Roger,\" came Alex's lazy drawl.\n\n\"You finding anything?\" Holden asked Miller on their private channel.\n\n\"Nothing unexpected,\" Miller said. \"You?\"\n\n\"Yeah, actually. Take a look.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller pushed himself to the screen Holden had been working." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden pulled himself back into the station and started pulling up feeds.\n\n\"I was thinking that someone had to go last,\" Holden said. \"I mean, there had to be someone who was the least sick when whatever it was got loose. So I went through the directory to see what activity was going on before the system went dead.\"\n\n\"And?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There's a whole bunch of activity that looks like it happened a couple days before the system shutdown, and then nothing for two solid days. And then a little spike. A lot of accessed files and system diagnostics. Then someone hacked the override codes to blow atmosphere.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It was Julie, then.\"\n\n\"That's what I was thinking,\" Holden said. \"But one of the feeds she accessed was... Shit, where is it? It was right... Oh. Here. Watch this.\"\n\nThe screen blinked, controls dropping to standby, and a high-res emblem, green and gold, came up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The corporate logo of Protogen, with a slogan Miller hadn't seen before. First. Fastest." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Furthest.\n\n\"What's the time stamp on the file?\" Miller asked.\n\n\"The original was created about two years ago,\" Holden said. \"This copy was burned eight months ago.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The emblem faded, and a pleasant-faced man sitting at a desk took its place." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had dark hair, with just a scattering of gray at the temples, and lips that seemed used to smiling. He nodded at the camera. The smile didn't reach his eyes, which were as empty as a shark's.\n\nSociopath, Miller thought." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The man's lips began moving soundlessly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden said, \"Shit,\" and hit a switch to have the audio transmitted to their suits. He rewound the video feed and started it over.\n\n\"Mr. Dresden,\" the man said. \"I would like to thank you and the members of the board for taking the time to review this information. Your support, both financial and otherwise, has been absolutely essential to the incredible discoveries we've seen on this project." }, { "from": "human", "value": "While my team has been point man, as it were, Protogen's tireless commitment to the advancement of science has made our work possible." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Gentlemen, I will be frank. The Phoebe protomolecule has exceeded all our expectations. I believe it represents a genuinely game-changing technological breakthrough. I know that these kinds of corporate presentations are prone to hyperbole. Please understand that I have thought about this carefully and chosen my words: Protogen can become the most important and powerful entity in the history of the human race. But it will require initiative, ambition, and bold action.\"\n\n\"He's talking about killing people,\" Miller said.\n\n\"You've seen this already?\" Holden said.\n\nMiller shook his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The feed changed. The man faded out, and an animation took his place." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A graphic representation of the solar system. Orbits marked in wide swaths of color showed the plane of the ecliptic. The virtual camera swirled out from the inner planets, where Mr. Dresden and board members presumably were, and out toward the gas giants.\n\n\"For those of you on the board unfamiliar with the project, eight years ago, the first manned landing was made on Phoebe,\" the sociopath said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The animation zoomed in toward Saturn, rings and planet flying past in a triumph of graphic design over accuracy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A small ice moon, the assumption was that Phoebe would eventually be mined for water, much like the rings themselves. The Martian government commissioned a scientific survey more out of a sense of bureaucratic completeness than from expectation of economic gain. Core samples were taken, and when silicate anomalies raised flags, Protogen was approached as cosponsor of a long-term research facility.\"\n\nThe moon itself—Phoebe—filled the frame, turning slowly to show all sides like a prostitute at a cheap brothel. It was a crater-marked lump, indistinguishable from a thousand other asteroids and planetesimals Miller had seen.\n\n\"Given Phoebe's extra-ecliptical orbit,\" the sociopath went on, \"one theory has been that it was a body that originated in the Kuiper belt and had been captured by Saturn when it happened to pass through the solar system." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The existence of complex silicon structures within the interior ice, along with suggestions of impact-resistant structures within the architecture of the body itself, have forced us to reevaluate this." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Using analyses proprietary to Protogen and not yet shared with the Martian team, we have determined beyond any credible doubt that what you are seeing now is not a naturally formed planetesimal, but a weapon. Specifically, a weapon designed to carry its payload through the depths of interplanetary space and deliver it safely onto Earth two and one third billion years ago, when life itself was in its earliest stages. And the payload, gentlemen, is this.\"\n\nThe display clicked to a graphic that Miller couldn't quite parse. It looked like the medical text of a virus, but with wide, looping structures that were at once beautiful and improbable.\n\n\"The protomolecule first caught our interest for its ability to maintain its primary structure in a wide variety of conditions through secondary and tertiary changes. It also showed an affinity for carbon and silicon structures. Its activity suggested it was not in itself a living thing, but a set of free-floating instructions designed to adapt to and guide other replicating systems. Animal experiments suggest that its effects are not exclusive to simple replicators, but are, in fact, scalable.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Animal tests,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What, they dumped it on a cat?\"\n\n\"The initial implication of this,\" the sociopath went on, \"is that a larger biosphere exists, of which our solar system is only a part, and that the protomolecule is an artifact of that environment. That alone, I think you must agree, would revolutionize human understanding of the universe. Let me assure you, it's small beer. If accidents of orbital mechanics had not captured Phoebe, life as we know it would not presently exist. But something else would. The earliest cellular life on Earth would have been hijacked. Reprogrammed along lines contained within the structure of the protomolecule.\"\n\nThe sociopath reappeared. For the first time, smile lines appeared around his eyes, like a parody of themselves. Miller felt a visceral hatred growing in his gut and knew himself well enough to recognize it for what it was. Fear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Protogen is in a position to take sole possession of not only the first technology of genuinely extraterrestrial origin, but also a prefabricated mechanism for the manipulation of living systems and the first clues as to the nature of the larger—I will call it galactic—biosphere." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Directed by human hands, the applications of this are limitless. I believe that the opportunity now facing not only us but life itself is as profound and transformative as anything that has ever happened. And, further, the control of this technology will represent the base of all political and economic power from now on.\n\n\"I urge you to consider the technical details I have outlined in the attached." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Moving quickly to understand the programming, mechanism, and intent of the protomolecule, as well as its direct application to human beings, will mark the difference between a Protogen-led future and being left behind." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I urge immediate and decisive action to take exclusive control of the protomolecule and move forward with large-scale testing.\n\n\"Thank you for your time and attention.\"\n\nThe sociopath smiled again, and the corporate logo reappeared. First. Fastest. Furthest." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller's heart was racing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Okay. All right,\" he said. And then: \"Fuck me.\"\n\n\"Protogen, protomolecule,\" Holden said. \"They had no idea what it does, but they slapped their label on it like they'd made it. They found an alien weapon, and all they could think to do was brand it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There's reason to think these boys are pretty impressed with themselves,\" Miller replied with a nod." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Now, I'm not a scientist or anything,\" Holden said, \"but it seems to me like taking an alien supervirus and dropping it into a space station would be a bad idea.\"\n\n\"It's been two years,\" Miller said. \"They've been doing tests. They've been... I don't know what the hell they've been doing. But Eros is what they decided on. And everyone knows what happened on Eros. The other side did it. No research and recovery ships because they're all fighting each other or guarding something. The war? It's a distraction.\"\n\n\"And Protogen is doing... what?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Seeing what their toy does when you take it out for a spin is my guess,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 5 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were silent for a long moment. Holden spoke first.\n\n\"So you take a company that seems to be lacking an institutional conscience, that has enough government research contracts to almost be a privately run branch of the military. How far will they go for the holy grail?\"\n\n\"First, fastest, furthest,\" Miller replied.\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\n\"Guys,\" Naomi said, \"you should come down here. I think I've got something.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "expand on the story like James S. A. Corey would" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I've found the comm logs,\" Naomi said as Holden and Miller drifted into the room behind her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden put a hand on her shoulder, pulled it back, and hated that he'd pulled back. A week earlier she'd have been fine with a simple gesture of affection like that, and he wouldn't have been afraid of her reaction. He regretted the new distance between them only slightly less than he would have regretted not saying anything at all. He wanted to tell her that." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Instead, he said, \"Find anything good?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She tapped the screen and pulled up the log.\n\n\"They were hard-core about comm discipline,\" she said, pointing at the long list of dates and times. \"Nothing ever went out on radio, everything was tightbeam. And everything was doublespeak, lots of obvious code phrases.\"\n\nMiller's mouth moved inside his helmet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden tapped on his face shield." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller rolled his eyes in disgust and then chinned the comm link to the general channel.\n\n\"Sorry. Don't spend a lot of time in suits,\" he said. \"What've we got that's good?\"\n\n\"Not much. But the last communication was in plain English,\" she said, then tapped the last line on the list." }, { "from": "human", "value": "THOTH STATION" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "CREW DEGENERATING. PROJECTING 100% CASUALTIES. MATERIALS SECURED. STABILIZING COURSE AND SPEED. VECTOR DATA TO FOLLOW. EXTREME CONTAMINATION HAZARD FOR ENTRY TEAMS." }, { "from": "human", "value": "CPT. HIGGINS" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden read it several times, imagining Captain Higgins watching the infection spread through his crew, helpless to stop it. His people vomiting all over in a vacuum-sealed metal box, even one molecule of the substance on your skin a virtual death sentence. Black filament-covered tendrils erupting from their eyes and mouths. And then that... soup that covered the reactor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He let himself shudder, grateful that Miller wouldn't see it through the atmosphere suit." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So this Higgins fella realizes his crew is turning into vomit zombies and sends a last message to his bosses, right?\" Miller said, breaking into Holden's reverie. \"What's this stuff about vector data?\"\n\n\"He knew they'd all be dead, so he was letting his people know how to catch the ship,\" Holden replied." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But they didn't, because it's here, because Julie took control and flew it somewhere else,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Which means they're looking for it, right?\"\n\nHolden ignored that and put his hand back on Naomi's shoulder with what he hoped was companionable casualness.\n\n\"We have tight beam messages and the vector info,\" he said. \"Are they all going to the same place?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Sort of,\" she said, nodding with her right hand." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not the same place, but all to what appear to be points in the Belt. But based on the changes in direction and the times they were sent, to one point in the Belt that is moving around, and not in a stable orbit either.\"\n\n\"A ship, then?\"\n\nNaomi gave another nod.\n\n\"Probably,\" she said. \"I've been playing with the locations, and I can't find anything in the registry that looks likely. No stations or inhabited rocks. A ship would make sense. But—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden waited for Naomi to finish, but Miller leaned forward impatiently." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But what?\" he said.\n\n\"But how did they know where it would be?\" she replied. \"I have no incoming comms in the log. If a ship was moving around randomly in the Belt, how'd they know where to send these messages?\"\n\nHolden squeezed her shoulder, lightly enough that she probably didn't even feel it in the heavy environment suit, then pushed off and allowed himself to drift toward the ceiling." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So it's not random,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They had some sort of map of where this thing would be at the time they sent the laser comms. Could be one of their stealth ships.\"\n\nNaomi turned around in her chair to look up at him.\n\n\"Could be a station,\" she said.\n\n\"It's the lab,\" Miller broke in." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They're running an experiment on Eros, they need the white coats nearby.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Naomi,\" Holden said. \"'Materials secured.' There's a safe in the captain's quarters that's still locked down. Think you can get it open?\"\n\nNaomi gave a one-handed shrug.\n\n\"I don't know,\" she said. \"Maybe. Amos could probably blast it open with some of the explosives we found in that big box of weapons.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden laughed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well,\" he said. \"Since it's probably full of little vials of nasty alien viruses, I'm going to nix the blasting option.\"\n\nNaomi shut down the comm log and pulled up a general ship's systems menu.\n\n\"I can look around and see if the computer has access to the safe,\" she said. \"Try to open it that way. It might take some time.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do what you can,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We'll get out of your hair.\"\n\nHolden pushed himself off the ceiling and over to the ops compartment hatch, then pulled himself through, into the corridor beyond. A few moments later, Miller followed. The detective planted his feet on the deck with magnetic boots, then stared at Holden, waiting." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden floated down to the deck next to him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What do you think?\" Holden asked. \"Protogen being the whole thing? Or is this another one where it looks like them, so it isn't?\"\n\nMiller was silent for the space of two long breaths.\n\n\"This one smells like the real thing,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He sounded almost grudging." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amos pulled himself up the crew ladder from below, dragging a large metal case behind him.\n\n\"Hey, Cap'n,\" he said. \"I found a whole case of fuel pellets for the reactor in the machine shop. We'll probably want to take these with us.\"\n\n\"Good work,\" Holden said, holding up one hand to let Miller know to wait." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Go ahead and take those across. Also, I need you to work up a plan for scuttling this ship.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Wait, what?\" Amos said. \"This thing is worth a jillion bucks, Captain. Stealth missile ship? The OPA would sell their grandmothers for this thing. And six of those tubes still have fish in them. Capital-ship busters. You could slag a small moon with those. Forget their grannies, the OPA would pimp their daughters for that gear. Why the fuck would we blow it up?\"\n\nHolden stared at him in disbelief.\n\n\"Did you forget what's in the engine room?\" he asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hell, Cap,\" Amos snorted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That shit is all frozen. Couple hours with a torch and I can chop it up and chuck it out the airlock. Good to go.\"\n\nThe mental image of Amos hacking the melted bodies of the ship's former crew apart with a plasma torch and then cheerfully hurling the chunks out an airlock tipped Holden over the edge into full-fledged nausea. The big mechanic's ability just to ignore anything that he didn't want to notice probably came in handy while he was crawling around in tight and greasy engine compartments. His ability to shrug off the horrible mutilation of several dozen people threatened to change Holden's disgust into anger." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Forgetting the mess,\" he said, \"and the very real possibility of infection by what made that mess, there is also the fact that someone is desperately searching for this very expensive and very stealthy ship, and so far Alex can't find the ship that's looking.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He stopped talking and nodded at Amos while the mechanic mulled that over. He could see Amos' broad face working as he put it together in his head. Found a stealth ship. Other people looking for stealth ship." }, { "from": "human", "value": "We can't see the other people looking for it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Shit.\n\nAmos' face went pale.\n\n\"Right,\" he said. \"I'll set the reactor up to slag her.\" He looked down at the time on his suit's forearm display." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Shit, we've been here too long. Better get the lead out.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Better had,\" Miller agreed.\n\nNaomi was good. Very good. Holden had discovered this when he'd signed on with the Canterbury, and over the course of years, he'd added it to his list of facts, along with space is cold and the direction of gravity is down. When something stopped working on the water hauler, he'd tell Naomi to fix it, and then never think of it again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sometimes she'd claim not to be able to fix something, but it was always a negotiating tactic." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A short conversation would lead to a request for spare parts or an additional crewman hired on at the next port, and that would be that. There was no problem that involved electronics or spaceship parts she couldn't solve.\n\n\"I can't open the safe,\" she said.\n\nShe floated next to the safe in the captain's quarters, one foot resting lightly on his bunk to stabilize herself as she gestured." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden stood on the floor with his boot mags on." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller was in the hatchway to the corridor.\n\n\"What would you need?\" Holden asked.\n\n\"If you won't let me blast it or cut it, I can't open it.\"\n\nHolden shook his head, but Naomi either didn't see it or ignored him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The safe is designed to open when a very specific pattern of magnetic fields is played across that metal plate on the front,\" she said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Someone has a key designed to do that, but that key isn't on this ship.\"\n\n\"It's at that station,\" Miller said. \"He wouldn't send it there if they couldn't open it.\"\n\nHolden stared at the wall safe for a moment, his fingers tapping on the bulkhead beside it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What're the chances cutting it sets off a booby trap?\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Fucking excellent, Cap,\" Amos said. He was listening in from the torpedo bay as he hacked the small fusion reactor that powered one of the six remaining torpedoes to go critical. Working on the ship's main reactor was too dangerous with the shielding stripped off.\n\n\"Naomi, I really want that safe and the research notes and samples it contains,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You don't know that's what's in there,\" Miller said, then laughed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, of course that's what's in there. But it won't help us if we get blown up or, worse, if some piece of goo-coated shrapnel makes a hole in our nice suits.\"\n\n\"I'm taking it,\" Holden replied, then pulled a piece of chalk from his suit's pocket and drew a line around the safe on the bulkhead. \"Naomi, cut a small hole in the bulkhead and see if there's anything that would stop us from just cutting the whole damned thing out and taking it with us.\"\n\n\"We'd have to take out half the wall.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Okay.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Naomi frowned, then shrugged, then smiled and nodded with one hand.\n\n\"All right, then,\" she said. \"Thinking of taking it to Fred's people?\"\n\nMiller laughed again, a dry humorless rasp that made Holden uneasy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The detective had been watching the video of Julie Mao's fight with her captors over and over again while they'd waited on Naomi and Amos to finish their work." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It gave Holden the disquieting feeling that Miller was storing the footage in his head. Fuel for something he planned to do later.\n\n\"Mars would give you your lives back in exchange for this,\" Miller said. \"I hear Mars is nice if you're rich.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Fuck rich,\" Amos said with a grunt as he worked on something below." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They'd build statues of us.\"\n\n\"We have an agreement with Fred to let him outbid any other contracts we take,\" Holden said. \"Of course, this isn't really a contract per se...\"\n\nNaomi smiled and winked at Holden." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So what is it, sir?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "she said, her voice faintly mocking. \"OPA heroes? Martian billionaires? Start your own biotech firm? What are we doing here?\"\n\nHolden pushed away from the safe and kicked out toward the airlock and the cutting torch that waited there with their other tools.\n\n\"I don't know yet,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But it sure feels nice to have choices again.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amos pushed the button again. No new stars flared in the dark. The radiation and infrared sensors remained quiet.\n\n\"There's supposed to be an explosion, right?\" Holden asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Fuck, yes,\" Amos said, then pushed the button on the black box in his hand a third time." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This isn't an exact science or anything. Those missile drives are as simple as it gets. Just a reactor with one wall missing. Can't exactly predict...\"\n\n\"It isn't rocket science,\" Holden said with a laugh.\n\n\"What?\" Amos asked, ready to be angry if he was being mocked.\n\n\"You know, 'it isn't rocket science,'\" Holden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Like 'it isn't hard.' You're a rocket scientist, Amos. For real. You work on fusion reactors and starship drives for a living. Couple hundred years ago, people would have been lining up to give you their children for what you know.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What the fu—\" Amos started, but stopped when a new sun flared outside the cockpit window, then faded quickly. \"See? Fucking told you it would work.\"\n\n\"Never doubted it,\" Holden said, then slapped Amos on one meaty shoulder and headed aft down the crew ladder.\n\n\"What the fuck was that about?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Amos asked no one in particular as Holden drifted away." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He headed through the ops deck. Naomi's chair was empty. He'd ordered her to get some sleep. Strapped down to loops inset in the deck was the stealth ship's safe." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It looked bigger cut out of the wall." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Black and imposingly solid. The kind of container in which one kept the end of the solar system.\n\nHolden floated over to it and quietly said, \"Open sesame.\"\n\nThe safe ignored him, but the deck hatch opened and Miller pulled himself up into the compartment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His environment suit had been traded in for a stale-smelling blue jumpsuit and his ever-present hat." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was something about the look on his face that made Holden uncomfortable. Even more so than the detective usually made him.\n\n\"Hey,\" Holden said.\n\nMiller just nodded and pulled himself over to one of the workstations, then buckled in to one of the chairs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We decided on a destination yet?\" he asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No. I'm having Alex run the numbers on a couple of possibilities, but I haven't made up my mind.\"\n\n\"Been watching the news at all?\" the detective asked.\n\nHolden shook his head, then moved over to a chair on the other side of the compartment. Something in Miller's face was chilling his blood." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No,\" he said. \"What happened?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You don't hedge, Holden. I admire that about you, I guess.\"\n\n\"Just tell me,\" Holden said.\n\n\"No, I mean it. A lot of people claim to believe in things. 'Family is most important,' but they'll screw a fifty-dollar hooker on payday. 'Country first,' but they cheat on their taxes. Not you, though. You say everyone should know everything, and by God, you put your money where your mouth is.\"\n\nMiller waited for him to say something, but Holden didn't know what." }, { "from": "human", "value": "This speech had the feel of something the detective had prepared ahead of time." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Might as well let him finish it.\n\n\"So Mars finds out that maybe Earth's been building ships on the side, ones with no flag on them. Some of them might have killed a Martian flagship. I bet Mars calls up to check. I mean, it's the Earth-Mars Coalition Navy, one big happy hegemony. Been policing the solar system together for almost a hundred years. Commanding officers are practically sleeping together. So it must be a mistake, right?\"\n\n\"Okay,\" Holden said, waiting.\n\n\"So Mars calls,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I mean, I don't know for sure, but I bet that's how it starts. A call from some bigwig on Mars to some bigwig on Earth.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Seems reasonable,\" Holden said.\n\n\"What d'you think Earth says back?\"\n\n\"I don't know.\"\n\nMiller reached over and flipped on one of the screens, then pulled up a file with his name on it, date stamped from less than an hour before." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A recording of video from a Martian news source, showing the night sky through a Martian dome." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Streaks and flashes fill the sky. The ticker across the bottom of the feed says that Earth ships in orbit around Mars suddenly and without warning fired on their Martian counterparts. The streaks in the sky are missiles. The flashes are ships dying." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And then a massive white flare turns the Martian night into day for a few seconds, and the crawl says that the Deimos deep radar station has been destroyed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden sat and watched the video display the end of the solar system in vivid color and with expert commentary. He kept waiting for the streaks of light to begin descending on the planet itself, for the domes to fly apart in nuclear fire, but it seemed someone had kept some measure of restraint, and the battle remained in the sky.\n\nIt couldn't stay that way forever.\n\n\"You're telling me that I did this,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That if I hadn't broadcast that data, those ships would still be alive. Those people.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your next one should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That, yeah. And that if the bad guys wanted to keep people from watching Eros, it just worked.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Mode:\nCo-writing\n\nLength:\nfour sentences\n\nStyle:\nJames S. A. Corey" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The war stories flowed in." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller watched the feeds five at a time, subscreens crowding the face of his terminal. Mars was shocked, amazed, reeling. The war between Mars and the Belt—the biggest, most dangerous conflict in the history of mankind—was suddenly a sideshow. The reactions of the talking heads of Earth security forces ran the gamut from calm, rational discussion of preemptive defense to foaming-at-the-mouth denunciations of Mars as a pack of baby-raping animals." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The attack on Deimos had turned the moon into a slowly spreading ring of gravel in the moon's old orbit, a smudge on the Martian sky, and with that, the game had changed again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller watched for ten hours as the attack became the blockade. The Martian navy, spread throughout the system, was turning home under heavy burn. The OPA feeds were calling it a victory, and maybe someone thought that was true. The pictures came through from the ships, from the sensor arrays." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dead warships, their sides ripped open by high-energy explosions, spinning out into their irregular orbital graves." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Medical bays like the Roci's filled with boys and girls half his age bleeding, burning, dying. Each cycle, new footage came in, new details of death and carnage. And each time some new clip appeared, he sat forward, hand on his mouth, waiting for the word to come. The one event that would signal the end of it all." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But it hadn't come yet, and every hour that didn't bring it gave another sliver of hope that maybe, maybe it wasn't going to happen." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hey,\" Amos said. \"You slept at all?\"\n\nMiller looked up, his neck stiff. Red creases of his pillow still on his cheek and forehead, the mechanic stood in the open doorway of Miller's cabin.\n\n\"What?\" Miller said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then: \"Yeah, no. I've been... watching.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Anyone drop a rock?\"\n\n\"Not yet. It's all still orbital or higher.\"\n\n\"What kind of half-assed apocalypse are they running down there?\" Amos said.\n\n\"Give 'em a break. It's their first.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The mechanic shook his broad head, but Miller could see the relief under the feigned disgust." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As long as the domes were still standing on Mars, as long as the critical biosphere of Earth wasn't in direct threat, humanity wasn't dead. Miller had to wonder what they were hoping for out in the Belt, whether they'd managed to talk themselves into believing that the rough ecological pockets of the asteroids would sustain life indefinitely.\n\n\"You want a beer?\" Amos asked.\n\n\"You're having beer for breakfast?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Figure it's dinner for you,\" Amos said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The man was right. Miller needed sleep. He hadn't managed more than a catnap since they'd scuttled the stealth ship, and that had been plagued by strange dreams. He yawned at the thought of yawning, but the tension in his gut said he was more likely to spend the day watching newsfeeds than resting.\n\n\"It's probably breakfast again,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Want some beer for breakfast?\" Amos asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sure.\"\n\nWalking through the Rocinante felt surreal. The quiet hum of the air recyclers, the softness of the air. The journey out to Julie's ship was a haze of pain medication and sickness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The time on Eros before that was a nightmare that wouldn't fade." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To walk through the spare, functional corridors, thrust gravity holding him gently to the floor, with very little chance of anyone trying to kill him felt suspicious. When he imagined Julie walking with him, it wasn't so bad.\n\nAs he ate, his terminal chimed, the automatic reminder for another blood flush. He stood, adjusted his hat, and headed off to let the needles and pressure injectors do their worst." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The captain was already there and hooked into a station when Miller arrived." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden looked like he'd slept, but not well. There weren't the bruise-dark marks under his eyes that Miller had, but his shoulders were tense, his brow on the edge of furrowed. Miller wondered whether he'd been a little too hard on the guy. I told you so could be an important message, but the burden of innocent death, of the chaos of a failing civilization might also be too much for one man to carry." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Or maybe he was still mooning over Naomi." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden raised the hand that wasn't encased in medical equipment.\n\n\"Morning,\" Miller said.\n\n\"Hey.\"\n\n\"Decided where we're going yet?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Not yet.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Getting harder and harder to get to Mars,\" Miller said, easing himself into the familiar embrace of the medical station. \"If that's what you're aiming for, you'd better do it soon.\"\n\n\"While there's still a Mars, you mean?\"\n\n\"For instance,\" Miller agreed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The needles snaked out on gently articulated armatures." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller looked at the ceiling, trying not to tense up as the lines forced their way into his veins. There was a moment's stinging, then a low, dull ache, and then numbness. The display above him announced the state of his body to doctors who were watching young soldiers die miles above Olympus Mons.\n\n\"Do you think they'd stop?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden asked. \"I mean, Earth has got to be doing this because Protogen owns some generals or senators or something, right? It's all because they want to be the only ones who have this thing. If Mars has it too, Protogen doesn't have a reason to fight.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller blinked. Before he could pick his answer—They'd try to annihilate Mars completely, or It's gone too far for that, or Exactly how naive are you, Captain?—Holden went on.\n\n\"Screw it. We've got the datafiles. I'm going to broadcast them.\"\n\nMiller's reply was as easy as reflex.\n\n\"No, you aren't.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden propped himself up, storm clouds in his expression." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I appreciate that you might have a reasonable difference of opinion,\" he said, \"but this is still my ship. You're a passenger.\"\n\n\"True,\" Miller said. \"But you have a hard time shooting people, and you are going to have to shoot me before you send that thing out.\"\n\n\"I'm what?\"\n\nThe new blood flowed into Miller's system like a tickle of ice water crawling toward his heart." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The medical monitors shifted to a new pattern, counting up the anomalous cells as they hit its filters." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You are going to have to shoot me,\" Miller said, slowly this time. \"Twice now you've had the choice of whether or not to break the solar system, and both times you've screwed it up. I don't want to see you strike out.\"\n\n\"I think you may have an exaggerated idea of how much influence the second-in-command of a long-distance water hauler actually has. Yes, there's a war. And yes, I was there when it started up. But the Belt has hated the inner planets since a long time before the Cant was attacked.\"\n\n\"You've got the inner planets divided up too,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden tilted his head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Earth has always hated Mars,\" Holden said like he was reporting that water was wet. \"When I was in the navy, we ran projections for this. Battle plans if Earth and Mars ever really got into it. Earth loses. Unless they hit first, hit hard, and don't let up, Earth just plain loses.\"\n\nMaybe it was distance. Maybe it was a failure of imagination." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller had never seen the inner planets as divided." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Seriously?\" he asked.\n\n\"They're the colony, but they have all the best toys and everyone knows it,\" Holden said. \"Everything that's happening out there right now has been building up for a hundred years. If it hadn't been there to start with, this couldn't have happened.\"\n\n\"That's your defense? 'Not my powder keg; I just brought the match'?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm not making a defense,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His blood pressure and heart rate were spiking.\n\n\"We've been through this,\" Miller said. \"So let me just ask, why is it you think this time will be different?\"\n\nThe needles in Miller's arm seemed to heat up almost to the point of being painful." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He wondered if that was normal, if every blood flush he had was going to feel the same way." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This time is different,\" Holden said. \"All the crap that's going on out there is what happens when you have imperfect information. Mars and the Belt wouldn't have been going after each other in the first place if they'd known what we know now. Earth and Mars wouldn't be shooting each other if everyone knew the fight was being engineered. The problem isn't that people know too much, it's that they don't know enough.\"\n\nSomething hissed and Miller felt a wave of chemical relaxation swim through him. He resented it, but there was no calling the drugs back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You can't just throw information at people,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You have to know what it means. What it's going to do. There was a case back on Ceres. Little girl got killed. For the first eighteen hours, we were all sure Daddy did it. He was a felon. A drunk. He was the last one who saw her breathing. All the classic signs. Hour nineteen, we get a tip. Turned out Daddy owed a lot of money to one of the local syndicates. All of a sudden, things are more complicated. We have more suspects. Do you think if I'd been broadcasting everything I knew, Daddy would still have been alive when the tip came? Or would someone have put it all together and done the obvious thing?\"\n\nMiller's medical station chimed. Another new cancer. He ignored it. Holden's cycle was just finishing, the redness of his cheeks speaking as much to the fresh, healthy blood in his body as to his emotional state." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's the same ethos they have,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Who?\"\n\n\"Protogen. You may be on different sides, but you're playing the same game. If everyone said what they knew, none of this would have happened. If the first lab tech on Phoebe who saw something weird had gotten on his system and said, 'Hey, everyone! Look, this is weird,' none of this would have happened.\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" Miller said, \"because telling everyone there's an alien virus that wants to kill them all is a great way to maintain calm and order.\"\n\n\"Miller,\" Holden said. \"I don't mean to panic you, but there's an alien virus. And it wants to kill everyone.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller shook his head and smiled like Holden had said something funny." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So look, maybe I can't point a gun at you and make you do the right thing. But lemme ask you something. Okay?\"\n\n\"Fine,\" Holden said. Miller leaned back. The drugs were making his eyelids heavy.\n\n\"What happens?\" Miller said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was a long pause." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Another chime from the medical system. Another rush of cold through Miller's abused veins.\n\n\"What happens?\" Holden repeated. It occurred to Miller he could have been more specific." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He forced his eyes open again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You broadcast everything we've got. What happens?\"\n\n\"The war stops. People go after Protogen.\"\n\n\"There's some holes in that, but let it go. What happens after that?\"\n\nHolden was quiet for a few heartbeats." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"People start going after the Phoebe bug,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They start experimenting. They start fighting for it. If that little bastard's as valuable as Protogen thinks, you can't stop the war. All you can do now is change it.\"\n\nHolden frowned, angry lines at the corners of his mouth and eyes. Miller watched a little piece of the man's idealism die and was sorry that it gave him joy.\n\n\"So what happens if we get to Mars?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller went on, his voice low." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We trade out the protomolecule for more money than any of us have ever seen. Or maybe they just shoot you. Mars just wins against Earth. And the Belt. Or you go to the OPA, who are the best hope the Belt has of independence, and they're a bunch of crazy zealots, half of 'em thinking we can actually sustain out there without Earth. And trust me, they'll probably shoot you too. Or you just tell everyone everything and pretend that however it comes down, you kept your hands clean.\"\n\n\"There's a right thing to do,\" Holden said.\n\n\"You don't have a right thing, friend,\" Miller said. \"You've got a whole plateful of maybe a little less wrong.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden's blood flush finished." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The captain pulled the needles out of his arm and let the thin metallic tentacles retract. As he rolled down his sleeve, the frown softened.\n\n\"People have a right to know what's going on,\" Holden said. \"Your argument boils down to you not thinking people are smart enough to figure out the right way to use it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Has anyone used anything you've broadcast as something besides an excuse to shoot someone they already didn't like? Giving them a new reason won't stop them killing each other,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You started these wars, Captain. Doesn't mean you can stop them. But you have to try.\"\n\n\"And how am I supposed to do that?\" Holden said. The distress in his voice could have been anger. It could have been prayer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Something in Miller's belly shifted, some inflamed organ calming enough to slip back into place." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He hadn't been aware he'd felt wrong until he suddenly felt right again.\n\n\"You ask yourself what happens,\" Miller said. \"Ask yourself what Naomi'd do.\"\n\nHolden barked out a laugh." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Is that how you make your decisions?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller let his eyes close. Juliette Mao was there, sitting on the couch at her old apartment on Ceres. Fighting the crew of the stealth ship to a standstill. Burst open by the alien virus on the floor of her shower stall." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Something like it,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The report from Ceres, a break from the usual competing press releases, came that night. The governing council of the OPA announced that a ring of Martian spies had been rooted out. The video feed showed the bodies floating out an industrial airlock in what looked like the old docks in sector six. At a distance, the victims seemed almost peaceful." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The feed cut to the head of security." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Captain Shaddid looked older. Harder.\n\n\"We regret the necessity of this action,\" she said to everyone everywhere. \"But in the cause of freedom, there can be no compromise.\"\n\nThat's what it's come to, Miller thought, rubbing a hand across his chin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Pogroms after all. Cut off just a hundred more heads, just a thousand more heads, just ten thousand more heads, and then we'll be free." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A soft alert sounded, and a moment later, gravity shifted a few degrees to Miller's left. Course change. Holden had made a decision.\n\nHe found the captain sitting alone and staring at a monitor in ops. The glow lit his face from below, casting shadows up into his eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The captain looked older too." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You make the broadcast?\" Miller asked.\n\n\"Nope. We're just one ship. We tell everyone what this thing is and that we've got it, we'll be dead before Protogen.\"\n\n\"Probably true,\" Miller said, sitting at an empty station with a grunt. The gimbaled seat shifted silently. \"We're going someplace.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't trust them with it,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't trust any of them with that safe.\"\n\n\"Probably smart.\"\n\n\"I'm going to Tycho Station. There's someone there I... trust.\"\n\n\"Trust?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't actively distrust.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Naomi think it's the right thing?\"\n\n\"I don't know. I didn't ask her. But I think so.\"\n\n\"Close enough,\" Miller said.\n\nHolden looked up from the monitor for the first time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You know the right thing?\" Holden said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yeah.\"\n\n\"What is it?\"\n\n\"Throw that safe into a long collision course with the sun and find a way to make sure no one ever, ever goes to Eros or Phoebe again,\" Miller said. \"Pretend none of this ever happened.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So why aren't we doing that?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your next one should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller nodded slowly. \"How do you throw away the holy grail?\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Expand the story by adding four sentences." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alex had the Rocinante running at three-quarters of a g for two hours while the crew prepared and ate dinner." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He would run it back up to three when the break was over, but in the meantime, Holden enjoyed standing on his own two legs at something not too far off from Earth gravity. It was a little heavy for Naomi and Miller, but neither of them complained. They both understood the need for haste.\n\nOnce the gravity had dropped from the crush of high acceleration, the whole crew quietly gathered in the galley and started making dinner." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Naomi blended together fake eggs and fake cheese." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amos cooked tomato paste and the last of their fresh mushrooms into a red sauce that actually smelled like the real thing. Alex, who had the duty watch, had forwarded ship ops down to a panel in the galley and sat at a table next to it, spreading the fake cheese paste and red sauce onto flat noodles in hopes that the end result would approximate lasagna. Holden had oven duty and had spent the lasagna prep time baking frozen lumps of dough into bread. The smell in the galley was not entirely unlike actual food." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller had followed the crew into the galley but seemed uncomfortable asking for something to do." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Instead, he set the table and then sat down at it and watched. He wasn't exactly avoiding Holden's eyes, but he wasn't going out of his way to catch his attention. By unspoken mutual agreement, no one had any of the news channels on. Holden was sure everyone would rush back to check the current state of the war as soon as dinner was over, but for now they all worked in companionable silence." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When the prep was done, Holden switched off bread duty and on to moving lasagna-filled cookware into and out of the oven." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Naomi sat down next to Alex and began a quiet conversation with him about something she'd seen on the ops screen. Holden split his time between watching her and watching the lasagna. She laughed at something Alex said and unconsciously twisted one finger into her hair. Holden felt his belly tighten a notch." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw Miller staring at him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When he looked, the detective had turned away, a hint of a smile on his face. Naomi laughed again. She had one hand on Alex's arm, and the pilot was blushing and talking as fast as his silly Martian drawl would let him. They looked like friends. That both made Holden happy and filled him with jealousy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He wondered if Naomi would ever be his friend again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She caught him looking and gave him a conspiratorial wink that probably would have made a lot of sense if he'd been able to hear what Alex was saying. He smiled and winked back, grateful just to be included in the moment. A sizzling sound from inside the oven called his attention back. The lasagna was beginning to bubble and run over the sides of the dishes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He pulled on his oven mitts and opened the door." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Soup's on,\" he said, pulling the first of the dishes and putting it on the table.\n\n\"That's mighty ugly-looking soup,\" Amos said.\n\n\"Uh, yeah,\" Holden said. \"It's just something Mother Tamara used to say when she'd finished cooking. Not sure where it comes from.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"One of your three mothers did the cooking? How traditional,\" Naomi said with a smirk." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, she split it pretty evenly with Caesar, one of my fathers.\"\n\nNaomi smiled at him, a genuine smile now.\n\n\"It sounds really nice,\" she said. \"Big family like that.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yeah, it really was,\" he replied, a vision in his head of nuclear fire tearing apart the Montana farmhouse he'd grown up in, his family blowing into ash." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If it happened, he was sure Miller would be there to let him know it was his fault. He wasn't sure he'd be able to argue anymore.\n\nAs they ate, Holden felt a slow release of tension in the room. Amos belched loudly, then reacted to the chorus of protests by doing it again even more loudly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alex retold the joke that had made Naomi laugh." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even Miller got into the mood and told a long and increasingly improbable story about hunting down a black market cheese operation that ended in a gunfight with nine naked Australians in an illegal brothel. By the finish of the story, Naomi was laughing so hard she'd drooled on her shirt, and Amos kept repeating \"No fucking way!\" like a mantra.\n\nThe story was amusing enough, and the detective's dry delivery suited it well, but Holden only half listened. He watched his crew, saw the tension falling from their faces and shoulders." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He and Amos were both from Earth, though if he had to guess, he'd say Amos had forgotten about his home world the first time he'd shipped out." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alex was from Mars and clearly still loved it. One bad mistake on either side and both planets might be radioactive rubble by the end of dinner. But right now they were just friends having a meal together. It was right. It was what Holden had to keep fighting for." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I actually remember that cheese shortage,\" Naomi said once Miller had stopped talking." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Belt-wide. That was your fault?\"\n\n\"Yeah, well, if they'd only been sneaking cheese past the government auditors, we wouldn't have had a problem,\" Miller said. \"But they had this habit of shooting the other cheese smugglers. Makes the cops notice. Bad business.\"\n\n\"Over fucking cheese?\" Amos said, tossing his fork onto his plate with a clack." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are you serious? I mean, drugs or gambling or something. But cheese?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Gambling's legal, most places,\" Miller said. \"And a chemistry class dropout can cook up just about any drug you like in his bathroom. No way to control supply.\"\n\n\"Real cheese comes from Earth, or Mars,\" Naomi added. \"And after they tack on shipping costs and the Coalition's fifty percent in taxes, it costs more than fuel pellets.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We wound up with one hundred and thirty kilos of Vermont Cheddar in the evidence lockup,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Street value that would have probably bought someone their own ship. It had disappeared by the end of the day. We wrote it up as lost to spoilage. No one said a word, as long as everyone went home with a brick.\"\n\nThe detective leaned back in his chair with a distant look on his face.\n\n\"My God, that was good cheese,\" he said with a smile.\n\n\"Yeah, well, this fake stuff does taste like shit,\" Amos said, then added in a hurry, \"No offense, Boss, you did a real good job whipping it up. But that's still weird to me, fighting over cheese.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's why they killed Eros,\" Naomi said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller nodded but said nothing.\n\n\"How do you figure that?\" Amos said.\n\n\"How long have you been flying?\" Naomi asked.\n\n\"I dunno,\" Amos replied, his lips compressing as he did the mental math. \"Twenty-five years, maybe?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Fly with a lot of Belters, right?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yeah,\" Amos said. \"Can't get better shipmates than Belters. 'Cept me, of course.\"\n\n\"You've flown with us for twenty-five years, you like us, you've learned the patois. I bet you can order a beer and a hooker on any station in the Belt. Heck, if you were a little taller and a lot skinnier, you could pass for one of us by now.\"\n\nAmos smiled, taking it as a compliment.\n\n\"But you still don't get us,\" Naomi said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Not really. No one who grew up with free air ever will. And that's why they can kill a million and a half of us to figure out what their bug really does.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hey now,\" Alex interjected. \"You serious 'bout that? You think the inners and outers see themselves as that different?\"\n\n\"Of course they do,\" Miller said. \"We're too tall, too skinny, our heads look too big, and our joints too knobby.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden noticed Naomi glancing across the table at him, a speculative look on her face." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I like your head, Holden thought at her, but the radiation hadn't given him telepathy either, because her expression didn't change.\n\n\"We've practically got our own language now,\" Miller said. \"Ever see an Earther try to get directions in the deep dig?\"\n\n\"'Tu run spin, pow, Schlauch tu way acima and ido,'\" Naomi said with a heavy Belter accent." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Go spinward to the tube station, which will take you back to the docks,\" Amos said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The fuck's so hard about that?\"\n\n\"I had a partner wouldn't have known that after two years on Ceres,\" Miller said. \"And Havelock wasn't stupid. He just wasn't... from there.\"\n\nHolden listened to them talk and pushed cold pasta around on his plate with a chunk of bread." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Okay, we get it,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're weird. But to kill a million and a half people over some skeletal differences and slang...\"\n\n\"People have been getting tossed into ovens for less than that ever since they invented ovens,\" Miller said. \"If it makes you feel better, most of us think you're squat and microcephalic.\"\n\nAlex shook his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't make a lick of sense to me, turnin' that bug loose, even if you hated every single human on Eros personally. Who knows what that thing'll do?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Naomi walked to the galley sink and washed her hands, the running water drawing everyone's attention.\n\n\"I've been thinking about that,\" she said, then turned around, wiping her hands on a towel. \"The point of it, I mean.\"\n\nMiller started to speak, but Holden hushed him with a quick gesture and waited for Naomi to continue." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So,\" she said. \"I've been thinking of it as a computing problem. If the virus or nanomachine or protomolecule or whatever was designed, it has a purpose, right?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Definitely,\" Holden said.\n\n\"And it seems like it's trying to do something—something complex. It doesn't make sense to go to all that trouble just to kill people. Those changes it makes look intentional, just... not complete, to me.\"\n\n\"I can see that,\" Holden said. Alex and Amos nodded along with him but stayed quiet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So maybe the issue is that the protomolecule isn't smart enough yet. You can compress a lot of data down pretty small, but unless it's a quantum computer, processing takes space. The easiest way to get that processing in tiny machines is through distribution. Maybe the protomolecule isn't finishing its job because it just isn't smart enough to. Yet.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not enough of them,\" Alex said.\n\n\"Right,\" Naomi said, dropping the towel into a bin under the sink. \"So you give them a lot of biomass to work with, and see what it is they are ultimately made to do.\"\n\n\"According to that guy in the video, they were made to hijack life on Earth and wipe us out,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And that,\" Holden said, \"is why Eros is perfect. Lots of biomass in a vacuum-sealed test tube. And if it gets out of hand, there's already a war going on. A lot of ships and missiles can be used for nuking Eros into glass if the threat seems real. Nothing to make us forget our differences like a new player butting in.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Wow,\" Amos said. \"That is really, really fucked up.\"\n\n\"Okay. But even though that's probably what's happened,\" Holden said, \"I still can't believe that there are enough evil people all in one place to do it. This isn't a one-man operation. This is the work of dozens, maybe hundreds, of very smart people. Does Protogen just go around recruiting every potential Stalin and Jack the Ripper it runs across?\"\n\n\"I'll make sure to ask Mr. Dresden,\" Miller said, an unreadable expression on his face, \"when we finally meet.\"\n\nTycho's habitat rings spun serenely around the bloated zero-g factory globe in the center." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The massive construction waldoes that sprouted from the top were maneuvering an enormous piece of hull plating onto the side of the Nauvoo." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Looking at the station on the ops screens while Alex finished up docking procedures, Holden felt something like relief. So far, Tycho was the one place no one had tried to shoot them, or blow them up, or vomit goo on them, and that practically made it home.\n\nHolden looked at the research safe clamped securely to the deck and hoped that he hadn't just killed everyone on the station by bringing it there.\n\nAs if on cue, Miller pulled himself through the deck hatch and drifted over to the safe." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He gave Holden a meaningful look." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't say it. I'm already thinking it,\" Holden said.\n\nMiller shrugged and drifted over to the ops station.\n\n\"Big,\" he said, nodding at the Nauvoo, on Holden's screen.\n\n\"Generation ship,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Something like that will give us the stars.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Or a lonely death on a long trip to nowhere,\" Miller replied.\n\n\"You know,\" Holden said, \"some species' version of the great galactic adventure is shooting virus-filled bullets at their neighbors. I think ours is pretty damn noble in comparison.\"\n\nMiller seemed to consider that, nodded, and watched Tycho Station swell on the monitor as Alex brought them closer. The detective kept one hand on the console, making the micro adjustments necessary to remain still even as the pilot's maneuvers threw unexpected bursts of gravity at them from every direction." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden was strapped into his chair." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even concentrating, he couldn't handle zero g and intermittent thrust half that well. His brain just couldn't be trained out of the twenty-odd years he'd spent with gravity as a constant.\n\nNaomi was right. It would be so easy to see Belters as alien. Hell, if you gave them time to develop some really efficient implantable oxygen storage and recycling and kept trimming the environment suits down to the minimum necessary for heat, you might wind up with Belters who spent more time outside their ships and stations than in." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Maybe that was why they were taxed to subsistence level." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The bird was out of the cage, but you couldn't let it stretch its wings too far or it might forget it belonged to you.\n\n\"You trust this Fred?\" Miller asked.\n\n\"Sort of,\" Holden said. \"He treated us well last time, when everyone else wanted us dead or locked up.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller grunted, as if that proved nothing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He's OPA, right?\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" Holden said. \"But I think maybe the real OPA. Not the cowboys who want to shoot it out with the inners. And not those nuts on the radio calling for war. Fred's a politician.\"\n\n\"What about the ones keeping Ceres in line?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't know about them. But Fred's the best shot we have. Least wrong.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Fair enough,\" Miller said. \"We won't find a political solution to Protogen, you know.\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" Holden said, then began unbuckling his harness as the Roci slid into its berth with a series of metallic bangs. \"But Fred isn't just a politician.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fred sat behind his large wooden desk, reading the notes Holden had written about Eros, the search for Julie, and the discovery of the stealth ship." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller sat across from him, watching Fred like an entomologist might watch a new species of bug, guessing if it was likely to sting. Holden was a little farther away on Fred's right, trying not to keep looking at the clock on his hand terminal. On the huge screen behind the desk, the Nauvoo drifted by like the metal bones of some dead and decaying leviathan. Holden could see the tiny spots of brilliant blue light where workers used welding torches on the hull and frame." }, { "from": "human", "value": "To occupy himself, he started counting them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He'd reached forty-three when a small shuttle appeared in his field of view, a load of steel beams clutched in a pair of heavy manipulator arms, and flew toward the half-built generation ship. The shuttle shrank to a point no larger than the tip of a pen before it stopped. The Nauvoo suddenly shifted in Holden's mind from a large ship relatively nearby, to a gigantic ship farther away. It gave him a short rush of vertigo." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His hand terminal beeped at almost the same instant that Miller's did." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He didn't even look at it; he just tapped the face to shut it up. He knew this routine by now. He pulled out a small bottle, took out two blue pills, and swallowed them dry. He could hear Miller pouring pills out of his bottle as well." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The ship's expert medical system dispensed them for him every week with a warning that failing to take them on schedule would lead to horrific death." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He took them. He would for the rest of his life. Missing a few would just mean that wasn't very long.\n\nFred finished reading and threw his hand terminal down on the desk, then rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands for several seconds. To Holden, he looked older than the last time they'd seen each other." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I have to tell you, Jim, I have no idea what to make of this,\" he finally said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller looked at Holden and mouthed, Jim, at him with a question on his face. Holden ignored him.\n\n\"Did you read Naomi's addition at the end?\" Holden asked.\n\n\"The bit with the networked nanobugs for increased processing power?\"\n\n\"Yeah, that bit,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It makes sense, Fred.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fred laughed without humor, then stabbed one finger at his terminal.\n\n\"That,\" he said. \"That only makes sense to a psychopath. No one sane could do that. No matter what they thought they might get out of it.\"\n\nMiller cleared his throat.\n\n\"You have something to add, Mr. Muller?\" Fred asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Miller,\" the detective replied." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes. First—and all respect here—don't kid yourself. Genocide's old-school. Second, the facts aren't in question. Protogen infected Eros Station with a lethal alien disease, and they're recording the results. Why doesn't matter. We need to stop them.\"\n\n\"And,\" Holden said, \"we think we can track down where their observation station is.\"\n\nFred leaned back in his chair, the fake leather and metal frame creaking under his weight even in the one-third g.\n\n\"Stop them how?\" he asked. Fred knew." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He just wanted to hear them say it out loud. Miller played along." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'd say we fly to their station and shoot them.\"\n\n\"Who is 'we'?\" Fred asked.\n\n\"There are a lot of OPA hotheads looking to shoot it out with Earth and Mars,\" Holden said. \"We give them some real bad guys to shoot at instead.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fred nodded in a way that didn't mean he agreed to anything." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And your sample? The captain's safe?\" Fred said.\n\n\"That's mine,\" Holden said. \"No negotiation on that.\"\n\nFred laughed again, though there was some humor in it this time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller blinked in surprise and then stifled a grin." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why would I agree to that?\" Fred asked.\n\nHolden lifted his chin and smiled.\n\n\"What if I told you that I've hidden the safe on a planetesimal booby-trapped with enough plutonium to break anyone who touches it into their component atoms even if they could find it?\" he said.\n\nFred stared at him for a moment, then said, \"But you didn't.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well, no,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Now write approximately 5 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But I could tell you I did.\"\n\n\"You are too honest,\" Fred said.\n\n\"And you can't trust anyone with something this big. You already know what I'm going to do with it. That's why, until we can agree on something better, you're leaving it with me.\"\n\nFred nodded.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said, \"I guess I am.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "The user will write a bit then you need to write around four sentences continuing directly from the user's text. Try to mimic the style of James S. A. Corey.Produce four sentences using the prose and structure of James S. A. Corey every time its your turn using what the user wrote as a seed." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The observation deck looked out over the Nauvoo as the behemoth slowly came together. Miller sat on the edge of a soft couch, his fingers laced over his knee, his gaze on the immense vista of the construction. After his time on Holden's ship and, before that, in Eros, with its old-style closed architecture, a view so wide seemed artificial. The deck itself was wider than the Rocinante and decorated with soft ferns and sculpted ivies." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The air recyclers were eerily quiet, and even though the spin gravity was nearly the same as Ceres', the Coriolis felt subtly wrong." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He'd lived in the Belt his whole life, and he'd never been anywhere that was designed so carefully for the tasteful display of wealth and power. It was pleasant as long as he didn't think about it too much.\n\nHe wasn't the only one drawn to the open spaces of Tycho. A few dozen station workers sat in groups or walked through together." }, { "from": "human", "value": "An hour before, Amos and Alex had gone by, deep in their own conversation, so he wasn't entirely surprised when, standing up and walking back toward the docks, he saw Naomi sitting by herself with a bowl of food cooling on a tray at her side." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her gaze was fixed on her hand terminal.\n\n\"Hey,\" he said.\n\nNaomi looked up, recognized him, and smiled distractedly.\n\n\"Hey,\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller nodded toward the hand terminal and shrugged a question." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Comm data from that ship,\" she said. It was always that ship, Miller noticed. The same way people would call a particularly godawful crime scene that place. \"It's all tightbeam, so I thought it wouldn't be so hard to triangulate. But...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Not so much?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Naomi lifted her eyebrows and sighed.\n\n\"I've been plotting orbits,\" she said. \"But nothing's fitting. There could be relay drones, though. Moving targets the ship system was calibrated for that would send the message on to the actual station. Or another drone, and then the station, or who knows?\"\n\n\"Any data coming off Eros?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I assume so,\" Naomi said, \"but I don't know that it would be any easier to make sense of than this.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Can't your OPA friends do something?\" Miller asked. \"They've got more processing power than one of these handhelds. Probably have a better activity map of the Belt too.\"\n\n\"Probably,\" she said.\n\nHe couldn't tell if she didn't trust this Fred that Holden had given them over to, or just needed to feel like the investigation was still hers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He considered telling her to back off it for a while, to let the others carry it, but he didn't see he had the moral authority to make that one stick." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What?\" Naomi said, an uncertain smile on her lips.\n\nMiller blinked.\n\n\"You were laughing a little,\" Naomi said. \"I don't think I've ever seen you laugh before. I mean, not when something was funny.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I was just thinking about something a partner of mine told me about letting cases go when you got pulled from them.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What did he say?\"\n\n\"That it's like taking half a shit,\" Miller said.\n\n\"Had a way with words, that one.\"\n\n\"He was all right for an Earther,\" Miller said, and something tickled at the back of his mind." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then, a moment later: \"Ah, Jesus. I may have something.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Havelock met him in an encrypted drop site that lived on a server cluster on Ganymede. The latency kept them from anything like real-time conversation. It was more like dropping notes, but it did the trick. The waiting made Miller anxious." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He sat with his terminal set to refresh every three seconds." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Would you like anything else?\" the woman asked. \"Another bourbon?\"\n\n\"That'd be great,\" Miller said, and checked to see if Havelock had replied yet. He hadn't.\n\nLike the observation deck, the bar looked out on the Nauvoo, though from a slightly different angle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The great ship looked foreshortened, and arcs of energy lit it where a layer of ceramic was annealing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A bunch of religious zealots were going to load themselves into that massive ship, that small self-sustaining world, and launch themselves into the darkness between the stars. Generations would live and die in it, and if they were mind-bendingly lucky enough to find a planet worth living on the end of the journey, the people who came out of it would never have known Earth or Mars or the Belt. They'd be aliens already. And if whatever had made the protomolecule was out there to greet them, then what?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Would they all die like Julie had?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was life out there. They had proof of it now. And the proof came in the shape of a weapon, so what did that tell him? Except that maybe the Mormons deserved a little warning about what they were signing their great-grandkids up for." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He laughed to himself when he realized that was exactly what Holden would say." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The bourbon arrived at the same moment his hand terminal chimed. The video file had a layered encryption that took almost a minute to unpack. That alone was a good sign.\n\nThe file opened, and Havelock grinned out from the screen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was in better shape than he'd been on Ceres, and it showed in the shape of his jaw." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His skin was darker, but Miller didn't know if it was purely cosmetic or if his old partner had been basking in false sunlight for the joy of it. It didn't matter. It made the Earther look rich and fit.\n\n\"Hey, buddy,\" Havelock said. \"Good to hear from you. After what happened with Shaddid and the OPA, I was afraid we were going to be on different sides now." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I'm glad you got out of there before the shit hit the fan." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yeah, I'm still with Protogen, and I've got to tell you, these guys are kind of scary. I mean, I've worked contract security before, and I'm pretty clear when someone's hard-core. These guys aren't cops. They're troops. You know what I mean?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Officially, I don't know dick about a Belt station, but you know how it is. I'm from Earth. There are a lot of these guys who gave me shit about Ceres. Working with the vacuum-heads. That kind of thing. But the way things are here, it's better to be on the good side of the bad guys. It's just that kind of job.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was an apology in his expression. Miller understood. Working in some corporations was like going to prison. You adopted the views of the people around you. A Belter might get hired on, but he'd never belong." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Like Ceres, just pointed the other way." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If Havelock had made friends with a set of inner planets mercs who spent their off nights curb-stomping Belters outside bars, then he had.\n\nBut making friends didn't mean he was one of them.\n\n\"So. Off the record, yeah, there's a black ops station in the Belt. I hadn't heard it called Thoth, but it could be." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Some sort of very scary deep research and development lab." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Heavy science crew, but not a huge place. I think discreet would be the word. Lots of automated defenses, but not a big ground crew.\n\n\"I don't need to tell you that leaking the coordinates would get my ass killed out here. So wipe the file when you're done, and let's not talk again for a long, long time.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The datafile was small." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Three lines of plaintext orbital notation. Miller put it into his hand terminal and killed the file off the Ganymede server. The bourbon still sat beside his hand, and he drank it off neat. The warmth in his chest might have been the alcohol or it might have been victory." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He turned on the hand terminal's camera." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Thanks. I owe you one. Here's part of the payment. What happened on Eros? Protogen was part of it, and it's big. If you get the chance to drop your contract with them, do it. And if they try to rotate you out to that black ops station, don't go.\"\n\nMiller frowned. The sad truth was that Havelock was probably the last real partner he'd had. The only one who'd looked on him as an equal. As the kind of detective Miller had imagined himself to be." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Take care of yourself, partner,\" he said, then ended the file, encrypted it, shipped it out." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had the bone-deep feeling he wasn't ever going to talk to Havelock again.\n\nHe put through a connection request to Holden. The screen filled with the captain's open, charming, vaguely naive face.\n\n\"Miller,\" Holden said. \"Everything okay?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yeah. Great. But I need to talk to your Fred guy. Can you arrange that?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden frowned and nodded at the same time.\n\n\"Sure. What's going on?\"\n\n\"I know where Thoth Station is,\" Miller said.\n\n\"You know what?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller nodded." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Where the hell did you get that?\"\n\nMiller grinned. \"If I gave you that information and it got out, a good man would get killed,\" he said. \"You see how that works?\"\n\nIt struck Miller as he, Holden, and Naomi waited for Fred that he knew an awful lot of inner planets types fighting against the inner planets." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Or at least not for them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fred, supposedly a high-ranking OPA member. Havelock. Three-quarters of the crew of the Rocinante. Juliette Mao.\n\nIt wasn't what he would have expected. But maybe that was shortsighted." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was seeing the thing the way Shaddid and Protogen did." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were two sides fighting—that was true enough—but they weren't the inner planets versus the Belters. They were the people who thought it was a good idea to kill people who looked or acted differently against the people who didn't.\n\nOr maybe that was a crap analysis too. Because given the chance to put the scientist from the Protogen pitch, the board of directors, and whoever this Dresden piece of shit was into an airlock, Miller knew he'd agonize about it for maybe half a second after he blew them all into vacuum." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Didn't put him on the side of angels." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Mr. Miller. What can I do for you?\"\n\nFred. The Earther OPA. He wore a blue button-down shirt and a nice pair of slacks. He could have been an architect or a mid-level administrator for any number of good, respectable corporations." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller tried to imagine him coordinating a battle." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You can convince me that you've really got what it takes to kill the Protogen station,\" Miller said. \"Then I'll tell you where it is.\"\n\nFred's eyebrows rose a millimeter.\n\n\"Come into my office,\" Fred said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller went. Holden and Naomi followed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When the doors closed behind them, Fred was the first to speak.\n\n\"I'm not sure exactly what you want from me. I'm not in the habit of making my battle plans public knowledge.\"\n\n\"We're talking about storming a station,\" Miller said. \"Something with damn good defenses and maybe more ships like the one that killed the Canterbury. No disrespect intended, but that's a pretty tall order for a bunch of amateurs like the OPA.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Ah, Miller?\" Holden said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller held up a hand, cutting him off.\n\n\"I can give you the directions to Thoth Station,\" Miller said. \"But if I do that and it turns out you haven't got the punch to see this through, then a lot of people die and nothing gets resolved. I'm not up for that.\"\n\nFred cocked his head, like a dog hearing an unfamiliar sound." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Naomi and Holden shared a glance that Miller couldn't parse." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This is a war,\" Miller said, warming to the subject. \"I've worked with the OPA before, and frankly you folks are a lot better at little guerrilla bullshit than at coordinating anything real. Half of the people who claim to speak for you are crackpots who happened to have a radio nearby. I see you've got a lot of money. I see you've got a nice office. What I don't see—what I need to see—is that you've got what it takes to bring these bastards down. Taking out a station isn't a game. I don't care how many simulations you've run. This is real now. If I'm going to help you, I need to know you can handle it.\"\n\nThere was a long silence.\n\n\"Miller?\" Naomi said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You know who Fred is, right?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The Tycho mouthpiece for the OPA,\" Miller said. \"That doesn't draw a whole lot of water with me.\"\n\n\"He's Fred Johnson,\" Holden said.\n\nFred's eyebrows rose another millimeter." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller frowned and crossed his arms." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Colonel Frederick Lucius Johnson,\" Naomi said, clarifying.\n\nMiller blinked. \"The Butcher of Anderson Station?\" he said.\n\n\"The same,\" Fred said. \"I have been talking with the central council of the OPA. I have a cargo ship with more than enough troops to secure the station. Air support is a state-of-the-art Martian torpedo bomber.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The Roci?\" Miller said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The Rocinante,\" Fred agreed. \"And while you may not believe it, I actually know what I'm doing.\"\n\nMiller looked at his feet, then up toward Holden.\n\n\"That Fred Johnson?\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I thought you knew,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well. Don't I feel like the flaming idiot,\" Miller said.\n\n\"It'll pass,\" Fred said. \"Was there anything else you wanted to demand?\"\n\n\"No,\" Miller said. And then: \"Yes. I want to be part of the ground assault. When we take that station crew, I want to be there.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are you sure?\" Fred said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"'Taking out a station isn't a game.' What makes you think you have what it takes?\"\n\nMiller shrugged.\n\n\"One thing it takes is the coordinates,\" Miller said. \"I have got those.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fred laughed. \"Mr. Miller. If you'd like to go down to this station and have whatever's waiting for us down there try to kill you along with the rest of us, I won't stand in your way.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Thanks,\" Miller said. He pulled up his hand terminal and sent the plaintext coordinates to Fred. \"There you go. My source is solid, but he's not working from firsthand data. We should confirm before we commit.\"\n\n\"I'm not an amateur,\" Colonel Fred Johnson said, looking at the file. Miller nodded, adjusted his hat, and walked out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Naomi and Holden flanked him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When they reached the wide, clean public hallway, Miller looked to his right, catching Holden's eyes.\n\n\"Really, I thought you knew,\" Holden said.\n\nEight days later, the message came. The cargo ship Guy Molinari had arrived, full up with OPA soldiers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Havelock's coordinates had been verified." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Something was sure as hell out there, and it appeared to be collecting the tightbeamed data from Eros. If Miller wanted to be part of this, the time had come to move out.\n\nHe sat in his quarters in the Rocinante for what was likely the last time. He realized with a little twinge, equal parts surprise and sorrow, that he was going to miss the place." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden, for all his faults and Miller's complaints, was a decent guy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In over his head and only half aware of the fact, but Miller could think of more than one person who fit that bill. He was going to miss Alex's odd, affected drawl and Amos' casual obscenity. He was going to wonder if and how Naomi ever worked things out with her captain.\n\nLeaving was a reminder of things he'd already known: that he didn't know what would come next, that he didn't have much money, and that while he was sure he could get back from Thoth station, where and how he went from there was going to be improvisation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Maybe there would be another ship he could sign on with." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Maybe he'd have to take a contract and save up some money to cover his new medical expenses.\n\nHe checked the magazine in his gun. Packed his spare clothes into the small, battered pack he'd taken on the transport from Ceres. Everything he owned still fit in it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He turned off the lights and made his way down the short corridor toward the ladder-lift." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden was in the galley, twitching nervously. The dread of the coming battle was already showing in the corners of the man's eyes.\n\n\"Well,\" Miller said. \"Here we go, eh?\"\n\n\"Yep,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's been a hell of a ride,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Can't say it's all been pleasant, but...\"\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\n\"Tell the others I said goodbye,\" Miller said.\n\n\"Will do,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then, as Miller moved past him toward the lift: \"So assuming we all actually live through this, where should we meet up?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller turned.\n\n\"I don't understand,\" he said.\n\n\"Yeah, I know. Look, I trust Fred or I wouldn't have come here. I think he's honorable, and he'll do the right thing by us. That doesn't mean I trust the whole OPA. After we get this thing done, I want the whole crew together. Just in case we need to get out in a hurry.\"\n\nSomething painful happened under Miller's sternum." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Not a sharp pain, just a sudden ache." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His throat felt thick. He coughed to clear it.\n\n\"As soon as we get the place secure, I'll get in touch,\" Miller said.\n\n\"Okay, but don't take too long. If Thoth Station has a whorehouse left standing, I'm going to need help prying Amos out of it.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Hey can you write like James S. A. Corey and use whatever i write as a jumping off point?" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Rocinante hurtled through space like a dead thing, tumbling in all three axes. With the reactor shut down and all the cabin air vented, it radiated neither heat nor electromagnetic noise. If it weren't for its speeding toward Thoth station significantly faster than a rifle shot, the ship would be indistinguishable from the rocks in the Belt. Nearly half a million kilometers behind it, the Guy Molinari screamed the Roci's innocence to anyone who would listen, and fired its engines in a long slow deceleration." }, { "from": "human", "value": "With the radio off, Holden couldn't hear what they were saying, but he'd helped write the warning, so it echoed in his head anyway." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Warning! Accidental detonation on the cargo ship Guy Molinari has broken large cargo container free. Warning to all ships in its path: Container is traveling at high speed and without independent control. Warning!\n\nThere had been some discussion about not broadcasting at all. Because Thoth was a black station, they'd be using only passive sensors." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Scanning every direction with radar or ladar would light them up like a Christmas tree." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was possible that with its reactor off, the Rocinante could sneak up on the station without being noticed. But Fred had decided that if they were somehow spotted, it would be suspicious enough to probably warrant an immediate counterattack. So instead of playing it quiet, they'd decided to play it loud and count on confusion to help them.\n\nWith luck the Thoth Station security systems would scan them and see that they were in fact a big chunk of metal flying on an unchanging vector and lacking apparent life support, and ignore them just long enough to let them get close." }, { "from": "human", "value": "From far away, the stations' defense systems might be too much for the Roci." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But up close, the maneuverable little ship could dart around the station and cut it to pieces. All their cover story needed to do was buy them time while the station's security team tried to figure out what was going on.\n\nFred, and by extension everyone in the assault, was betting that the station wouldn't fire until they were absolutely certain they were under attack. Protogen had gone to a lot of trouble to hide their research lab in the Belt." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As soon as they launched their first missile, their anonymity was lost forever." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With the war going on, monitors would pick up the fusion torch trails and wonder what was up. Firing a weapon would be Thoth Station's last resort.\n\nIn theory.\n\nSitting alone inside the tiny bubble of air contained in his helmet, Holden knew that if they were wrong, he'd never even realize it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Roci was flying blind." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All radio contact was down. Alex had a mechanical timepiece with a glow-in-the-dark face, and a to-the-second schedule memorized. They couldn't beat Thoth at high-tech, so they were flying as low-tech as you could get. If they'd missed their guess and the station fired on them, the Roci would be vaporized without warning." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden had once dated a Buddhist who said that death was merely a different state of being, and people only feared the unknown that lay behind that transition." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Death without warning was preferable, as it removed all fear.\n\nHe felt he now had the counterargument.\n\nTo keep his mind busy, he ran through the plan again. When they were practically close enough to spit on Thoth station, Alex would fire up the reactor and do a braking maneuver at nearly ten g's." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Guy Molinari would begin spraying radio static and laser clutter at the station to confuse its targeting package for the few moments the Roci would need to come around on an attack vector." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Roci would engage the station's defenses, disabling anything that could hurt the Molinari, while the cargo ship moved in to breach the station's hull and drop off her assault troops.\n\nThere were any number of things wrong with this plan.\n\nIf the station decided to fire early, just in case, the Roci could die before the fight even started. If the station's targeting system could cut the Molinari's static and laser clutter, they might begin firing while the Roci was still getting into position." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And even if all that worked perfectly, there was still the assault team, cutting their way into the station and fighting corridor to corridor to the nerve center to take control." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even the inner planets' best marines were terrified of breaching actions, and for good reason. Moving through unfamiliar metal hallways without cover while the enemy ambushed you at every intersection was a good way to get a lot of people killed. In training simulations back in the Earth navy, Holden had never seen the marines do better than 60 percent casualties. And these weren't inner planet marines with years of training and state-of-the-art equipment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were OPA cowboys with whatever gear they could scrape together at the last minute." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But even that wasn't what really worried Holden.\n\nWhat really worried him was the large, slightly-warmer-than-space area just a few dozen meters above Thoth station. The Molinari had spotted it and warned them before cutting them loose. Having seen the stealth ships before, no one on the Roci doubted that this was another one." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fighting the station would be bad enough, even up close, where most of the station's advantages were lost." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But Holden didn't look forward to dodging torpedo fire from a missile frigate at the same time. Alex had assured him that if they could get in close enough to the station, they could keep the frigate from firing at them for fear of damaging Thoth, and that the Roci's greater maneuverability would make it more than a match for the larger and more heavily armed ship. The stealth frigates were a strategic weapon, he'd said, not a tactical one. Holden hadn't said, Then why do they have one here?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden moved to glance down at his wrist, then snorted with frustration in the pitch black of the ops deck." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His suit was powered down, chronometers and lights both. The only system on in his suit was air circulation, and that was strictly mechanical. If something got fouled up with it, no little warning lights would come on; he'd just choke and die.\n\nHe glanced around the dark room and said, \"Come on, how much longer?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "As if in answer, lights began flickering on through the cabin." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was a burst of static in his helmet; then Alex's drawling voice said, \"Internal comms online.\"\n\nHolden began flipping switches to bring the rest of the systems back up.\n\n\"Reactor,\" he said.\n\n\"Two minutes,\" Amos replied from the engine room." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Main computer.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Thirty seconds to reboot,\" Naomi said, and waved at him from across the ops deck. The lights had come up enough for them to see each other.\n\n\"Weps?\"\n\nAlex laughed with something like genuine glee over the comm." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Weapons are coming online,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"As soon as Naomi gives me back the targeting comp, we'll be cocked, locked, and ready to rock.\"\n\nHearing everyone check in after the long and silent darkness of their approach reassured him. Being able to look across the room and see Naomi working at her tasks eased a dread he hadn't even realized he'd been feeling.\n\n\"Targeting should be up now,\" Naomi said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Roger that,\" Alex replied." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Scopes are up. Radar, up. Ladar, up—Shit, Naomi, you seeing this?\"\n\n\"I see it,\" Naomi said. \"Captain, getting engine signatures from the stealth ship. They're powering up too.\"\n\n\"We expected that,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Everyone stay on task.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"One minute,\" Amos said.\n\nHolden turned on his console and pulled up his tactical display. In the scope, Thoth Station turned in a lazy circle while the slightly warm spot above it got hot enough to resolve a rough hull outline.\n\n\"Alex, that doesn't look like the last frigate,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Does the Roci recognize it yet?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not yet, Cap, but she's workin' on it.\"\n\n\"Thirty seconds,\" Amos said.\n\n\"Getting ladar searches from the station,\" Naomi said. \"Broadcasting chatter.\"\n\nHolden watched on his screen as Naomi tried to match the wavelength the station was using to target them, and began spraying the station with their own laser comm array to confuse the returns." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Fifteen seconds,\" Amos said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Okay, buckle up, kids,\" Alex said. \"Here comes the juice.\"\n\nEven before Alex had finished saying it, Holden felt a dozen pinpricks as his chair pumped him full of drugs to keep him alive during the coming deceleration. His skin went tight and hot, and his balls crawled up into his belly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alex seemed to be speaking in slow motion." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Five... four... three... two...\"\n\nHe never said one. Instead, a thousand pounds sat on Holden's chest and rumbled like a laughing giant as the Roci's engine slammed on the brakes at ten g's. Holden thought he could actually feel his lungs scraping the inside of his rib cage as his chest did its best to collapse." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But the chair pulled him into a soft gel-filled embrace, and the drugs kept his heart beating and his brain processing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He didn't black out. If the high-g maneuvering killed him, he'd be wide awake and lucid for the entire thing.\n\nHis helmet filled with the sound of gurgling and labored breathing, only some of which was his own. Amos managed part of a curse before his jaw was clamped shut." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden couldn't hear the Roci shuddering with the strain of her course change, but he could feel it through the seat." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was tough. Tougher than any of them. They'd be long dead before the ship pulled enough g's to hurt itself.\n\nWhen relief came, it came so suddenly that Holden almost vomited. The drugs in his system stopped that too." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He took a deep breath and the cartilage of his sternum clicked painfully back into place." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Check in,\" he muttered. His jaw hurt.\n\n\"Comm array targeted,\" Alex replied immediately. Thoth Station's comm and targeting array was the first item on their target priority list.\n\n\"All green,\" Amos said from below." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Sir,\" Naomi said, a warning in her voice." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Shit, I see it,\" Alex said.\n\nHolden told his console to mirror Naomi's so he could see what she was looking at. On her screen, the Roci had figured out why it couldn't identify the stealth ship.\n\nThere were two ships, not one large and ungainly missile frigate that they could dance around and cut to pieces at close range." }, { "from": "human", "value": "No, that would have been too easy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "These were two much smaller ships parked close together to trick enemy sensors. And now they were both firing their engines and splitting up.\n\nOkay, Holden thought. New plan.\n\n\"Alex, get their attention,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Can't let them go after the Molinari.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Roger,\" Alex replied. \"One away.\"\n\nHolden felt the Roci shudder as Alex fired a torpedo at one of the two ships. The smaller ships were rapidly changing speed and vector, and the torpedo had been fired hastily and from a bad angle. It wouldn't score a hit, but the Roci would be on everyone's scope as a threat now." }, { "from": "human", "value": "So that was good." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Both of the smaller ships darted away in opposite directions at full burn, spraying chaff and laser chatter behind them as they went. The torpedo wobbled in its trajectory and then limped away in a random direction.\n\n\"Naomi, Alex, any idea what we're facing here?\" Holden asked.\n\n\"Roci still doesn't recognize them, sir,\" Naomi said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"New hull design,\" Alex said over her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But they're flyin' like fast interceptors. Guessin' a torpedo or two on the belly, and a keel-mounted rail gun.\"\n\nFaster and more maneuverable than the Roci, but they'd be able to fire in only one direction.\n\n\"Alex, come around to—\" Holden's order was cut short when the Rocinante shuddered and jumped sideways, hurling him into the side of his restraints with rib-bruising force.\n\n\"We're hit!\" Amos and Alex yelled at the same time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Station shot us with some sort of heavy gauss cannon,\" Naomi said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Damage,\" Holden said.\n\n\"Went clean through us, Cap,\" Amos said. \"Galley and the machine shop. Got yellows on the board, but nothing that'll kill us.\"\n\nNothing that'll kill us sounded good, but Holden felt a pang for his coffeemaker." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Alex,\" Holden said. \"Forget the little ships, kill that comm array.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Roger,\" Alex replied, and the Roci lurched sideways as Alex changed course to begin his torpedo run on the station.\n\n\"Naomi, as soon as the first one of those fighters comes around on his attack run, give him the comm laser in the face, full strength, and start dropping chaff.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" she replied. Maybe the laser would be enough to screw up his targeting system for a few seconds." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Station's openin' up with the PDCs,\" Alex said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This'll get a mite bumpy.\"\n\nHolden switched from mirroring Naomi's screen to watching Alex's. His panel filled with thousands of rapidly moving balls of light and Thoth station rotating in the background. The Roci's threat computer was outlining the incoming point defense cannon fire with bright light on Alex's HUD." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was moving impossibly fast, but at least with the system doing a bright overlay on each round, the pilot could see where the fire was coming from and which direction it was traveling." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alex reacted to this threat information with consummate skill, maneuvering away from the PDCs' direction of fire in quick, almost random movements that forced the automated targeting of the point defense cannons to adjust constantly.\n\nTo Holden, it looked like a game. Incredibly fast blobs of light flew up from the space station in chains, like long and thin pearl necklaces. The ship moved restlessly, finding the gaps between the threads and dodging away to a new gap before the strands could react and touch her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But Holden knew that each blob of light represented a chunk of Teflon-coated tungsten steel with a depleted uranium heart, going thousands of meters per second." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If Alex lost the game, they'd know it when the Rocinante was cut to pieces.\n\nHolden almost jumped out of his skin when Amos spoke. \"Shit, Cap, got a leak somewhere. Three port-maneuvering thrusters are losing water pressure. Going to patch it.\"\n\n\"Copy, Amos. Go fast,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You hang on down there, Amos,\" Naomi said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amos just snorted.\n\nOn his console, Holden watched as Thoth Station grew larger on the scope. Somewhere behind them, the two fighters were probably coming about. The thought made the back of Holden's head itch, but he tried to keep focus." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Roci didn't have enough torpedoes for Alex to fire shot after shot at the station from far off and hope one made it through the point defense fire." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alex had to bring them in so close that the cannons couldn't shoot the torpedo down.\n\nA blue highlight appeared on the HUD surrounding a portion of the station's central hub. The highlighted portion expanded into a smaller subscreen. Holden could make out the dishes and antennas that made up the comm and targeting array." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"One away,\" Alex said, and the Roci vibrated as her second torpedo was fired." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden shook violently in his restraints and then slapped back into his chair as Alex took the Roci through a series of sudden maneuvers and then slammed down the throttle to evade the last of the PDC fire. Holden watched his screen as the red dot of their missile streaked toward the station and struck the comm array. A flash blanked out his screen for a second and then faded. Almost immediately the PDC fire stopped." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Good sh—\" Holden was cut off by Naomi yelling, \"Bogey one has fired! Two fast movers!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden flipped back to her screen and saw the threat system tracking both fighters and two smaller and much faster objects moving toward the Roci on an intercept course.\n\n\"Alex!\" Holden said.\n\n\"Got it, Chief. Going defensive.\"\n\nHolden slammed back into his chair again as Alex poured on the speed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The steady rumble of the engine seemed to stutter, and Holden realized he was feeling the constant fire of their own PDCs as they tried to shoot down the pursuing missiles." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, fuck,\" Amos said almost conversationally.\n\n\"Where are you?\" Holden asked, then flipped his screen to Amos' suit camera. The mechanic was in a dimly illuminated crawl space filled with conduit and piping. That meant he was between the inner and outer hulls." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In front of him, a section of damaged pipe looked like snapped bones." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A cutting torch floated nearby. The ship bounced violently, banging the mechanic around in the tight space. Alex whooped over the comm.\n\n\"Missiles did not impact!\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Tell Alex to stop jerking her around,\" Amos said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Makes it hard to hang on to my tools.\"\n\n\"Amos, get back to your crash couch!\" Naomi said.\n\n\"Sorry, Boss,\" Amos replied with a grunt as he yanked one end of the broken pipe free. \"If I don't fix this and we lose pressure, Alex won't be able to turn to starboard anymore. Bet that'll fuck us up good.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Keep working, Amos,\" Holden said over Naomi's protests." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But hang on. This is going to get worse.\"\n\nAmos said, \"Roger that.\"\n\nHolden switched back to Alex's HUD display.\n\n\"Holden,\" Naomi said. There was fear in her voice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Amos is going to get—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He's doing his job. Do yours. Alex, we have to take these two out before the Molinari gets here. Get me an intercept on one of them and let's kick its ass.\"\n\n\"Roger that, Cap,\" Alex said. \"Going after bogey two. Could use some help with bogey one.\"\n\n\"Bogey one is Naomi's priority,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do what you can to keep it off of our backside while we kill his friend.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Roger,\" Naomi said in a tight voice.\n\nHolden switched back to Amos' helmet camera, but the mechanic seemed to be doing fine. He was cutting the damaged pipe free with his torch, and a length of replacement pipe floated nearby.\n\n\"Strap that pipe down, Amos,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"All respect, Captain,\" Amos said, \"but safety standards can kiss my ass. I'm getting this done fast and getting outta here.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden hesitated. If Alex had to make a course correction, the floating pipe could turn into a projectile massive enough to kill Amos or break the Roci. It's Amos, he told himself. He knows what he's doing.\n\nHolden flipped to Naomi's screen as she poured everything the comm system had at the small interceptor, trying to blind it with light and radio static." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then he went back to his tactical display." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Roci and bogey two flew toward each other at suicidal speeds. As soon as they passed the point where incoming torpedo fire couldn't be avoided, bogey two launched both his missiles. Alex flagged the two fast movers for the PDCs and kept up his intercept course but didn't launch missiles.\n\n\"Alex, why aren't we shooting?\" Holden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Gonna shoot his torpedoes down, then get in close and let the PDCs chew him up,\" the pilot replied." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why?\"\n\n\"We've only got so many torpedoes and no resupply. No call to waste 'em on these munchkins.\"\n\nThe incoming torpedoes arced forward on Holden's display, and he felt the Roci's PDCs firing to shoot them down.\n\n\"Alex,\" he said. \"We didn't pay for this ship. Feel free to use it up. If I get killed so you can save ammo, I am going to put a reprimand in your permanent file.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well, you put it that way...\" Alex said. Then: \"One away.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The red dot of their torpedo streaked off toward bogey two. The incoming missiles got closer and closer, and then one disappeared from the display.\n\nAlex said, \"Shit,\" in a flat voice, and then the Rocinante slammed sideways hard enough that Holden broke his nose on the inside of his helmet. Yellow emergency lights began rotating on all the bulkheads, though with the ship evacuated of air, Holden mercifully couldn't hear the Klaxons that were trying to sound throughout it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His tactical display flickered, went out, and then came back after a second." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When it came back up, all three torpedoes, as well as bogey two, were gone. Bogey one continued to bear down on them from astern.\n\n\"Damage!\" Holden yelled, hoping the comm was still up.\n\n\"Major damage to the outer hull,\" Naomi replied." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Four maneuvering thrusters gone. One PDC nonresponsive. We've also lost O2 storage, and the crew airlock looks like it's slag.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why are we alive?\" Holden asked while he flipped through the damage report and then over to Amos' suit camera.\n\n\"The fish didn't hit us,\" Alex said. \"The PDC got it, but it was close. Warhead detonated and sprayed us down pretty good.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "It didn't look like Amos was moving." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden yelled, \"Amos! Report!\"\n\n\"Yeah, yeah, still here, Captain. Just hanging on in case we get knocked around like that again. I think I busted a rib on one of the hull braces, but I'm strapped down. Good fucking thing I didn't waste time with that pipe, though.\"\n\nHolden didn't take time to answer. He flipped back to his tactical display and watched the rapidly approaching bogey one." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It had already fired its torpedoes, but at close range it could still cut them apart with its cannon." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Alex, can you get us turned around and get a firing solution on that fighter?\" he said.\n\n\"Working on it. Don't have much maneuverability,\" Alex replied, and the Roci began rotating with a series of lurches.\n\nHolden switched to a telescope and zoomed in on the approaching fighter. Up close, the muzzle of its cannon looked as big around as a corridor on Ceres, and it appeared to be aimed directly at him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Alex,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Working on it, Chief, but the Roci's hurtin'.\"\n\nThe enemy ship's cannon flared open, preparing to fire.\n\n\"Alex, kill it. Kill it kill it kill it.\"\n\n\"One away,\" the pilot said, and the Rocinante shuddered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden's console threw him out of the scope view and back to the tactical view automatically." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Roci's torpedo flew toward the fighter at almost the same instant that the fighter opened up with its cannon. The display showed the incoming rounds as small red dots moving too fast to follow.\n\n\"Incom—\" he shouted, and the Rocinante came apart around him.\n\nHolden came to." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The inside of the ship was filled with flying debris and bits of superheated metal shavings that looked like slow-motion showers of sparks." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With no air, they bounced off walls and then floated, slowly cooling, like lazy fireflies. He had a vague memory of one corner of a wall-mounted monitor detaching and bouncing off three bulkheads in the world's most elaborate billiards shot, then hitting him right below the sternum. He looked down, and the little chunk of monitor was floating a few centimeters in front of him, but there was no hole in his suit. His guts hurt.\n\nThe ops console chair next to Naomi had a hole in it; green gel slowly leaked into small balls that floated away in the zero g. Holden looked at the hole in the chair, and the matching hole in the bulkhead across the room, and realized that the round must have passed within centimeters of Naomi's leg." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A shudder swept through him, leaving him nauseated in its wake." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What the fuck was that?\" Amos asked quietly. \"And how about we don't do it anymore?\"\n\n\"Alex?\" Holden said.\n\n\"Still here, Cap,\" the pilot replied, his voice eerily calm." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"My panel's dead,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Did we kill that son of a bitch?\"\n\n\"Yeah, Cap, he's dead. About half a dozen of his rounds actually hit the Roci. Looks like they went through us from bow to stern. That anti-spalling webbing on the bulkheads really keeps the shrapnel down, doesn't it?\"\n\nAlex's voice had started shaking. He meant We should all be dead." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Open a channel to Fred, Naomi,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She didn't move.\n\n\"Naomi?\"\n\n\"Right. Fred,\" she said, then tapped on her screen.\n\nHolden's helmet was filled with static for a second, then with Fred's voice." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "The user will write a bit then you need to write around four sentences continuing directly from the user's text. Try to mimic the style of James S. A. Corey.Produce four sentences using the prose and structure of James S. A. Corey every time its your turn using what the user wrote as a seed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oi, Pampaw,\" the kid in the crash couch to Miller's right said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Popped seal, you and bang, hey?\"\n\nThe kid's combat armor was gray-green, articulated pressure seals at the joints and stripes across the front plates where a knife or flechette round had scraped the finish. Behind the face mask, the kid could have been fifteen. His hand gestures spoke of a childhood spent in vacuum suits, and his speech was pure Belt creole." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yeah,\" Miller said, raising his arm." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Saw some action recently. I'll be fine.\"\n\n\"Fine's fine as fine,\" the kid said. \"But you hold to the foca, and neto can pass the air out to you, hey?\"\n\nNo one on Mars or Earth would have the first clue what you're saying, Miller thought." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Shit, half the people on Ceres would be embarrassed by an accent that thick." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No wonder they don't mind killing you.\n\n\"Sounds good to me,\" Miller said. \"You go first, and I'll try to keep anyone from shooting you in the back.\"\n\nThe kid grinned. Miller had seen thousands like him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Boys in the throes of adolescence, working through the normal teenage drive to take risks and impress girls, but at the same time they lived in the Belt, where one bad call meant dead. He'd seen thousands." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He'd arrested hundreds. He'd watched a few dozen picked up in hazmat bags.\n\nHe leaned forward to look down the long rows of close-packed gimbaled crash couches that lined the gut of the Guy Molinari. Miller's rough estimate put the count at between ninety and a hundred of them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "So by dinner, chances were good he'd have seen a couple dozen more die." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What's your name, kid?\"\n\n\"Diogo.\"\n\n\"Miller,\" he said, and gave the kid his hand to shake. The high-quality Martian battle armor Miller had taken from the Rocinante let his fingers flex a lot more than the kid's." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The truth was Miller was in no shape for the assault." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was still getting occasional waves of inexplicable nausea, and his arm ached whenever the medication level in his blood started thinning out. But he knew his way around a gun, and he probably knew more about corridor-to-corridor fighting than nine-tenths of the OPA rock jumpers and ore hogs like Diogo who were about to go in. It would have to be good enough.\n\nThe ship's address system clicked once." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"This is Fred. We've had word from air support, and we're green for breach in ten minutes. Final checks start now, people.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller sat back in his couch. The clicking and chattering of a hundred suits of armor, a hundred sidearms, a hundred assault weapons filled the air. He'd been over his own enough times now; he didn't feel the urge to do it again.\n\nIn a few minutes, the burn would come." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The cocktail of high-g drugs was kept on the ragged edge, since they'd be going straight from the couches into a firefight." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No point having your assault force more doped than necessary.\n\nJulie sat on the wall beside him, her hair swirling around her like she was underwater. He imagined the dappled light flashing across her face. Portrait of the young pinnace racer as a mermaid." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She smiled at the idea, and Miller smiled back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She would have been here, he knew. Along with Diogo and Fred and all the other OPA militia, patriots of the vacuum, she'd have been in a crash couch, wearing borrowed armor, heading into the station to get herself killed for the greater good. Miller knew he wouldn't have. Not before her. So in a sense, he'd taken her place. He'd become her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They made it, Julie said, or maybe only thought." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If the ground attack was going forward, it meant the Rocinante had survived—at least long enough to knock out the defenses. Miller nodded, acknowledging her and letting himself feel a moment's pleasure at the idea, and then thrust gravity pushed him into his couch so hard that his consciousness flickered, and the hold around him dimmed. He felt it when the braking burn came, all the crash couches spinning to face the new up. Needles dug into Miller's flesh." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Something deep and loud happened, the Guy Molinari ringing like a gigantic bell." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The breaching charge. The world pulled hard to the left, the couch swinging for the last time as the assault ship matched the station's spin.\n\nSomeone was shouting at him. \"Go go go!\" Miller lifted his assault rifle, tapped the sidearm strapped to his thigh, and joined the press of bodies making for the exit. He missed his hat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The service corridor they'd cut into was narrow and dim." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The schematics the Tycho engineers had worked up suggested they wouldn't see any real resistance until they got into the manned parts of the station. That had been a bad guess. Miller staggered in with the other OPA soldiers in time to see an automatic defense laser cut the first rank in half.\n\n\"Team three! Gas it!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fred snapped in all their ears, and half a dozen blooms of thick white anti-laser smoke burst into the close air." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The next time a defense laser fired, the walls flashed with mad iridescence, and the smoke of burning plastic filled the air, but no one died. Miller pressed forward and up a red metal ramp. A welding charge flared, and a service door swung open.\n\nThe corridors of Thoth station were wide and roomy, with long swaths of ivy grown in carefully tended spirals, niches every few feet with tastefully lit bonsai." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Soft light the pure white of sunlight made the place feel like a spa or a rich man's private residence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The floors were carpet.\n\nThe HUD in his armor flickered, marking the path the assault was meant to take. Miller's heart stepped up to a fast, constant flutter, but his mind seemed to grow perfectly still. At the first intersection, a riot barrier was manned by a dozen men in Protogen security uniforms." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The OPA troops hung back, using the curve of the ceiling as cover." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What suppressing fire there was came in kneecap low.\n\nThe grenades were perfectly round, not even a hole where the pin had been pulled. They didn't roll as well on the soft industrial carpet as they would have on stone or tiling, so one of the three went off before it reached the barrier. The concussion was like being hit in the ears with a hammer; the narrow, sealed corridors channeled the blast back at them almost as much as at the enemy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But the riot barrier shattered, and the Protogen security men fell back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As they all rushed forward, Miller heard his new, temporary compatriots whooping with the first taste of victory. The sound was muffled, as if they were a long way away. Maybe his earpieces hadn't dampened the blast as much as they were supposed to. Making the rest of the assault with blown eardrums wouldn't be easy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But then Fred came on, and his voice was clear enough." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do not advance! Hold back!\"\n\nIt was almost enough. The OPA ground force hesitated, Fred's orders pulling at them like a leash. These weren't troops. They weren't even cops." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were a Belter irregular militia; discipline and respect for authority weren't natural to them. They slowed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They got careful. So rounding the corner, they didn't walk into the trap.\n\nThe next corridor was long and straight, leading—the HUD suggested—to a service ramp up toward the control center. It looked empty, but a third of the way to the curve horizon, the carpeting started to fly apart in ragged tufts." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One of the boys beside Miller grunted and went down." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They are using low-shrapnel rounds and bouncing them off the curve,\" Fred said into all their ears at once. \"Bank-shot ricochet. Stay low, and do exactly as I say.\"\n\nThe calm in the Earther's voice had more effect than his shouting had. Miller thought he might have been imagining it, but there also seemed to be a deeper tone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A certainty. The Butcher of Anderson Station doing what he did best, leading his troops against the tactics and strategies he'd helped create back when he'd been the enemy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Slowly, the OPA forces moved forward, up one level, and then the next, then the next. The air grew hazy with smoke and ablated paneling. The wide corridors opened into broad plazas and squares, as airy as prison yards, with the Protogen forces in the guard towers. The side corridors were locked down, local security trying to channel them into situations where they could be caught in crossfire." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It didn't work. The OPA forced open the doors, taking cover in display-rich rooms, something between lecture halls and manufacturing complexes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Twice, unarmored civilians, still at their work despite the ongoing assault, attacked them when they entered. The OPA boys mowed them down. Part of Miller's mind—the part that was still a cop and not a soldier—twitched at that. They were civilians. Killing them was, at the very least, bad form." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But then Julie whispered in the back of his mind, No one here is innocent, and he had to agree." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The operations center was a third of the way up the station's slight gravity well, defended better than anything they had seen so far. Miller and five others, directed by the all-knowing voice of Fred, took cover in a narrow service corridor, keeping a steady suppressing fire up the main corridor toward ops, and making sure no Protogen counterattack would go unanswered. Miller checked his assault weapon and was surprised to see how much ammunition was left.\n\n\"Oi, Pampaw,\" the kid next to him said, and Miller smiled, recognizing Diogo's voice behind the face mask." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Day's the day, passa?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I've seen worse,\" Miller agreed, then paused. He tried to scratch his injured elbow, but the armor plates kept anything satisfying from happening.\n\n\"Beccas tu?\" Diogo asked.\n\n\"No, I'm fine. It's just... this place. I don't get it. It looks like a spa, and it's built like a prison.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The boy's hands shifted in query." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller shook his fist in response, thinking through the ideas as he spoke.\n\n\"It's all long sight lines and locked-down side passages,\" Miller said. \"If I was going to build a place like this, I'd—\"\n\nThe air sang, and Diogo went down, his head snapping back as he fell." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller yelped and wheeled." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Behind them in the side corridor, two figures in Protogen security uniform dove for cover. Something hissed through the air by Miller's left ear. Something else bounced off the breastplate of his fancy Martian armor like a hammer blow. He didn't think about raising his assault weapon; it was just there, coughing out return fire like an extension of his will." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The other three OPA soldiers turned to help." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Get back,\" Miller barked. \"Keep your fucking eyes on the main corridor! I'm on this.\"\n\nStupid, Miller told himself, stupid to let them get behind us. Stupid to stop and talk in the middle of a firefight." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He should have known better, and now, because he'd lost focus, the boy was..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Laughing?\n\nDiogo sat up, lifted his own assault weapon, and peppered the side corridor with rounds. He got unsteadily to his feet, then whooped like a child who'd just gotten off a thrill ride. A wide streak of white goo stretched from his collarbone up across the right side of his face mask." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Behind it, Diogo was grinning." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller shook his head.\n\n\"What the hell are they using crowd suppression rounds for?\" he said to himself as much as the boy. \"They think this a riot?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Forward teams,\" Fred said in Miller's ear, \"get ready. We're moving in five. Four. Three. Two. Go!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We don't know what we're getting into here, Miller thought as he joined the sprint down the corridor, pressing toward the assault's final target. A wide ramp led up to a set of blast doors done in wood-grain veneer. Something detonated behind them, but Miller kept his head low and didn't look back. The press of bodies jostling in their ragtag armor grew thicker, and Miller stumbled on something soft." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A body in Protogen uniform." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Give us some room!\" a woman at the front shouted. Miller pushed toward her, cutting through the crowd of OPA soldiers with his shoulder and elbow. The woman shouted again as he reached her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What's the problem?\" Miller shouted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I can't cut through this bitch with all these dick-lickers pushing me,\" she said, lifting a cutting torch already glowing white at the edge. Miller nodded and slid his assault rifle into the sling on his back. He grabbed two of the nearest shoulders, shook the men until they noticed him, and then locked his elbows with theirs.\n\n\"Just need to give the techs some room,\" Miller said, and together they waded into their own men, pushing them back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "How many battles, all through history, fell apart at moments like this?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "he wondered. The victory all but delivered until allied forces started tripping over each other. The welder popped to life behind him, the heat pressing at his back like a hand even in armor.\n\nAt the edge of the crowd, automatic weapons gurgled and choked.\n\n\"How's it going back there?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller shouted over his shoulder." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The woman didn't answer. Hours seemed to pass, though it couldn't have been more than five minutes. The haze of hot metal and aerosolized plastic filled the air.\n\nThe welding torch turned off with a pop." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Over his shoulder, Miller saw the bulkhead sag and shift." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The tech placed a card-thin jack into the gap between plates, activated it, and stood back. The station around them groaned as a new set of pressures and strains reshaped the metal. The bulkhead opened.\n\n\"Come on,\" Miller shouted, then tucked his head and moved through the new passageway, up a carpeted ramp, and into the ops center. A dozen men and women looked up from their stations, eyes wide with fear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You're under arrest!\" Miller shouted as the OPA soldiers boiled in around him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, no you're not, but... shit. Put your hands up and back away from the controls!\"\n\nOne of the men—tall as a Belter, but built solid as a man in full gravity—sighed. He wore a good suit, linen and raw silk, without the lines and folds that spoke of computer tailoring.\n\n\"Do what they say,\" the linen suit said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He sounded peeved, but not frightened." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller's eyes narrowed.\n\n\"Mr. Dresden?\"\n\nThe suit raised a carefully shaped eyebrow, paused, and nodded.\n\n\"Been looking for you,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fred walked into the ops center like he belonged there." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With a tighter set of the shoulders and a degree's shift of the spine, the master engineer of Tycho Station was gone, and the general was in his place. He looked over the ops center, sucking in every detail with a flicker of his eyes, then nodded at one of the senior OPA techs.\n\n\"All locked down, sir,\" the tech said. \"The station's yours.\"\n\nMiller had almost never been present to witness another man's moment of absolution." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was such a rare thing, and so utterly private that it approached the spiritual." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Decades ago, this man—younger, fitter, not as much gray in his hair—had taken a space station, wading up to his knees in the gore and death of Belters, and Miller saw the barely perceptible relaxation in his jaw, the opening of his chest that meant that burden had lifted. Maybe it wasn't gone, but it was near enough. It was more than most people managed in a lifetime.\n\nHe wondered what it would feel like if he ever got the chance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Miller?\" Fred said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I hear you've got someone we'd like to talk to.\"\n\nDresden unfolded from his chair, ignoring the sidearms and assault weapons as if such things didn't apply to him.\n\n\"Colonel Johnson,\" Dresden said. \"I should have expected that a man of your caliber would be behind all this. My name is Dresden.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He handed Fred a matte black business card." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fred took it as if by reflex but didn't look at it.\n\n\"You're the one responsible for this?\"\n\nDresden gave him a chilly smile and looked around before he answered.\n\n\"I'd say you're responsible for at least part of it,\" Dresden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You've just killed quite a few people who were simply doing their jobs. But maybe we can dispense with the moral finger-pointing and get down to what actually matters?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fred's smile reached all the way to his eyes.\n\n\"And what exactly would that be?\"\n\n\"Negotiating terms,\" Dresden replied. \"You are a man of experience. You understand that your victory here puts you in an untenable position. Protogen is one of the most powerful corporations on Earth. The OPA has attacked it, and the longer you try to hold it, the worse the reprisals will be.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Is that so?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Of course it is,\" Dresden said, waving Fred's tone away with a dismissing hand. Miller shook his head. The man genuinely didn't understand what was going on. \"You've taken your hostages. Well, here we are. We can wait until Earth sends a few dozen battleships and negotiate while you look down the barrels, or we can end this now.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You're asking me... how much money I want to take my people and just leave,\" Fred said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If money's what you want,\" Dresden said with a shrug. \"Weapons. Ordinance. Medical supplies. Whatever it is you need to prosecute your little war and get this over with quickly.\"\n\n\"I know what you did on Eros,\" Fred said quietly.\n\nDresden chuckled. The sound made Miller's flesh crawl." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Mr. Johnson,\" Dresden said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Nobody knows what we did on Eros. And every minute I have to spend playing games with you is one I can't use more productively elsewhere. I will swear this: You are in the best bargaining position right now that you will ever have. There is no incentive for you to draw this out.\"\n\n\"And you're offering?\"\n\nDresden spread his hands. \"Anything you like and amnesty besides. As long as it gets you out of here and lets us return to our work. We both win.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Provide 4 sentences as a continuation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Rocinante docked with Thoth station on the last gasps from her maneuvering thrusters." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden felt the station's docking clamps grab the hull with a thud, and then gravity returned at a low one-third g. The close detonation of a plasma warhead had torn off the outer door of the crew airlock and flooded the chamber with superheated gas, effectively welding it shut. That meant they'd be using the cargo airlock at the stern of the ship and spacewalking over to the station.\n\nThat was fine; they were still in their suits. The Roci had more holes now than the air cycling system could keep up with, and their shipboard O2 supply had been vented into space by the same explosion that killed the airlock." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alex dropped from the cockpit, face hidden by his helmet, his belly unmistakable even in his atmosphere suit." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Naomi finished locking her station and powering down the ship, then joined Alex, and the three of them climbed down the crew ladder to the ship's aft. Amos was waiting there, buckling an EVA pack onto his suit and charging it with compressed nitrogen from a storage tank. The mechanic had assured Holden that the EVA maneuvering pack had enough thrust to overcome the station's spin and get them back up to an airlock.\n\nNo one spoke. Holden had expected banter." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He'd expected to want to banter." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But the damaged Roci seemed to call for silence. Maybe awe.\n\nHolden leaned against the cargo bay bulkhead and closed his eyes. The only sounds he could hear were the steady hiss of his air supply and the faint static of the comm. He could smell nothing through his broken and blood-clogged nose, and his mouth was filled with a coppery taste." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But even so, he couldn't keep a smile off his face." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They'd won. They'd flown right up to Protogen, taken everything the evil bastards could throw at them, and bloodied their noses. Even now OPA soldiers were storming their station, shooting the people who'd helped kill Eros.\n\nHolden decided that he was okay with not feeling any remorse for them. The moral complexity of the situation had grown past his ability to process it, so he just relaxed in the warm glow of victory instead." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The comm chirped and Amos said, \"Ready to move.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden nodded, remembered he was still in his atmosphere suit, and said, \"Okay. Hook on, everyone.\"\n\nHe, Alex, and Naomi pulled tethers from their suits and clamped them to Amos' broad waist. Amos cycled the cargo airlock and flew out the door on puffs of gas. They were immediately hurled away from the ship by station spin, but Amos quickly got them under control and flew back up toward Thoth's emergency airlock." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As Amos flew them past the Roci, Holden studied the outside of the ship and tried to catalog repair requirements." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were a dozen holes in both her bow and aft that corresponded to holes all along the inside of the ship. The gauss cannon rounds the interceptor had fired probably hadn't even slowed appreciably on their path through the Roci. The crew was just lucky none of them had found the reactor and punched a hole in it.\n\nThere was also a huge dent in the false superstructure that made the ship look like a compressed gas freighter." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden knew it would match an equally ugly wound in the armored outer hull." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The damage hadn't extended to the inner hull, or the ship would have cracked in two.\n\nWith the damage to the airlock, and the total loss of their oxygen storage tanks and recycling systems, there would be millions of dollars in damage and weeks in dry dock, assuming they could make it to a dry dock somewhere.\n\nMaybe the Molinari could give them a tow.\n\nAmos flashed the EVA pack's yellow warning lights three times, and the station's emergency airlock door cycled open." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He flew them inside, where four Belters in combat armor waited." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As soon as the airlock finished cycling, Holden pulled his helmet off and touched his nose. It felt twice its normal size and throbbed with every heartbeat.\n\nNaomi reached out and held his face still, her thumbs on either side of his nose, her touch surprisingly gentle. She turned his head from side to side, examining the injury, then let go." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It'll be crooked without some cosmetic surgery,\" she said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But you were too pretty before anyway. It'll give your face character.\"\n\nHolden felt a slow grin coming on, but before he could reply, one of the OPA troops started talking.\n\n\"Watched the fight, hermano. You guys really kicked some ass.\"\n\n\"Thanks,\" said Alex. \"How's it goin' in here?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The soldier with the most stars on his OPA insignia said, \"Less resistance than expected, but the Protogen security's been fighting for every foot of real estate. Even some of the egg-heads have been coming at us. We've had to shoot a few.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He pointed at the inner airlock door.\n\n\"Fred's heading up to ops. Wants you people up there, pronto.\"\n\n\"Lead the way,\" Holden replied, his nose turning it into lee da way.\n\n\"How's that leg, Cap?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Amos asked as they walked along the station corridor." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden realized he'd forgotten about the limp his gunshot to the calf had left him.\n\n\"Doesn't hurt, but the muscle doesn't flex as much,\" he replied. \"Yours?\"\n\nAmos grinned and glanced down at the leg that still limped from the fracture he'd suffered on the Donnager months earlier.\n\n\"No biggie,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The ones that don't kill you don't count.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden started to reply, then stopped when the group rounded a corner into a slaughterhouse. They were clearly coming up behind the assault team, because now the corridor floor was littered with bodies, the walls with bullet holes and scorch marks. To his relief, Holden saw a lot more bodies in Protogen security armor than in OPA gear. But there were enough dead Belters on the floor to make his stomach twist." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When he passed a dead man in a lab coat, he had to stop himself from spitting on the floor." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The security guys had maybe made a bad decision in going to work for the wrong team, but the scientists on this station had killed a million and a half people just to see what would happen. They couldn't be dead enough for Holden's comfort.\n\nSomething tugged at him, and he paused. Lying next to the dead scientist was what looked like a kitchen knife." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Huh,\" Holden said. \"He didn't come at you guys with that, did he?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yeah, crazy, no?\" said one of their escorts. \"I heard of bringing a knife to a gunfight, but...\"\n\n\"Ops is up ahead,\" said the ranking trooper. \"General's waiting.\"\n\nHolden entered the stations' ops center and saw Fred, Miller, a bunch of OPA troops, and one stranger in an expensive-looking suit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A line of technicians and operations staff in Protogen uniform had their wrists cuffed and were being led away." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The room was covered deck to ceiling in screens and monitors, most of which were spooling text data too fast to read.\n\n\"Let me get this straight,\" Fred was saying. \"You'll give me all the kingdoms of the Earth if I just bow down and do one act of worship for you?\"\n\n\"I don't know the reference,\" the stranger said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Whatever else they were about to say stopped when Miller noticed Holden and tapped Fred on the shoulder." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden could swear that the detective gave him a warm smile, though on his dour face it was hard to tell.\n\n\"Jim,\" Fred said, then gestured for him to come closer. He was reading a matte black business card. \"Meet Antony Dresden, executive VP of bio research for Protogen, and the architect of the Eros project.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The asshole in the suit actually reached out like he was going to shake hands. Holden ignored him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Fred,\" he said. \"Casualties?\"\n\n\"Shockingly low.\"\n\n\"Half their security had non-lethals,\" Miller said. \"Riot control. Sticky rounds. Like that.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden nodded and then shook his head and frowned." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I saw a lot of Protogen security bodies out there in the corridor. Why have so many guys and then give them weapons that can't repel boarders?\"\n\n\"Good question,\" Miller agreed.\n\nDresden chuckled.\n\n\"This is what I mean, Mr. Johnson,\" Dresden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He turned to Holden." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Jim? Well then, Jim. The fact that you don't understand this station's security needs tells me that you have no idea what you've become involved with. And I think you know that as well as I do. As I was saying to Fred here—\"\n\n\"Antony, you need to shut the fuck up,\" Holden said, surprised by the sudden flush of anger. Dresden looked disappointed.\n\nThe bastard had no right to be comfortable. Condescending. Holden wanted the man terrified, begging for his life, not sneering behind his cultured accent." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Amos, if he talks to me again without being told to, break his jaw.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"My pleasure, Captain,\" Amos said, and took half a step forward.\n\nDresden smirked at the ham-fisted threat but kept his mouth shut.\n\n\"What do we know?\" Holden asked, aiming the question at Fred." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We know the Eros data is coming here, and we know this piece of shit is in charge. We'll know more once we've taken the place apart.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden turned to look at Dresden again, taking in the blue blood European good looks, the gym-sculpted physique, the expensive haircut. Even now, surrounded by men with guns, Dresden managed to look like he was in charge. Holden could imagine him glancing down at his watch and wondering how much more of his expensive time this boarding party was going to take.\n\nHolden said, \"I need to ask him something.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fred nodded. \"You earned it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why?\" Holden asked. \"I want to know why.\"\n\nDresden's smile was almost pitying, and he stuck his hands into his pockets as casually as a man talking sports at a dockside bar.\n\n\"'Why' is a very big question,\" Dresden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Because God wanted it that way? Or perhaps you want to narrow it for me.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why Eros?\"\n\n\"Well, Jim—\"\n\n\"You can call me Captain Holden. I'm the guy that found your lost ship, so I've seen the video from Phoebe. I know what the protomolecule is.\"\n\n\"Really!\" Dresden said, his smile becoming half a degree more genuine." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I have you to thank for turning the viral agent over to us on Eros. Losing the Anubis was going to put our timeline back months. Finding the infected body already there on the station was a godsend.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I knew it. I fucking knew it, Holden thought. Out loud, he said, \"Why?\"\n\n\"You know what the agent is,\" Dresden said, at a loss for the first time since Holden had come into the room. \"I don't know what more I can tell you. This is the most important thing to ever happen to the human race. It's simultaneously proof that we are not alone in the universe, and our ticket out of the limitations that bind us to our little bubbles of rock and air.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You aren't answering me,\" Holden said, hating the way his broken nose made his voice slightly comical when he wanted to be threatening." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I want to know why you killed a million and a half people.\"\n\nFred cleared his throat, but he didn't interrupt. Dresden looked from Holden to the colonel and back again.\n\n\"I am answering, Captain. A million and a half people is small potatoes. What we're working with here is bigger than that,\" Dresden said, then moved over to a chair and sat down, pulling up his pants leg as he crossed his knees, so as not to stretch the fabric." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are you familiar with Genghis Khan?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What?\" Holden and Fred said at almost the same instant. Miller only stared at Dresden with a blank expression, tapping the barrel of his pistol against his own armored thigh.\n\n\"Genghis Khan. There are some historians who claim that Genghis Kahn killed or displaced one quarter of the total human population of Earth during his conquest,\" Dresden said. \"He did that in pursuit of an empire that would begin falling apart as soon as he died. In today's scale, that would mean killing nearly ten billion people in order to affect a generation. A generation and a half. Eros isn't even a rounding error by comparison.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You really don't care,\" Fred said, his voice quiet." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And unlike Khan, we aren't doing it to build a brief empire. I know what you think. That we're trying to aggrandize ourselves. Grab power.\"\n\n\"You don't want to?\" Holden said.\n\n\"Of course we do.\" Dresden's voice was cutting." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But you're thinking too small. Building humanity's greatest empire is like building the world's largest anthill. Insignificant. There is a civilization out there that built the protomolecule and hurled it at us over two billion years ago. They were already gods at that point. What have they become since then? With another two billion years to advance?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With a growing dread, Holden listened to Dresden speak. This speech had the air of something spoken before. Perhaps many times. And it had worked. It had convinced powerful people." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was why Protogen had stealth ships from the Earth shipyards and seemingly limitless behind-the-scenes support." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We have a terrifying amount of catching up to do, gentlemen,\" Dresden was saying. \"But fortunately we have the tool of our enemy to use in doing it.\"\n\n\"Catching up?\" a soldier to Holden's left said. Dresden nodded at the man and smiled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The protomolecule can alter the host organism at the molecular level; it can create genetic change on the fly. Not just DNA, but any stable replicator. But it is only a machine. It doesn't think. It follows instructions. If we learn how to alter that programming, then we become the architects of that change.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden interrupted. \"If it was supposed to wipe out life on Earth and replace it with whatever the protomolecule's creators wanted, why turn it loose?\"\n\n\"Excellent question,\" Dresden said, holding up one finger like a college professor about to deliver a lecture. \"The protomolecule doesn't come with a user's manual. In fact, we've never before been able to actually watch it carry out its program. The molecule requires significant mass before it develops enough processing power to fulfill its directives. Whatever they are.\"\n\nDresden pointed at the screens covered with data around them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We are going to watch it at work. See what it intends to do. How it goes about doing it. And, hopefully, learn how to change that program in the process.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You could do that with a vat of bacteria,\" Holden said.\n\n\"I'm not interested in remaking bacteria,\" Dresden said.\n\n\"You're fucking insane,\" Amos said, and took another step toward Dresden. Holden put a hand on the big mechanic's shoulder." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So,\" Holden said. \"You figure out how the bug works, and then what?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then everything. Belters who can work outside a ship without wearing a suit. Humans capable of sleeping for hundreds of years at a time flying colony ships to the stars. No longer being bound to the millions of years of evolution inside one atmosphere of pressure at one g, slaves to oxygen and water. We decide what we want to be, and we reprogram ourselves to be that. That's what the protomolecule gives us.\"\n\nDresden had stood back up as he'd delivered this speech, his face shining with the zeal of a prophet.\n\n\"What we are doing is the best and only hope of humanity's survival. When we go out there, we will be facing gods.\"\n\n\"And if we don't go out?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fred asked. He sounded thoughtful." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They've already fired a doomsday weapon at us once,\" Dresden said.\n\nThe room was silent for a moment. Holden felt his certainty slip. He hated everything about Dresden's argument, but he couldn't quite see his way past it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He knew in his bones that something about it was dead wrong, but he couldn't find the words." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Naomi's voice startled him.\n\n\"Did it convince them?\" she asked.\n\n\"Excuse me?\" Dresden said.\n\n\"The scientists. The technicians. Everyone you needed to make it happen. They actually had to do this. They had to watch the video of people dying all over Eros. They had to design those radioactive murder chambers. So unless you managed to round up every serial killer in the solar system and send them through a postgraduate program, how did you do this?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We modified our science team to remove ethical restraints.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Half a dozen clues clicked into place in Holden's head.\n\n\"Sociopaths,\" he said. \"You turned them into sociopaths.\"\n\n\"High-functioning sociopaths,\" Dresden said with a nod. He seemed pleased to explain it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And extremely curious ones. As long as we kept them supplied with interesting problems to solve and unlimited resources, they remained quite content.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And a big security team armed with riot control rounds for when they aren't,\" Fred said.\n\n\"Yes, there are occasional issues,\" Dresden said. He looked around, the slightest frown creasing his forehead. \"I know. You think it's monstrous, but I am saving the human race. I am giving humanity the stars. You disapprove? Fine. Let me ask you this. Can you save Eros? Right now.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No,\" Fred said, \"but we can—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Waste the data,\" Dresden said. \"You can make certain that every man, woman, and child who died on Eros died for nothing.\"\n\nThe room was silent. Fred was frowning, his arms crossed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden understood the struggle going on in the man's mind." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Everything Dresden said was repulsive and eerie and rang too much of the truth.\n\n\"Or,\" Dresden said, \"we can negotiate a price, you can go on your way, and I can—\"\n\n\"Okay. That's enough,\" Miller said, speaking for the first time since Dresden had begun his pitch. Holden glanced over at the detective." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His flat expression had gone stony." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your next one should be approximately two sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He wasn't tapping the barrel of his pistol against his leg.\n\nOh, shit." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Today you will be acting as a writing assistant, your partner will send something and you will write the next 4 sentences." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dresden didn't see it coming. Even as Miller raised the pistol, the man's eyes didn't register a threat. All he saw was Miller with an object in his hand that happened to be a gun. A dog would have known to be scared, but not Dresden." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Miller!\" Holden shouted from a great distance. \"Don't!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Pulling the trigger was simple. A soft click, the bounce of metal against his glove-cushioned palm, and then again two more times. Dresden's head snapped back, blooming red. Blood spattered a wide screen, obscuring the data stream." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller stepped close, fired two more rounds into Dresden's chest, considered for a moment, then holstered the pistol." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The room was silent. The OPA soldiers were all looking at each other or at Miller, surprised, even after the press of the assault, by the sudden violence. Naomi and Amos were looking at Holden, and the captain was staring at the corpse. Holden's injured face was set as a mask; fury, outrage, maybe even despair." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller understood that. Doing the obvious thing still wasn't natural for Holden." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There had been a time when it hadn't come so easily for Miller either.\n\nOnly Fred didn't flinch or look nervous. The colonel didn't smile or frown, and he didn't look away.\n\n\"What the fuck was that?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden said through his blood-plugged nose." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You shot him in cold blood!\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" Miller said.\n\nHolden shook his head. \"What about a trial? What about justice? You just decide, and that's the way it goes?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm a cop,\" Miller said, surprised by the apology in his voice." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Are you even human anymore?\"\n\n\"All right, gentlemen!\" Fred said, his voice booming out in the quiet. \"Show's over. Let's get back to work. I want the decryption team in here. We've got prisoners to evacuate and a station to strip down.\"\n\nHolden looked from Fred to Miller to the still-dying Dresden." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His jaw was set with rage." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hey, Miller,\" Holden said.\n\n\"Yeah?\" Miller said softly. He knew what was coming.\n\n\"Find your own ride home,\" the captain of the Rocinante said, then spun and stalked out of the room, his crew following." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller watched them walk away." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Regret tapped gently at his heart, but there was nothing to be done about it. The broken bulkhead seemed to swallow them. Miller turned to Fred.\n\n\"Hitch a lift?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You're wearing our colors,\" Fred said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We'll get you as far as Tycho.\"\n\n\"I appreciate that,\" Miller said. Then, a moment later: \"You know it had to be done.\"\n\nFred didn't reply. There wasn't anything to say." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Thoth Station was injured, but not dead." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not yet. Word of the sociopathic crew spread fast, and the OPA forces took the warning to heart. The occupation and control phase of the attack lasted forty hours instead of the twenty that it would have taken with normal prisoners. With humans. Miller did what he could with prisoner control.\n\nThe OPA kids were well intentioned, but most of them had never worked with captive populations before." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They didn't know how to cuff someone at the wrist and elbow so that the perp couldn't get his hands out in front to strangle them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They didn't know how to restrain someone with a length of cord around the neck so that the prisoner couldn't choke himself to death, by accident or intentionally. Half of them didn't even know how to pat someone down. Miller knew all of it like a game he'd played since childhood. In five hours, he found twenty hidden blades on the science crew alone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He hardly had to think about it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A second wave of transport ships arrived: personnel haulers that looked ready to spill their air out into the vacuum if you spat on them, salvage trawlers already dismantling the shielding and superstructure of the station, supply ships boxing and packing the precious equipment and looting the pharmacies and food banks. By the time news of the assault reached Earth, the station would be stripped to a skeleton and its people hidden away in unlicensed prison cells throughout the Belt.\n\nProtogen would know sooner, of course. They had outposts much closer than the inner planets." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was a calculus of response time and possible gain." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The mathematics of piracy and war. Miller knew it, but he didn't let it worry him. Those were decisions for Fred and his attachés to make. Miller had taken more than enough initiative for one day." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Posthuman." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was a word that came up in the media every five or six years, and it meant different things every time. Neural regrowth hormone? Posthuman. Sex robots with inbuilt pseudo intelligence? Posthuman. Self-optimizing network routing?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Posthuman." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was a word from advertising copy, breathless and empty, and all he'd ever thought it really meant was that the people using it had a limited imagination about what exactly humans were capable of.\n\nNow, as he escorted a dozen captives in Protogen uniforms to a docked transport heading God-knew-where, the word was taking on new meaning.\n\nAre you even human anymore?\n\nAll posthuman meant, literally speaking, was what you were when you weren't human anymore." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Protomolecule aside, Protogen aside, Dresden and his Mengele-as-Genghis-Khan self-righteous fantasies aside, Miller thought that maybe he'd been ahead of the curve all along." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Maybe he'd been posthuman for years.\n\nThe min-max point came forty hours later, and it was time to go. The OPA had skeletonized the station, and it was time to get out before anyone came along with vengeance in mind. Miller sat in a crash couch, his blood dancing with spent amphetamines and his mind slipping into and out of exhaustion psychosis." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The thrust gravity was like a pillow over his face." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was vaguely aware that he was weeping. It didn't mean anything.\n\nIn Miller's haze, Dresden was talking again, pouring out promises and lies, half-truths and visions. Miller could see the words themselves like a dark smoke, coalescing into the spilling black filament of the protomolecule." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The threads of it were reaching toward Holden, Amos, Naomi." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He tried to find his gun, to stop it, to do the obvious thing. His despairing shout woke him, and he remembered he'd already won.\n\nJulie sat beside him, her hand cool against his forehead. Her smile was gentle, understanding. Forgiving." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sleep, she said, and his mind fell into the deep black." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oi, Pampaw,\" Diogo said. \"Acima and out, sabez?\"\n\nIt was Miller's tenth morning back on Tycho, his seventh hot-bunking in Diogo's closet-sized apartment. He could tell from the buzz in the boy's voice it would have to be one of the last." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fish and company start to smell after three days." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He rolled off the thin bed, ran fingers through his hair, and nodded. Diogo stripped down and crawled into the bed without speaking. He stank of liquor and cheap tub-grown marijuana.\n\nMiller's terminal told him that the second shift had ended two hours before, the third shift halfway into its morning." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He gathered his things in his suitcase, turned off the lights on Diogo's already snoring form, and trundled out to the public showers to spend a few of his remaining credits trying to look less homeless." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The pleasant surprise of his return to Tycho Station was the boost of money in his account. The OPA, meaning Fred Johnson, had paid him for his time on Thoth. He hadn't asked for it, and there was part of him that wanted to turn the payment down. If there had been an alternative, he might have." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Since there wasn't, he tried to stretch the funds out as far as they would go and appreciate the irony." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He and Captain Shaddid were on the same payroll after all.\n\nFor the first few days after his return to Tycho, Miller had expected to see the attack on Thoth in the newsfeeds. EARTH CORPORATION LOSES RESEARCH STATION TO CRAZED BELTERS, or some such. He should have been finding a job or a place to sleep that wasn't charity." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He meant to. But the hours seemed to dissolve as he sat in the bar or the lounges, watching the screens for just a few more minutes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Martian navy had suffered a series of harassing attacks by Belters. A half ton of super-accelerated gravel had forced two of their battleships to change course. A slowdown in water harvesting on Saturn's rings was either an illegal work stoppage, and therefore treasonous, or the natural response to increased security needs. Two Earth-owned mining operations had been attacked by either Mars or the OPA." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Four hundred people were dead." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Earth's blockade of Mars was entering its third month. A coalition of scientists and terraforming specialists were screaming that the cascading processes were in danger, and that while the war would be over in a year or two, the loss of supplies would set the terraforming effort back generations. Everyone blamed everyone else for Eros. Thoth station didn't exist." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It would, though." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With most of the Martian navy still in the outer planets, Earth's siege was a brittle thing. Time was getting short. Either the Martians would go home and try facing down the somewhat older, somewhat slower, but more numerous ships of Earth, or they'd go straight for the planet itself. Earth was still the source of a thousand things that couldn't be grown elsewhere, but if someone got happy or cocksure or desperate, it wouldn't take much to start dropping rocks down the gravity wells." }, { "from": "human", "value": "All of it as a distraction." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was an old joke. Miller didn't remember where he'd heard it. Girl's at her own father's funeral, meets this really cute guy. They talk, hit it off, but he leaves before she can get his number." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Girl doesn't know how to track the guy down." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So a week later, she kills her mom.\n\nBig laugh.\n\nIt was the logic of Protogen, of Dresden, of Thoth. Here is the problem, they said to themselves, and there is the solution." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That it was drowned in innocent blood was as trivial as the font the reports were printed in." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They had disconnected themselves from humanity. Shut off the cell clusters in their brains that made life besides their own sacred. Or valuable. Or worth saving. All it had cost them was every human connection." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Funny how familiar that sounded." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The guy who walked into the bar and nodded to Miller was one of Diogo's friends. Twenty years old or maybe a little south of that. A veteran of Thoth Station, just like Miller. He didn't remember the kid's name, but he'd seen him around often enough to know that the way he held himself was different than usual." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tight-wound. Miller tapped the mute on his terminal's newsfeed and made his way over." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hey,\" he said, and the kid looked up sharply. The face was tense, but a softer, intentional ease tried to mask it. It was just Diogo's old grandpa. The one, everyone on Thoth knew, who'd killed the biggest dick in the universe." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It won Miller some points, so the kid smiled and nodded to the stool beside him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"All pretty fucked up, isn't it?\" Miller said.\n\n\"You don't know the half,\" the kid said. He had a clipped accent. Belter by his height, but educated." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Technician, probably. The kid tabbed in a drink order, and the bar offered up a glass of clear fluid so volatile Miller could watch it evaporate." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The kid drank it down with a gulp.\n\n\"Doesn't work,\" Miller said.\n\nThe kid looked over. Miller shrugged.\n\n\"They say drinking helps, but it doesn't,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Nope. Sex sometimes, if you've got a girl who'll talk to you after. Or target practice. Working out, sometimes. Liquor doesn't make you feel better. Just makes you not so worried about feeling bad.\"\n\nThe kid laughed and shook his head. He was on the edge of talking, so Miller sat back and let the quiet do his work for him. He figured the kid had killed someone, probably on Thoth, and it was sneaking up on him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But instead of telling the story, the kid took Miller's terminal, keyed in a few local codes, and handed it back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A huge menu of feeds appeared—video, audio, air pressure and content, radiological. It took Miller half a second to understand what he was seeing. They'd cracked the encryption on the Eros feeds.\n\nHe was looking at the protomolecule in action." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was seeing Juliette Andromeda Mao's corpse writ large." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For a moment, his imagined Julie flickered beside him.\n\n\"If you ever wonder if you did the right thing shooting that guy,\" the kid said, \"look at that.\"\n\nMiller opened a feed. A long corridor, wide enough for twenty people to walk abreast." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The flooring was wet and undulating like the surface of a canal." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Something small rolled awkwardly through the mush. When Miller zoomed in, it was a human torso—rib cage, spine, trailing lengths of what used to be intestines and were now the long black threads of the protomolecule—pushing itself along on the stump of an arm. There was no head. The feed output bar showed there was sound, and Miller undid the mute." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The high, mindless piping reminded him of mentally ill children singing to themselves." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's all like that,\" the kid said. \"Whole station's crawling with... shit like that.\"\n\n\"What's it doing?\"\n\n\"Building something,\" the kid said, and shuddered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I thought you should see it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yeah?\" Miller said, his gaze nailed to the screen. \"What did I ever do to you?\"\n\nThe kid laughed.\n\n\"Everyone thinks you're a hero for killing that guy,\" the kid said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Everyone thinks we should push every last prisoner we took off that station out an airlock.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Probably should, Miller thought, if we can't make them human again. He switched the feed. The casino level where he and Holden had been, or else a section very like it. A webwork of something like bones linked ceiling and roof." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Black sluglike things a yard long slithered up and between them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The sound was a hushing, like the recordings he'd heard of surf against a beach. He switched again. The port, with bulkheads closed and encrusted with huge nautilus spirals that seemed to shift while he watched them.\n\n\"Everyone thinks you're a fucking hero,\" the kid said, and this time, it bit a little. Miller shook his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Nah,\" he said. \"Just a guy who used to be a cop.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Why should going into a firefight, charging into an enemy station filled with people and automatic systems built to kill you, seem less frightening than talking to people who you shipped with for weeks?\n\nAnd still.\n\nIt was third shift, and the bar at the observation platform was set to imitate night. The air was scented with something smoky that wasn't smoke." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A piano and bass dueled lazily with each other while a man's voice lamented in Arabic." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dim lights glowed at the bases of the tables, casting soft shadows up across faces and bodies, emphasizing the customers' legs and bellies and breasts. The shipyards beyond the windows were busy as always. If he went close, he could pick out the Rocinante, still recovering from its wounds. Not dead, and being made stronger." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Amos and Naomi were at a table in a corner." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No sign of Alex. No sign of Holden. That made it easier. Not easy, but closer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He made his way toward them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Naomi saw him first, and Miller read the discomfort in her expression, covered over as quickly as it appeared. Amos turned to see what she'd been reacting to, and the corners of his mouth and eyes didn't shift into a frown or a smile. Miller scratched his arm even though it didn't itch.\n\n\"Hey,\" he said. \"Buy you folks a round?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The silence lasted a beat longer than it should have, and then Naomi forced a smile." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sure. Just one. We've got... that thing. For the captain.\"\n\n\"Oh yeah,\" Amos said, lying even more awkwardly than Naomi had, making his awareness of the fact part of the message. \"The thing. That's important.\"\n\nMiller sat, lifted a hand for the waiter to see, and, when the man nodded, leaned forward with his elbows on the table." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was the seated version of a fighter's crouch, bent forward with his arms protecting the soft places in his neck and belly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was the way a man stood when he expected injury.\n\nThe waiter came, and then beers all around. Miller paid for them with the OPA's money and took a sip.\n\n\"How's the ship?\" he asked at last." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Coming together,\" Naomi said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They really banged the hell out of her.\"\n\n\"She'll still fly,\" Amos said. \"She's one tough bitch.\"\n\n\"That's good. When—\" Miller said, then tripped on his words and had to start again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"When are you folks shipping out?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Whenever the captain says,\" Amos said with a shrug. \"We're airtight now, so could go tomorrow, if he's got someplace he wants to be.\"\n\n\"And if Fred lets us,\" Naomi said, and then grimaced like she wished she'd kept silent.\n\n\"That an issue?\" Miller asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Is the OPA leaning on Holden?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's just something I was thinking about,\" Naomi said. \"It's nothing. Look, thanks for the drink, Miller. But I really think we'd better be going.\"\n\nMiller took a long breath and let it out slow.\n\n\"Yeah,\" he said. \"Okay.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You head out,\" Amos said to Naomi. \"I'll catch up.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Naomi shot a confused look at the big man, but Amos only gave back a smile. It could have meant anything.\n\n\"Okay,\" Naomi said. \"But don't be long, okay? The thing.\"\n\n\"For the captain,\" Amos said. \"No worries.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Naomi rose and walked away." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her effort not to look back over her shoulder was visible. Miller looked at Amos. The lights gave the mechanic a slightly demonic appearance.\n\n\"Naomi's a good person,\" Amos said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I like her, you know? Like my kid sister, only smart and I'd do her if she let me. You know?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yeah,\" Miller said. \"I like her too.\"\n\n\"She's not like us,\" Amos said, and the warmth and humor were gone.\n\n\"That's why I like her,\" Miller said. It was the right thing to say. Amos nodded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So here's the thing. As far as the captain goes, you're dipped in shit right now.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The scrim of bubbles where his beer touched the glass glowed white in the dim light. Miller gave the glass a quarter turn, watching them closely.\n\n\"Because I killed someone who needed it?\" Miller asked. The bitterness in his voice wasn't surprising, but it was deeper than he'd intended." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Amos didn't hear it or else didn't care." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Because you've got a habit of that,\" Amos said. \"Cap'n's not like that. Killing people without talking it over first makes him jumpy. You did a lot of it on Eros, but... you know.\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" Miller said.\n\n\"Thoth Station wasn't Eros. Next place we go won't be Eros either. Holden doesn't want you around.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And the rest of you?\" Miller asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We don't want you around either,\" Amos said. His voice wasn't hard or gentle. He was talking about the gauge of a machine part. He was talking about anything." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The words hit Miller in the belly, just where he'd expected it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He couldn't have blocked them.\n\n\"Here's the thing,\" Amos went on. \"You and me, we're a lot the same. Been around. I know what I am, and my moral compass? I'll tell you, it's fucked. A few things fell different when I was a kid. I could have been those ass-bandits on Thoth. I know that. Captain couldn't have been. It's not in him. He's as close to righteous as anyone out here gets. And when he says you're out, that's just the way it is, because the way I figure it, he's probably right. Sure as hell has a better chance than I do.\"\n\n\"Okay,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yeah,\" Amos said. He finished his beer." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then he finished Naomi's. And then he walked away, leaving Miller to himself and his empty gut. Outside, the Nauvoo fanned a glittering array of sensors, testing something or else just preening. Miller waited.\n\nBeside him, Julie Mao leaned on the table, just where Amos had been." }, { "from": "human", "value": "So, she said. Looks like it's just you and me now." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Looks like,\" he said." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Provide 4 sentences as a continuation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A Tycho worker in blue coveralls and a welding mask sealed up the hole in one of the galley bulkheads." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden watched with his hand shielding his eyes from the harsh blue glare of the torch. When the plate steel was secured in place, the welder flipped her mask up to check the bead. She had blue eyes and a small mouth in a heart-shaped pixie face and a mop of red hair pulled into a bun. Her name was Sam, and she was the team leader on the Rocinante repair project." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Amos had been chasing her for two weeks now with no success." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden was glad, because the pixie had turned out to be one of the best mechanics he'd ever met, and he'd hate for her to focus on anything other than his ship.\n\n\"It's perfect,\" he said to her as she ran one gloved hand over the cooling metal.\n\n\"It's okay,\" she said with a shrug. \"We'll grind this down smooth enough, paint it nice, then you'll never even know your ship had a boo-boo.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She had a surprisingly deep voice that contrasted with her looks and her habit of using mockingly childlike phrases." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden guessed that her appearance combined with her chosen profession had led to a lot of people underestimating her in the past. He didn't want to make that mistake.\n\n\"You've done amazing work, Sam,\" he said. He guessed Sam was short for something, but he'd never asked and she'd never volunteered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I keep telling Fred how happy we are to have you in charge of this job.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Maybe I'll get a gold star in my next report card,\" she said while she put her torch away and stood up. Holden tried to think of something to say to that and failed.\n\n\"Sorry,\" she said, turning to face him. \"I appreciate your praise to the boss. And to be honest, it's been a lot of fun working on your little girl. She's quite a ship. The beating she took would have blown anything we own into scrap.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It was a close thing, even for us,\" Holden replied." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sam nodded, then began putting the rest of her gear away. As she worked, Naomi climbed down the crew ladder from the upper decks, her gray coveralls hung with electrician's tools.\n\n\"How are things up there?\" Holden asked.\n\n\"Ninety percent,\" Naomi said as she crossed the galley to the refrigerator and took out a bottle of juice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Give or take.\" She took out a second bottle and tossed it to Sam, who caught it one-handed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Naomi,\" Sam said, raising the bottle in mock toast before downing half of it in one swallow.\n\n\"Sammy,\" Naomi said in return with a grin.\n\nThe two of them had hit it off right away, and now Naomi was spending a lot of her off time with Sam and her Tycho crowd. Holden hated to admit it, but he missed being the only social circle Naomi had." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When he did admit it to himself, like now, it made him feel like a creep." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Golgo comp in rec, tonight?\" Sam said after she'd gulped down the last of her drink.\n\n\"Think those C7 chumps are tired of getting their asses handed to them?\" Naomi said in return." }, { "from": "human", "value": "To Holden, it sounded like they were speaking in code." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We can throw the first one,\" Sam said. \"Get 'em hooked tight before we drop the hammer and wipe their roll.\"\n\n\"Sounds good to me,\" Naomi said, then tossed her empty bottle into the recycling bin and started back up the ladder. \"See you at eight, then.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She tossed a little wave at Holden. \"Later, Captain.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden said, \"How much longer, do you think?\" to Sam's back as she finished with her tools.\n\nSam shrugged. \"Couple days, maybe, to get her to perfect. She could probably fly now, if you're not worried about nonessentials and cosmetics.\"\n\n\"Thanks, again,\" Holden said, holding out his hand to Sam as she turned around." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She shook it once, her palm heavily calloused and her grip firm." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And I hope you mop the floor with those chumps from C7.\"\n\nShe gave him a predatory grin.\n\n\"It's not even in doubt.\"\n\nThrough Fred Johnson, the OPA had provided the crew with living quarters on the station during the renovation of the Roci, and over the past few weeks, Holden's cabin had almost come to feel like home." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tycho had money, and they seemed to spend a lot of it on their employees." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden had three rooms to himself, including a bath and a kitchen nook off the public space. On most stations, you'd have to be the governor to have that kind of luxury. Holden had the impression it was fairly standard for management on Tycho.\n\nHe tossed his grimy jumpsuit into the laundry bin and started a pot of coffee before jumping into his private shower." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A shower every night after work: another almost unthinkable luxury." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It would be easy to get distracted. To start thinking of this period of ship repair and quiet home life as normalcy, not interlude. Holden couldn't let that happen.\n\nEarth's assault on Mars filled the newsfeeds." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The domes of Mars still stood, but two showers of meteors had pocked the wide slopes of Olympus Mons." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Earth claimed that it was debris from Deimos, Mars that it was an intentional threat and provocation. Martian ships from the gas giants were burning hard for the inner planets. Every day, every hour brought the moment closer when Earth would have to commit to annihilating Mars or backing away. The OPA's rhetoric seemed built to ensure that whoever won would kill them next." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden had just helped Fred with what Earth would see as the largest act of piracy in the history of the Belt." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And a million and a half people were dying right now on Eros. Holden thought of the video feed he'd seen of what was happening to the people on the station, and shuddered even in the heat of the shower.\n\nOh, and aliens. Aliens that had tried to take over the Earth two billion years ago, and failed because Saturn got in the way. Can't forget the aliens." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His brain still hadn't figured out a way to process that, so it kept trying to pretend it didn't exist." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden grabbed a towel and turned on the wall screen in his living room while he dried off. The air was filled with the competing scents of coffee, humidity from the shower, and the faintly grassy and floral scent Tycho pumped into all the residences. Holden tried the news, but it was speculation about the war without any new information. He changed to a competition show with incomprehensible rules and psychotically giddy contestants." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He flipped through a few feeds that he could tell were comedies, because the actors paused and nodded where they expected the laughs to be." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When his jaw started aching, he realized he was gritting his teeth. He turned off the screen and threw the remote onto his bed in the next room. He wrapped the towel around his waist, then poured a mug of coffee and collapsed onto the couch just in time for his door to chime.\n\n\"What?\" he yelled at the top of his lungs. No one replied." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Good insulation on Tycho." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He went to the door, arranging his towel for maximum modesty along the way, and yanked it open.\n\nIt was Miller. He was dressed in a rumpled gray suit he'd probably brought from Ceres, and was fumbling around with that stupid hat.\n\n\"Holden, hey—\" he started, but Holden cut him off.\n\n\"What the hell do you want?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden said. \"And are you really standing outside my door with your hat in your hands?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller smiled, then put the hat back on his head. \"You know, I always wondered what that meant.\"\n\n\"Now you know,\" Holden replied.\n\n\"You got a minute?\" Miller said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden waited a moment, staring up at the lanky detective." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He quickly gave up. He probably outweighed Miller by twenty kilos, but it was impossible to be intimidating when the person you were staring down was a foot taller than you.\n\n\"Okay, come in,\" he said, then headed for his bedroom. \"Let me get dressed. There's coffee.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden didn't wait for a reply; he just closed the bedroom door and sat on the bed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He and Miller hadn't exchanged more than a dozen words since returning to Tycho. He knew they couldn't leave it at that, as much as he might like to. He owed Miller at least the conversation where he told him to get lost.\n\nHe put on a pair of warm cotton pants and a pullover, ran one hand through his damp hair, and went back out to the living room." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller was sitting on his couch holding a steaming mug." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Good coffee,\" the detective said.\n\n\"So, let's hear it,\" Holden replied, sitting in a chair across from him.\n\nMiller took a sip of his coffee and said, \"Well—\"\n\n\"I mean, this is the conversation where you tell me how you were right to shoot an unarmed man in the face, and how I'm just too naive to see it. Right?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Actually—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I fucking told you,\" Holden said, surprised to feel the heat rise in his cheeks. \"No more of that judge, jury, and executioner shit or you could find your own ride, and you did it anyway.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nThe simple affirmative took Holden off guard." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller took another sip of his coffee, then set the mug down. He reached up and took off his hat, tossed it onto the couch next to him, then leaned back.\n\n\"He was going to get away with it.\"\n\n\"Excuse me?\" Holden replied." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Did you miss the part where he confessed to everything?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That wasn't a confession. That was a boast. He was untouchable, and he knew it. Too much money. Too much power.\"\n\n\"That's bullshit. No one gets to kill a million and a half people and get away with it.\"\n\n\"People get away with things all time. Guilty as hell, but something gets in the way. Evidence. Politics. I had a partner for a while, name of Muss. When Earth pulled out of Ceres—\"\n\n\"Stop,\" Holden said. \"I don't care. I don't want to hear any more of your stories about how being a cop makes you wiser and deeper and able to face the truth about humanity. As far as I can tell, all it did was break you. Okay?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yeah, okay.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Dresden and his Protogen buddies thought they could choose who lives and who dies. That sound familiar? And don't tell me it's different this time, because everyone says that, every time. And it's not.\"\n\n\"Wasn't revenge,\" Miller said, a little too hotly.\n\n\"Oh really? This wasn't about the girl in the hotel? Julie Mao?\"\n\n\"Catching him was. Killing him...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller sighed and nodded to himself, then got up and opened the door." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He stopped in the doorway and turned around, real pain on his face.\n\n\"He was talking us into it,\" Miller said. \"All that about getting the stars and protecting ourselves from whatever shot that thing at Earth? I was starting to think maybe he should get away with it. Maybe things were just too big for right and wrong. I'm not saying he convinced me. But he made me think maybe, you know? Just maybe.\"\n\n\"And for that, you shot him.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I did.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden sighed, then leaned against the wall next to the open door, his arms crossed.\n\n\"Amos calls you righteous,\" Miller said. \"You know that?\"\n\n\"Amos thinks he's a bad guy because he's done some things he's ashamed of,\" Holden said. \"He doesn't always trust himself, but the fact that he cares tells me he isn't a bad guy.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yeah—\" Miller started, but Holden cut him off." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He looks at his soul, sees the stains, and wants to be clean,\" he said. \"But you? You just shrug.\"\n\n\"Dresden was—\"\n\n\"This isn't about Dresden. It's about you,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I can't trust you around the people I care about.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden stared at Miller, waiting for him to reply, but the cop just nodded sadly, then put his hat on and walked away down the gently curving corridor. He didn't turn around.\n\nHolden went back inside and tried to relax, but he felt jumpy and nervous. He would never have gotten off Eros without Miller's help." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was no question about it: Tossing him out on his ear felt wrong. Incomplete." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The truth was Miller made his scalp crawl every time they were in the same room. The cop was like an unpredictable dog that might lick your hand or take a bite out of your leg.\n\nHolden thought about calling Fred and warning him. He called Naomi instead." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hey,\" she answered on the second chime." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden could hear a bar's frantic, alcohol-fueled merriment in the background.\n\n\"Naomi,\" he said, then paused, trying to think of some excuse to have called. When he couldn't think of one, he said, \"Miller was just here.\"\n\n\"Yeah, he cornered Amos and me a while back. What did he want?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't know,\" Holden said with a sigh. \"Say goodbye, maybe.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What are you doing?\" Naomi asked. \"Want to meet up?\"\n\n\"Yes. Yes I do.\"\n\nHolden didn't recognize the bar at first, but after ordering a scotch from a professionally friendly waiter, he realized it was the same place he'd watched Naomi sing karaoke to a Belter punk song what seemed like centuries before." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She wandered in and plopped down across from him in the booth just as his drink showed up." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The waiter gave her a questioning smile.\n\n\"Gah, no,\" she said quickly, waving her hands at him. \"I've had plenty tonight. Just some water, thanks.\"\n\nAs the waiter bustled away, Holden said, \"How did your, uh... What exactly is Golgo, anyway? And how did it go?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Game they play here,\" Naomi said, then took a glass of water from their returning waiter and drank half of it in one gulp." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Like a cross between darts and soccer. Never seen it before, but I seem to be good at it. We won.\"\n\n\"Great,\" Holden said. \"Thanks for coming. I know it's late, but this Miller thing freaked me out a bit.\"\n\n\"He wants you to absolve him, I think.\"\n\n\"Because I'm 'righteous,'\" Holden said with a sarcastic laugh." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You are,\" Naomi said with no irony." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I mean, it's a loaded term, but you're as close to it as anyone I've ever known.\"\n\n\"I've fucked everything up,\" Holden blurted out before he could stop himself. \"Everyone who's tried to help us, or that we've tried to help, has died spectacularly. This whole fucking war. And Captain McDowell and Becca and Ade. And Shed—\" He had to stop and swallow a sudden lump in his throat.\n\nNaomi just nodded, then reached across the table and took his hand in hers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I need a win, Naomi,\" he continued." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I need to do something that makes a difference. Fate or Karma or God or whatever dropped me in the middle of this thing, and I need to know I'm making a difference.\"\n\nNaomi smiled at him and squeezed his hand.\n\n\"You're cute when you're being noble,\" she said. \"But you need to stare off into the distance more.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You're making fun of me.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yeah,\" she said. \"I am. Want to come home with me?\"\n\n\"I—\" Holden started, then stopped and stared at her, looking for the joke. Naomi was still smiling at him, nothing in her eyes but warmth and a touch of mischief. While he watched, one curly lock of hair fell over her eye, and she pushed it up without looking away from him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Wait, what? I thought you'd—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I said don't tell me you love me to get me into bed,\" she said. \"But I also said I'd have gone to your cabin anytime you asked over the last four years. I didn't think I was being subtle, and I'm sort of tired of waiting.\"\n\nHolden leaned back in the booth and tried to remember to breathe. Naomi's grin changed to pure mischief now, and one eyebrow went up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You okay, sailor?\" she asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I thought you were avoiding me,\" he said once he was capable of speech. \"Is this your way of giving me a win?\"\n\n\"Don't be insulting,\" she said, though there was no hint of anger in her voice. \"But I've waited weeks for you to get your nerve up, and the ship's almost done. That means you'll probably volunteer us for something really stupid and this time our luck will run out.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well—\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If that happens without us at least giving this a try once, I will be very unhappy about it.\"\n\n\"Naomi, I—\"\n\n\"It's simple, Jim,\" she said, reaching out for his hand and pulling him back toward her. She leaned across the table between them until their faces were almost touching." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's a yes or no question.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your next one should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "I'll be your writing partner today. I will set the scene, and you will continue the story with four sentences, channeling the voice and techniques of James S. A. Corey.i'll kick things off by writing a bit, then you'll take over and write the next four sentences in the distinctive voice of James S. A. Corey.Ive got a bit of writers block, im gonna send you something then keep it going four sentences at a time, also im going for a James S. A. Corey sorta thing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller sat by himself, staring out the wide observation windows without seeing the view." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The fungal-culture whiskey on the low black table beside him remained at the same level in the glass as when he'd bought it. It wasn't really a drink. It was permission to sit. There had always been a handful of drifters, even on Ceres." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Men and women whose luck had run out." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No place to go, no one to ask favors of. No connection to the vast net of humanity. He'd always felt a kind of sympathy for them, his spiritual kindred.\n\nNow he was part of that disconnected tribe in earnest." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Something bright happened on the skin of the great generation ship—a welding array firing off some intricate network of subtle connection, maybe." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Past the Nauvoo, nestled in the constant hive-like activity of Tycho Station, was a half-degree arc of the Rocinante, like a home he'd once had. He knew the story of Moses seeing a promised land he would never enter. Miller wondered how the old prophet would have felt if he'd been ushered in for a moment—a day, a week, a year—and then dropped back out in the desert. Kinder never to leave the wastelands. Safer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Beside him, Juliette Mao watched him from the corner of his mind carved out for her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I was supposed to save you, he thought. I was supposed to find you. Find the truth.\n\nAnd didn't you?\n\nHe smiled at her, and she smiled back, as world-weary and tired as he was." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Because of course he had." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He'd found her, he'd found who killed her, and Holden was right. He'd taken revenge. All that he'd promised himself, he'd done. Only it hadn't saved him.\n\n\"Can I get you anything?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "For half a second, Miller thought Julie had said it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The serving girl had opened her mouth to ask him again before he shook his head. She couldn't. And even if she had been able to, he couldn't afford it.\n\nYou knew it couldn't last, Julie said. Holden. His crew. You knew you didn't really belong there." }, { "from": "human", "value": "You belong with me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A sudden shot of adrenaline revved his tired heart. He looked around for her, but Julie was gone. His own privately generated fight-or-flight reaction didn't have room for daydream hallucinations. And still. You belong with me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He wondered how many people he'd known who had taken that path." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Cops had a tradition of eating their guns that went back to long before humanity had lifted itself up the gravity well. Here he was, without a home, without a friend, with more blood on his hands from the past month than from his whole career before it. The in-house shrink on Ceres called it suicidal ideation in his yearly presentation to the security teams. Something to watch out for, like genital lice or high cholesterol." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Not a big deal if you were careful." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So he'd be careful. For a while. See where it went.\n\nHe stood, hesitated for three heartbeats, then scooped up his bourbon and drank it in a gulp. Liquid courage, they called it, and it seemed to do the trick." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He pulled up his terminal, put in a connect request, and tried to compose himself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He wasn't there yet. And if he was going to live, he needed a job.\n\n\"Sabez nichts, Pampaw,\" Diogo said. The kid was wearing a meshwork shirt and pants cut in a fashion as youthful as it was ugly, and in his previous life, Miller would probably have written him off as too young to know anything useful." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Now Miller waited. If anything could wring a prospect out of Diogo, it would be the promise of Miller getting a hole of his own. The silence dragged." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller forced himself not to speak for fear of begging.\n\n\"Well...\" Diogo said warily. \"Well. There's one hombre might could. Just arm and eye.\"\n\n\"Security guard work's fine with me,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Anything that pays the bills.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Il conversa á do. Hear what's said.\"\n\n\"I appreciate anything you can do,\" Miller replied, then gestured at the bed. \"You mind if I...?\"\n\n\"Mi cama es su cama,\" Diogo said. Miller lay down." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Diogo stepped into the small shower, and the sound of water against flesh drowned out the air cycler." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even on board ship, Miller hadn't lived in physical circumstances this intimate with anyone since his marriage. Still, he wouldn't have gone as far as to call Diogo a friend.\n\nOpportunity was thinner on Tycho than he'd hoped, and he didn't have much by way of references. The few people who knew him weren't likely to speak on his behalf." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But surely there'd be something." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All he needed was a way to remake himself, to start over and be someone different from who he'd been.\n\nAssuming, of course, that Earth or Mars—whichever one came out on top of the war—didn't then wipe the OPA and all the stations loyal to it out of the sky. And that the protomolecule didn't escape Eros and slaughter a planet. Or a station. Or him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had a moment's chill, recalling that there was still a sample of the thing on board the Roci." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If something happened with it, Holden and Naomi, Alex and Amos might all join Julie long before Miller did.\n\nHe told himself that wasn't his problem anymore. Still, he hoped they'd be all right. He wanted them to be well, even if he wasn't." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oi, Pampaw,\" Diogo said as the door to the public hall slid open." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You hear that Eros started talking?\"\n\nMiller lifted himself to one elbow.\n\n\"Sí,\" Diogo said. \"Whatever that shit is, it started broadcasting. There's even words and shit. I've got a feed. You want a listen?\"\n\nNo, Miller thought. No, I have seen those corridors." }, { "from": "human", "value": "What's happened to those people almost happened to me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I don't want anything to do with that abomination.\n\n\"Sure,\" he said.\n\nDiogo scooped up his own hand terminal and keyed in something. Miller's terminal chimed that it had received the new feed route." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Chicá perdída in ops been mixing a bunch of it to bhangra,\" Diogo said, making a shifting dance move with his hips. \"Hard-core, eh?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Diogo and the other OPA irregulars had breached a high-value research station, faced down one of the most powerful and evil corporations in a history of power and evil. And now they were making music from the screams of the dying. Of the dead. They were dancing to it in the low-rent clubs. What it must be like, Miller thought, to be young and soulless." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But no. That wasn't fair." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Diogo was a good kid. He was just naive. The universe would take care of that, given a little time.\n\n\"Hard-core,\" Miller said. Diogo grinned." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The feed sat in queue, waiting." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller turned out the lights, letting the little bed bear him up against the press of spin. He didn't want to hear. He didn't want to know. He had to.\n\nAt first, the sound was nothing—electric squeals and a wildly fluting static." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then, maybe somewhere deep in the back of it, music." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A chorus of violas churning away together in a long, distant crescendo. And then, as clear as if someone were speaking into a microphone, a voice.\n\n\"Rabbits and hamsters. Ecologically unstabilizing and round and blue as moonbeams. August.\"\n\nIt almost certainly wasn't a real person." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The computer systems on Eros could generate any number of perfectly convincing dialects and voices." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Men's, women's, children's. And how many millions of hours of data could there be on the computers and storage dumps all through the station?\n\nAnother electronic flutter, like finches looped back against themselves. A new voice—feminine and soft this time—with a throbbing pulse behind it.\n\n\"Patient complains of rapid heartbeat and night sweats. Symptom onset reported as three months previous, but with a history...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The voice faded, and the throbbing rose." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Like an old man with Swiss cheese holes in his brain, the complex system that had been Eros was dying, changing, losing its mind. And because Protogen had wired it all for sound, Miller could listen to the station fail.\n\n\"I didn't tell him, I didn't tell him, I didn't tell him. The sunrise. I've never seen the sunrise.\"\n\nMiller closed his eyes and slid down toward sleep, serenaded by Eros." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As consciousness faded, he imagined a body in the bed beside him, warm and alive and breathing slowly in time with the rise and fall of the static." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The manager was a thin man, weedy, with hair combed high above his brow like a wave that never crashed. The office hunched close around them, humming at odd moments when the infrastructure—water, air, energy—of Tycho impinged on it. A business built between ducts, improvisational and cheap. The lowest of the low." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm sorry,\" the manager said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller felt his gut tighten and sink. Of all the humiliations the universe had in store for him, this one he hadn't foreseen. It made him angry.\n\n\"You think I can't handle it?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "he asked, keeping his voice soft." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's not that,\" the weedy man said. \"It's... Look, between us, we're looking for a thumb, you know? Someone's idiot kid brother could guard this warehouse. You've got all this experience. What do we need with riot control protocols? Or investigative procedure? I mean, come on. This gig doesn't even come with a gun.\"\n\n\"I don't care,\" Miller said. \"I need something.\"\n\nThe weedy man sighed and gave the exaggerated shrug of a Belter." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You need something else,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller tried not to laugh, afraid it would sound like despair. He stared at the cheap plastic wall behind the manager until the guy started to get uncomfortable. It was a trap. He was too experienced to start over." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He knew too much, so there was no going back and doing fresh beginnings." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"All right,\" he said at last, and the manager across the desk from him let out a breath, then had the good grace to look embarrassed.\n\n\"Can I just ask,\" the weedy man said. \"Why did you leave your old job?\"\n\n\"Ceres changed hands,\" Miller said, putting on his hat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I wasn't on the new team. That was all.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ceres?\"\n\nThe manager looked confused, which in turn confused Miller. He glanced down at his own hand terminal. There was his work history, just the way he'd presented it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The manager couldn't have missed it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's where I was,\" Miller said.\n\n\"For the police thing. But I meant the last job. I mean, I've been around, I understand not putting OPA work on your resume, but you have to figure we all know that you were part of the thing... you know, with the station. And all.\"\n\n\"You think I was working for the OPA,\" Miller said.\n\nThe weedy man blinked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You were,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Which, after all, was true.\n\nNothing had changed in Fred Johnson's office, and everything had. The furnishings, the smell of the air, the sense of its existing somewhere between a boardroom and a command and control center. The generation ship outside the window might have been half a percent closer to completion, but that wasn't it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The stakes of the game had shifted, and what had been a war was something else now." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Something bigger. It shone in Fred's eyes and tightened his shoulders.\n\n\"We could use a man with your skills,\" Fred agreed. \"It's always the small-scale things that trip you up. How to frisk someone. That kind of thing. Tycho security can handle themselves, but once we're off our station and shooting our way into someone else's, not as much.\"\n\n\"Is that something you're looking to do more of?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller said, trying to make it a casual joke." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fred didn't answer. For a moment, Julie stood at the general's side. Miller saw the pair of them reflected in the screens, the man pensive, the ghost amused. Maybe Miller had gotten it wrong from the start, and the divide between the Belt and the inner planets was something besides politics and resource management. He knew as well as anyone that the Belt offered a harder, more dangerous life than Mars or Earth provided." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And yet it called these people—the best people—out of humanity's gravity wells to cast themselves into the darkness." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The impulse to explore, to stretch, to leave home. To go as far as possible out into the universe. And now that Protogen and Eros offered the chance to become gods, to recreate humanity into beings that could go beyond merely human hopes and dreams, it occurred to Miller how hard it would be for men like Fred to turn that temptation away.\n\n\"You killed Dresden,\" Fred said. \"That's a problem.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It needed to happen.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm not sure it did,\" Fred replied, but his voice was careful. Testing. Miller smiled, a little sadly.\n\n\"That's why it needed to happen,\" he said.\n\nThe small, coughing laugh told Miller that Fred understood him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When the general turned back to consider him again, his gaze was steady." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"When it comes to the negotiating table, someone's going to have to answer for it. You killed a defenseless man.\"\n\n\"I did,\" Miller said.\n\n\"When the time comes, I will hand-feed you to the wolves as the first chip I offer. I won't protect you.\"\n\n\"Wouldn't ask you to protect me,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Even if it meant being a Belter ex-cop in an Earth-side prison?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was a euphemism, and they both knew it. You belong with me, Julie said. And so what did it matter, really, how he got there?\n\n\"I've got no regrets,\" he said, and half a breath later was shocked to discover it was almost true." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If there's a judge out there who wants to ask me about something, I'll answer. I'm looking for a job here, not protection.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fred sat in his chair, eyes narrow and thoughtful. Miller leaned forward in his seat.\n\n\"You've got me in a hard position,\" Fred said. \"You're saying all the right things. But I have a hard time trusting that you'd follow through. Keeping you on the books would be risky. It could undermine my position in the peace negotiations.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's a risk,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But I've been on Eros and Thoth station. I flew on the Rocinante with Holden and his crew. When it comes to analysis of the protomolecule and how we got into this mess, there isn't anyone in a better position to give you information. You can argue I knew too much. That I was too valuable to let go.\"\n\n\"Or too dangerous.\"\n\n\"Sure. Or that.\"\n\nThey were silent for a moment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "On the Nauvoo, a bank of lights glittered in a gold-and-green test pattern and then went dark." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Security consultant,\" Fred said. \"Independent. I won't give you a rank.\"\n\nI'm too dirty for the OPA, Miller thought with a glow of amusement.\n\n\"If it comes with my own bunk, I'll take it,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was only until the war was over." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After that, he was meat for the machine. That was fine. Fred leaned back. His chair hissed softly into its new configuration.\n\n\"All right,\" Fred said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Here's your first job. Give me your analysis. What's my biggest problem?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Containment,\" Miller said.\n\n\"You think I can't keep the information about Thoth station and the protomolecule quiet?\"\n\n\"Of course you can't,\" Miller said. \"For one thing, too many people already know. For another thing, one of them's Holden, and if he hasn't already broadcast the whole thing on every empty frequency, he will soon. And besides that, you can't make a peace deal without explaining what the hell's going on. Sooner or later, it has to come out.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And what do you advise?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For a moment, Miller was back in the darkness, listening to the gibbers of the dying station. The voices of the dead calling to him from across the vacuum.\n\n\"Defend Eros,\" he said. \"All sides are going to want samples of the protomolecule. Locking down access is going to be the only way you get yourself a seat at that table.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fred chuckled." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Nice thought,\" he said. \"But how do propose we defend something the size of Eros Station if Earth and Mars bring their navies to bear?\"\n\nIt was a good point. Miller felt a tug of sorrow." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Even though Julie Mao—his Julie—was dead and gone, it felt like disloyalty to say it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then you have to get rid of it,\" he said.\n\n\"And how would I do that?\" Fred said. \"Even if we studded the thing with nukes, how would we be sure that no little scrap of the thing would make its way to a colony or down a well? Blowing that thing up would be like blowing dandelion fluff into the breeze.\"\n\nMiller had never seen a dandelion, but he saw the problem." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Even the smallest portion of the goo filling Eros might be enough to start the whole evil experiment over again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And the goo thrived on radiation; simply cooking the station might hurry the thing along its occult path rather than end it. To be sure that the protomolecule on Eros never spread, they'd need to break everything on the station down to its constituent atoms...\n\n\"Oh,\" Miller said.\n\n\"Oh?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yeah. You're not going to like this.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Try me.\"\n\n\"Okay. You asked. You drive Eros into the sun.\"\n\n\"Into the sun,\" Fred said. \"Do you have any idea how much mass we're talking about here?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller nodded to the wide, clear expanse of window, to the construction yards beyond it. To the Nauvoo." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Big engines on that thing,\" Miller said. \"Get some fast ships out to the station, make sure no one can get in before you get there. Run the Nauvoo into Eros Station. Knock it sunward.\"\n\nFred's gaze turned inward as he planned, calculated.\n\n\"Got to make sure no one gets into it until it hits corona. That'll be hard, but Earth and Mars are both just as interested in keeping the other guy from having it as in getting it themselves.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I'm sorry I couldn't do better, Julie, he thought." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Now write approximately five sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But it'll be a hell of a funeral.\n\nFred's breath grew slow and deep, his gaze flickering as if he were reading something in the air that only he could see. Miller didn't interrupt, even when the silence got heavy. It was almost a minute later that Fred let out a short, percussive breath.\n\n\"The Mormons are going to be pissed,\" he said." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "expand on the story like James S. A. Corey would" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Naomi talked in her sleep. It was one of a dozen things Holden hadn't known about her before tonight. Even though they'd slept in crash couches a few feet apart on many occasions, he'd never heard it. Now, with her face against his bare chest, he could feel her lips move and the soft, punctuated exhalations of her words." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He couldn't hear what she was saying." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She also had a scar on her back, just above her left buttock. It was three inches long and had the uneven edges and rippling that came from a tear rather than a slice. Naomi would never get herself knifed in a bar fight, so it had to have come on the job. Maybe she had been climbing through tight spaces in the engine room when the ship maneuvered unexpectedly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A competent plastic surgeon could have made it invisible in one visit." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That she hadn't bothered and clearly didn't care was another thing he had learned about her tonight.\n\nShe stopped murmuring and smacked her lips a few times, then said, \"Thirsty.\"\n\nHolden slid out from under her and headed for the kitchen, knowing that this was the obsequiousness that always accompanied a new lover. For the next couple of weeks, he wouldn't be able to stop himself from fulfilling every whim Naomi might have." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was a behavior some men carried at the genetic level, their DNA wanting to make sure that first time wasn't just a fluke." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her room was laid out differently than his, and the unfamiliarity made him clumsy in the dark. He fumbled around for a few minutes in her small kitchen nook, looking for a glass. By the time he found it, filled it, and headed back into the bedroom, Naomi was sitting up in bed. The sheet lay pooled on her lap." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The sight of her half nude in the dimly lit room gave him an embarrassingly sudden erection." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Naomi panned her gaze up his body, pausing at his midsection, then at the water glass, and said, \"Is that for me?\"\n\nHolden didn't know which thing she was asking about, so he just said, \"Yes.\"\n\n\"You asleep?\"\n\nNaomi's face was on his belly, her breathing slow and deep, but to his surprise she said, \"No.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Can we talk?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Naomi rolled off him and pulled herself up until her face lay next to his on the pillow. Her hair fell across her eyes, and Holden reached out and brushed it away in a move that felt so intimate and proprietary that he had to swallow a lump in his throat.\n\n\"Are you about to get serious on me?\" she asked, her eyes half lidded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yeah, I am,\" he said, and kissed her forehead." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"My last lover was over a year ago,\" she said. \"I'm a serial monogamist, so as far as I'm concerned, this is an exclusive-rights deal until one of us decides it isn't. As long as I get advance warning that you've decided to end the deal, there won't be any hard feelings. I'm open to the idea of it being more than just sex, but in my experience that will happen on its own if it's going to. I have eggs in storage on Europa and Luna, if that matters to you.\"\n\nShe rolled up onto her elbow, her face hovering over his.\n\n\"Did I cover all the bases?\" she asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No,\" he said. \"But I agree to the conditions.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She flopped onto her back, letting out a long contented sigh.\n\n\"Good.\"\n\nHolden wanted to hold her, but he felt too hot and sticky with sweat, so he just reached down and held her hand instead. He wanted to tell her that this meant something, that it was already more than sex for him, but all the words he tried out in his head came off sounding phony or maudlin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Thank you,\" he said instead, but she was already snoring quietly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They had sex again in the morning. After a long night with too little sleep, it wound up being far more effort than release for Holden, but there was a pleasure in that too, as if less than mind-blowing sex somehow meant something different and funnier and gentler than what they'd already done together. Afterward, Holden went to the kitchen and made coffee, then brought it back to bed on a tray. They drank it without talking, some of the shyness they'd avoided the night before coming now in the artificial morning of the room's LEDs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Naomi put her empty coffee cup down and touched the badly healed lump in his recently broken nose." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Is it hideous?\" Holden asked.\n\n\"No,\" she said. \"You were too perfect before. It makes you seem more substantial.\"\n\nHolden laughed. \"That sounds like a word you use to describe a fat man or a history professor.\"\n\nNaomi smiled and touched his chest lightly with her fingertips." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It wasn't an attempt to arouse, just the exploration that came when satiation had removed sex from the equation." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden tried to remember the last time the cold sanity following sex had been this comfortable, but maybe that had been never. He was making plans to spend the remainder of the day in Naomi's bed, running through a mental list of restaurants on the station that delivered, when his terminal began buzzing on the nightstand.\n\n\"God dammit,\" he said.\n\n\"You don't have to answer,\" Naomi replied, and moved her explorations to his belly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You've been paying attention the last couple months, right?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden said. \"Unless it's a wrong number, then it's probably some end-of-the-solar-system-type shit and we have five minutes to evacuate the station.\"\n\nNaomi kissed his ribs, which simultaneously tickled him and caused him to question his assumptions about his own refractory period.\n\n\"That's not funny,\" she said.\n\nHolden sighed and picked up the terminal off the table." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fred's name flashed as it buzzed again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's Fred,\" he said.\n\nNaomi stopped kissing him and sat up.\n\n\"Yeah, then it's probably not good news.\"\n\nHolden tapped on the screen to accept the call and said, \"Fred.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Jim. Come see me as soon as you get a chance. It's important.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Okay,\" Holden replied. \"Be there in half an hour.\"\n\nHe ended the call and tossed his hand terminal across the room onto the pile of clothes he'd left at the foot of the bed.\n\n\"Going to shower, then go see what Fred wants,\" he said, pulling off the sheet and getting up.\n\n\"Should I come, too?\" Naomi asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are you kidding? I'm never letting you out of my sight again.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't get creepy on me,\" Naomi replied, but she was smiling when she said it.\n\nThe first unpleasant surprise was Miller sitting in Fred's office when they arrived. Holden nodded at the man once, then said to Fred, \"We're here. What's up?\"\n\nFred gestured for them to sit, and when they had, he said, \"We've been discussing what to do about Eros.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden shrugged. \"Okay. What about it?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Miller thinks that someone will try to land there and recover some samples of the protomolecule.\"\n\n\"I have no trouble believing that someone will be that stupid,\" Holden said with a nod.\n\nFred stood up and tapped something on his desk. The screens that normally showed a view of the Nauvoo construction outside suddenly switched to a 2-D map of the solar system, tiny lights of different colors marking fleet positions." }, { "from": "human", "value": "An angry swarm of green dots surrounded Mars." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden assumed that meant the greens were Earth ships. There were a lot of red and yellow dots in the Belt and outer planets. Red was probably Mars, then.\n\n\"Nice map,\" Holden said. \"Accurate?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Reasonably,\" Fred said. With a few quick taps on his desk, he zoomed in on one portion of the Belt." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A potato-shaped lump labeled EROS filled the middle of the screen. Two tiny green dots inched toward it from several meters away.\n\n\"That is the Earth science vessel Charles Lyell moving toward Eros at full burn. She's accompanied by what we think is a Phantom-class escort ship.\"\n\n\"The Roci's Earth navy cousin,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well, the Phantom class is an older model, and largely relegated to rear-echelon assignments, but still more than a match for anything the OPA can quickly field,\" Fred replied." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Exactly the sort of ship that would be escorting science ships around, though,\" Holden said. \"How'd they get out there so quick? And why just the two of them?\"\n\nFred backed the map up until it was a distant view of the entire solar system again.\n\n\"Dumb luck. The Lyell was returning to Earth from doing non-Belt asteroid mapping when it diverted course toward Eros. It was close; no one else was. Earth must have seen a chance to grab a sample while everyone else was figuring out what to do.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden looked over at Naomi, but her face was unreadable." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller was staring at him like an entomologist trying to figure out exactly where the pin went.\n\n\"So they know, then?\" Holden said. \"About Protogen and Eros?\"\n\n\"We assume so,\" Fred said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You want us to chase them away? I mean, I think we can, but that will only work until Earth can reroute a few more ships to back them up. We won't be able to buy much time.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fred smiled.\n\n\"We won't need much,\" he said. \"We have a plan.\"\n\nHolden nodded, waiting to hear it, but Fred sat down and leaned back in his chair." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller stood up and changed the view on the screen to a close-up of the surface of Eros." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now we get to find out why Fred is keeping this jackal around, Holden thought, but said nothing.\n\nMiller pointed at the picture of Eros.\n\n\"Eros is an old station. Lots of redundancy. Lot of holes in her skin, mostly small maintenance airlocks,\" the former detective said. \"The big docks are in five main clusters around the station. We're looking at sending six supply freighters to Eros, along with the Rocinante. The Roci keeps the science vessel from landing, and the freighters secure themselves to the station, one at each docking cluster.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You're sending people in?\" Holden said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not in,\" Miller replied. \"Just on. Surface work. Anyway, the sixth freighter evacuates the crews once the others are docked. Each abandoned freighter will have a couple dozen high-yield fusion warheads wired to the ship's proximity detectors. Anything tries to land at the docks, and there's a few-hundred-megaton fusion explosion. It should be enough to take out the approaching ship, but even if it doesn't, the docks will be too slagged to land at.\"\n\nNaomi cleared her throat. \"Uh, the UN and Mars both have bomb squads. They'll figure out how to get past your booby traps.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Given enough time,\" Fred agreed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller continued as though he hadn't been interrupted.\n\n\"The bombs are just a second line of deterrence. Rocinante first, bombs second. We're trying to buy Fred's people enough time to prep the Nauvoo.\"\n\n\"The Nauvoo?\" Holden said, and half a breath later, Naomi whistled low. Miller nodded to her almost as if he were accepting applause." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The Nauvoo's launching in a long parabolic course, building up speed. It'll hit Eros at a velocity and angle calculated to knock Eros toward the sun. Set off the bombs too. Between the impact energy and the fusion warheads, we figure the surface of Eros'll be hot and radioactive enough to cook anything that tries to land until it's too damn late,\" Miller finished, then sat back down." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He looked up as if he was waiting for reactions.\n\n\"This was your idea?\" Holden asked Miller.\n\n\"Nauvoo part was. But we didn't know about the Lyell when we first talked about it. The booby trap thing's kind of improvised. I think it'll work, though. Buy us enough time.\"\n\n\"I agree,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We need to keep Eros out of anyone's hands, and I can't think of a better way to do it. We're in. We'll shoo the science ship away while you do your work.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fred leaned forward in his chair with a creak and said, \"I knew you'd be on board. Miller was more skeptical.\"\n\n\"Throwing a million people into the sun seemed like something you might balk at,\" the detective said with a humorless grin.\n\n\"There's nothing human left on that station. What's your part in all of this? You armchair quarterbacking now?\"\n\nIt came out nastier than he'd intended, but Miller didn't appear offended." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'll be coordinating security.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Security? Why will they need security?\"\n\nMiller smiled. All his smiles looked like he was hearing a good joke at a funeral.\n\n\"In case something crawls out of an airlock, tries to thumb a ride,\" he said.\n\nHolden frowned. \"I don't like to think those things can get around in vacuum. I don't like that idea at all.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Once we bring the surface temp of Eros up to a nice balmy ten thousand degrees, I'm thinking it won't matter much,\" Miller replied." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Until then, best be safe.\"\n\nHolden found himself wishing he shared the detective's confidence.\n\n\"What are the odds the impact and detonations just break Eros into a million pieces and scatter them all over the solar system?\" Naomi asked.\n\n\"Fred's got some of his best engineers calculating everything to the last decimal to make sure that doesn't happen,\" Miller replied." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Tycho helped build Eros in the first place. They've got the blueprints.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So,\" said Fred. \"Let's deal with the last bit of business.\"\n\nHolden waited.\n\n\"You still have the protomolecule,\" Fred said.\n\nHolden nodded again. \"And?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And,\" replied Fred. \"And the last time we sent you out, your ship was almost wrecked. Once Eros has been nuked, it will be the only confirmed sample around, outside of what might still be on Phoebe. I can't find any reason to let you keep it. I want it to remain here on Tycho when you go.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden stood up, shaking his head.\n\n\"I like you, Fred, but I'm not handing that stuff over to anyone who might see it as a bargaining chip.\"\n\n\"I don't think you have a lot of—\" Fred started, but Holden held up a finger and cut him off. While Fred stared at him in surprise, he grabbed his terminal and opened the crew channel." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Alex, Amos, either of you on the ship?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm here,\" Amos said a second later. \"Finishing up some—\"\n\n\"Lock it down,\" Holden said over him. \"Right now. Seal it up. If I don't call you in an hour, or if anyone other than me tries to board, leave the dock and fly away from Tycho at best possible speed. Direction is your choice. Shoot your way free if you have to. Read me?\"\n\n\"Loud and clear, Cap,\" Amos said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If Holden had asked him to get a cup of coffee, Amos would have sounded exactly the same." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fred was still staring at him incredulously.\n\n\"Don't force this issue, Fred,\" Holden said.\n\n\"If you think you can threaten me, you're mistaken,\" Fred said, his voice flat and frightening.\n\nMiller laughed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Something funny?\" Fred said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That wasn't a threat,\" Miller replied.\n\n\"No? What would you call it?\"\n\n\"An accurate report of the world,\" Miller said. He stretched slowly as he talked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If it was Alex on board, he might think the captain was trying to intimidate someone, maybe back down at the last minute. Amos, though? Amos will absolutely shoot his way free, even if it means he goes down with the ship.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fred scowled, and Miller shook his head.\n\n\"It's not a bluff,\" Miller said. \"Don't call it.\"\n\nFred's eyes narrowed, and Holden wondered if he'd finally gone too far with the man. He certainly wouldn't be the first person Fred Johnson had ordered shot." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And he had Miller standing right next to him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The unbalanced detective would probably shoot him at the first hint someone thought it was a good idea. It shook Holden's confidence in Fred that Miller was even here.\n\nWhich made it a little more surprising when Miller saved him.\n\n\"Look,\" the detective said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Fact is, Holden is the best person to carry that shit around until you decide what to do with it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Talk me into it,\" Fred said, his voice still tight with anger.\n\n\"Once Eros goes up, he and the Roci are going to have their asses hanging in the breeze. Someone might be angry enough to nuke him just on general principles.\"\n\n\"And how does that make the sample safer with him?\" Fred asked, but Holden had understood Miller's point." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They might be less inclined to blow me up if I let them know that I've got the sample and all the Protogen notes,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Won't make the sample safer,\" Miller said. \"But it makes the mission more likely to work. And that's the point, right? Also, he's an idealist,\" Miller continued. \"Offer Holden his weight in gold and he'll just be offended you tried to bribe him.\"\n\nNaomi laughed. Miller glanced at her, a small shared smile at the corner of his mouth, then turned back to Fred." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are you saying he can be trusted and I can't?\" Fred said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I was thinking more about the crew,\" Miller said. \"Holden's got a small bunch, and they do what he says. They think he's righteous, so they are too.\"\n\n\"My people follow me,\" Fred said.\n\nMiller's grin was weary and unassailable." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There's a lot of people in the OPA,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The stakes are too high,\" Fred said.\n\n\"You're kind of in the wrong career for safe,\" Miller said. \"I'm not saying it's a great plan. Just you won't get a better one.\"\n\nFred's slitted eyes glittered with equal parts frustration and rage." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His jaw worked silently for a moment before he spoke." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Captain Holden? I'm disappointed with your lack of trust after all I've done for you and yours.\"\n\n\"If the human race still exists a month from now, I'll apologize,\" Holden said.\n\n\"Get your crew out to Eros before I change my mind.\"\n\nHolden rose, nodded to Fred, and left." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Hey can you write like James S. A. Corey and use whatever i write as a jumping off point?" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller had known when he'd taken Holden's side against his new boss that there were going to be consequences. His position with Fred and the OPA was tenuous to start with, and pointing out that Holden and his crew were not only more dedicated but also more trustworthy than Fred's people wasn't the thing you did when you were kissing up. That it was the truth only made it worse.\n\nHe'd expected some kind of payback." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He would have been naive not to." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Rise up, O men of God, in one united throng,\" the resisters sang. \"Bring in the days of bro-ther-hood, and end the night of wrong...\"\n\nMiller took off his hat and ran fingers through his thinning hair. It wasn't going to be a good day." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The interior of the Nauvoo showed more patchwork and process than its hull suggested." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Two kilometers long, its designers had built it as more than a huge ship. The great levels stacked one atop the other; alloy girders worked organically with what would have been pastoral meadows. The structure echoed the greatest cathedrals of Earth and Mars, rising up through empty air and giving both thrust-gravity stability and glory to God. It was still metal bones and woven agricultural substrate, but Miller could see where it was all heading." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A generation ship was a statement of overarching ambition and utter faith." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Mormons had known that. They'd embraced it. They'd constructed a ship that was prayer and piety and celebration all at the same time. The Nauvoo would be the greatest temple mankind had ever built. It would shepherd its crew through the uncrossable gulfs of interstellar space, humanity's best hope of reaching the stars" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Or it would have been, if not for him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You want us to gas them, Pampaw?\" Diogo asked.\n\nMiller considered the resisters. At a guess, there might have been two hundred of them strung in linked chains across the access paths and engineering ducts. Transport lifts and industrial waldoes stood idle, their displays dark, their batteries shorted." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yeah, probably should,\" Miller sighed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The security team—his security team—numbered fewer than three dozen. Men and women more unified by the OPA-issued armbands than by their training, experience, loyalties, or politics. If the Mormons had chosen violence, it would have been a bloodbath. If they'd put on environment suits, the protest would have lasted hours." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Days, possibly. Instead, Diogo gave the signal, and three minutes later, four small comets arced out into the null-g space, wavering on their tails of NNLP-alpha and tetrahydrocannabinol." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was the kindest, gentlest riot control device in the arsenal. Any of the protesters with compromised lungs could still be in trouble, but within half an hour, all of them would be relaxed into near stupor and high as a kite. NNLPa and THC wasn't a combination Miller had ever used on Ceres. If they'd tried to stock it, it would have been stolen for office parties." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He tried to take some comfort in the thought." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As if it would make up for the lifetimes of dreams and labor he was taking away.\n\nBeside him, Diogo laughed.\n\nIt took them three hours to make the primary sweep of the ship, and another five to hunt down all the stowaways huddled in ducts and secure rooms, waiting to make their presence known at the last minute and sabotage the mission. As those were hauled weeping off the ship, Miller wondered whether he'd just saved their lives." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If all he'd done with his life was keep Fred Johnson from deciding whether to let a handful of innocent people die with the Nauvoo, or risk keeping Eros around for the inner planets, that wasn't so bad." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As soon as Miller gave the word, the OPA tech team moved into action, reengaging the waldoes and transports, fixing the hundred small acts of sabotage that would have kept the Nauvoo's engines from firing, clearing out equipment they wanted to save. Miller watched industrial lifts big enough to house a family of five shift crate after crate, moving out things that had only recently been moved it. The docks were as busy as Ceres at mid-shift. Miller half expected to see his old cohorts wandering among the stevedores and lift tubes, keeping what passed for the peace." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the quiet moments, he set his hand terminal to the Eros feed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Back when he'd been a kid, there had been a performance artist making the rounds—Jila Sorormaya, her name was. As he recalled, she'd intentionally corrupted data-storage devices and then put the data stream through her music kit. She'd gotten into trouble when some of the proprietary code of the storage device software got incorporated into her music and posted. Miller hadn't been a sophisticate." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He'd figured another nutcase artist had to get a real job, and the universe could only be a better place." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Listening to the Eros feed—Radio Free Eros, he called it—he thought maybe he'd been a little rough on old Jila. The squeaks and cross-chatter, the flow of empty noise punctuated by voices, were eerie and compelling. Just like the broken data stream, it was the music of corruption.\n\n...asciugare il pus e che possano sentirsi meglio..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "...ja minä nousivat kuolleista ja halventaa kohtalo pakottaa minut ja siskoni..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "...do what you have to...\n\nHe'd listened to the feed for hours, picking out voices. Once, the whole thing had fluttered, cutting in and out like a piece of equipment on the edge of failure. Only after it had resumed did Miller wonder if the stutters of quiet had been Morse code." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He leaned against the bulkhead, the overwhelming mass of the Nauvoo towering above him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The ship only half born and already marked for sacrifice. Julie sat beside him, looking up. Her hair floated around her face; her eyes never stopped smiling. Whatever trick of the imagination had kept his own internal Juliette Andromeda Mao from coming back to him as her corpse, he thanked it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It would have been something, wouldn't it?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "she said. Flying through vacuum without a suit. Sleeping for a hundred years and waking up in the light of a different sun.\n\n\"I didn't shoot that fucker fast enough,\" Miller said aloud.\n\nHe could have given us the stars." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A new voice broke in." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A human voice shaking with rage.\n\n\"Antichrist!\"\n\nMiller blinked, returning to reality, and thumbed off the Eros feed. A prisoner transport wound its lazy way through the dock, a dozen Mormon technicians bound to its restraint poles." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One was a young man with a pocked face and hatred in his eyes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was staring at Miller.\n\n\"You're the Antichrist, you vile excuse for a human! God knows you! He'll remember you!\"\n\nMiller tipped his hat as the prisoners ambled by.\n\n\"Stars are better off without us,\" he said, but too softly for anyone but Julie to hear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A dozen tugs flew before the Nauvoo, the web of nanotubule tethers invisible at this distance." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All Miller saw was the great behemoth, as much a part of Tycho Station as the bulkheads and air, shift in its bed, shrug, and begin to move. The tugs' drive flares lit the interior space of the station, flickering in their perfectly choreographed duties like Christmas lights, and a nearly subliminal shudder passed through the deep steel bones of Tycho. In eight hours, the Nauvoo would be far enough out that the great engines could be brought online without endangering the station with their exhaust plume. It might be more than two weeks after that before it reached Eros." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller would beat it there by eighty hours." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oi, Pampaw,\" Diogo said. \"Done-done?\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" Miller said with a sigh. \"I'm ready. Let's get everyone together.\"\n\nThe boy grinned. In the hours since the commandeering of the Nauvoo, Diogo had added bright red plastic decorations to three of his front teeth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was apparently deeply meaningful in the youth culture of Tycho Station, and signified prowess, possibly sexual." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller felt a moment's relief that he wasn't hot-bunking at the boy's place anymore.\n\nNow that he was running security ops for the OPA, the irregular nature of the group was clearer to him than ever. There had been a time when he'd thought the OPA might be something that could take on Earth or Mars when it came to a real war. Certainly, they had more money and resources than he'd thought." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They had Fred Johnson." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They had Ceres now, for as long as they could hold it. They'd taken on Thoth Station and won.\n\nAnd yet the same kids he'd gone on the assault with had been working crowd control at the Nauvoo, and more than half of them would be on the demolitions ship when it left for Eros. It was the thing that Havelock would never understand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For that matter, it was the thing Holden would never understand." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Maybe no one who had lived with the certainty and support of a natural atmosphere would ever completely accept the power and fragility of a society based in doing what needed doing, in becoming fast and flexible, the way the OPA had. In becoming articulated.\n\nIf Fred couldn't build himself a peace treaty, the OPA would never win against the discipline and unity of an inner planet navy. But they would also never lose. War without end.\n\nWell, what was history if not that?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "And how would having the stars change anything?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As he walked to his apartment, he opened a channel request on his hand terminal. Fred Johnson appeared, looking tired but alert.\n\n\"Miller,\" he said.\n\n\"We're getting ready to ship out if the ordinance is ready.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's loading now,\" Fred replied." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Enough fissionable material to keep the surface of Eros unapproachable for years. Be careful with it. If one of your boys goes down for a smoke in the wrong place, we aren't going to be able to replace the mines. Not in time.\"\n\nNot you'll all be dead. The weapons were precious, not the people.\n\n\"Yeah, I'll watch it,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The Rocinante's already on its way.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That wasn't something Miller needed to know, so there was some other reason Fred had mentioned it. His carefully neutral tone made it something like an accusation. The only controlled sample of protomolecule had left Fred's sphere of influence.\n\n\"We'll get out there to meet her in plenty of time to keep anybody off of Eros,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Shouldn't be a problem.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On the tiny screen, it was hard to tell how genuine Fred's smile was.\n\n\"I hope your friends are really up for this,\" he said.\n\nMiller felt something odd. A little hollowness just below his breastbone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They aren't my friends,\" he said, keeping his tone of voice light." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No?\"\n\n\"I don't exactly have friends. It's more I've got a lot of people I used to work with,\" he said.\n\n\"You put a lot of faith in Holden,\" Fred said, making it almost a question. A challenge, at least." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller smiled, knowing that Fred would be just as unsure if his was genuine." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not faith. Judgment,\" he said.\n\nFred coughed out a laugh.\n\n\"And that's why you don't have friends, friend.\"\n\n\"Part of it,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was nothing more to say." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller dropped the connection. He was almost at his hole, anyway.\n\nIt was nothing much. An anonymous cube on the station with even less personality to it than his place back on Ceres." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He sat on his bunk, checked his terminal for the status of the demolitions ship." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He knew that he should just go up to the docks. Diogo and the others were assembling, and while it wasn't likely that the drug haze of the pre-mission parties would allow them all to arrive on time, it was at least possible. He didn't even have that excuse.\n\nJulie sat in the space behind his eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her legs were folded under her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was beautiful. She'd been like Fred and Holden and Havelock. Someone born in a gravity well who came to the Belt by choice. She'd died for her choice. She'd come looking for help and killed Eros by doing it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If she'd stayed there, on that ghost ship..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She tilted her head, her hair swinging against the spin gravity. There was a question in her eyes. She was right, of course. It would have slowed things down, maybe." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It wouldn't have stopped them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Protogen and Dresden would have found her eventually. Would have found it. Or gone back and dug up a fresh sample. Nothing would have stopped them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And he knew—knew the way he knew he was himself—that Julie wasn't like the others." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That she'd understood the Belt and Belters, and the need to push on. If not for the stars, at least close to them. The luxury available to her was something Miller had never experienced, and never would. But she'd turned away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She'd come out here, and stayed even when they were going to sell her racing pinnace." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her childhood. Her pride.\n\nThat was why he loved her.\n\nWhen Miller reached the dock, it was clear something had happened. It was in the way the dockworkers held themselves and the looks half amusement and half pleasure, on their faces." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller signed in and crawled through the awkward Ojino-Gouch-style airlock, seventy years out of date and hardly larger than a torpedo tube, into the cramped crew area of the Talbot Leeds." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The ship looked like it had been welded together from two smaller ships, without particular concern for design. The acceleration couches were stacked three deep. The air smelled of old sweat and hot metal. Someone had been smoking marijuana recently enough that the filters hadn't cleared it out yet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Diogo was there along with a half dozen others." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They all wore different uniforms, but they also all had the OPA armband.\n\n\"Oi, Pampaw! Kept top bunk á dir.\"\n\n\"Thanks,\" Miller said. \"I appreciate that.\"\n\nThirteen days. He was going to spend thirteen days sharing this tiny space with the demolitions crew." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Thirteen days pressed into these couches, with megatons of fission mines in the ship's hold." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And yet the others were all smiling. Miller hauled himself up to the acceleration couch Diogo had saved for him, and pointed to the others with his chin.\n\n\"Someone have a birthday?\"\n\nDiogo gave an elaborate shrug." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why's everyone in such a good fucking mood?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller said, more sharply than he'd intended. Diogo took no offense. He smiled his great red-and-white teeth.\n\n\"Audi-nichts?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No, I haven't heard, or I wouldn't be asking,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Mars did the right thing,\" Diogo said. \"Got the feed off Eros, put two and two, and—\"\n\nThe boy slammed a fist into his open palm. Miller tried to parse what he was saying." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They'd attacked Eros? They'd taken on Protogen?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ah. Protogen. Protogen and Mars. Miller nodded. \"The Phoebe science station,\" he said. \"Mars quarantined it.\"\n\n\"Fuck that, Pampaw. Autoclaved it, them. Moon is gone. Dropped enough nukes on it to split it subatomic.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "They better have, Miller thought." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It wasn't a big moon. If Mars had really destroyed it and there was any protomolecule left on a hunk of ejecta...\n\n\"Tu sabez?\" Diogo said. \"They're on our side now. They get it. Mars-OPA alliance.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You don't really think that,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Nah,\" Diogo said, just as pleased with himself in admitting that the hope was fragile at best and probably false. \"But don't hurt to dream, que no?\"\n\n\"You don't think?\" Miller said, and lay back.\n\nThe acceleration gel was too stiff to conform to his body at the dock's one-third g, but it wasn't uncomfortable." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He checked the news on his hand terminal, and indeed someone in the Martian navy had made a judgment call." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was a lot of ordinance to use, especially in the middle of a shooting war, but they'd expended it. Saturn had one fewer moon, one more tiny, unformed, filamentous ring—if there was even enough matter left from the detonations to form that. It looked to Miller's unpracticed eye as if the explosions had been designed to drop debris into the protective and crushing gravity of the gas giant.\n\nIt was foolish to think it meant the Martian government wouldn't want samples of the protomolecule." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was naive to pretend that any organization of that size and complexity was univocal about anything, much less something as dangerous and transforming as this." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But still.\n\nPerhaps it was enough just knowing that someone on the other side of the political and military divide had seen the same evidence they had seen and drawn the same conclusions. Maybe it left room for hope. He switched his hand terminal back to the Eros feed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A strong throbbing sound danced below a cascade of noise." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Voices rose and fell and rose again. Data streams spewed into one another, and the pattern-recognition servers burned every spare cycle making something from the resultant mess. Julie took his hand, the dream so convincing he could almost pretend he felt it.\n\nYou belong with me, she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As soon as it's over, he thought." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was true he kept pushing back the end point of the case. First find Julie, then avenge her, and now destroy the project that had claimed her life. But after that was accomplished, he could let go.\n\nHe just had this one last thing he needed to do." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Twenty minutes later, the Klaxon sounded." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 5 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Thirty minutes later, the engines kicked on, pressing him into the acceleration gel at a joint-crushing high-g burn for thirteen days, with one-g breaks for biological function every four hours. And when they were done, the half-trained jack-of-all-trades crew would be handling nuclear mines capable of annihilating them if they screwed it up.\n\nBut at least Julie would be there. Not really, but still.\n\nIt didn't hurt to dream." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Provide 4 sentences as a continuation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Even the wet cellulose taste of reconstituted artificial scrambled eggs was not enough to ruin Holden's warm, self-satisfied glow." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He shoveled the faux eggs into his mouth, trying not to grin. Sitting at his left around the galley table, Amos ate with lip-smacking enthusiasm. To Holden's right, Alex pushed the limp eggs around on his plate with a piece of equally fake toast. Across the table, Naomi sipped a cup of tea and looked at him from under her hair." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He stifled the urge to wink at her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They'd talked about how to break the news to the crew but hadn't come to any consensus. Holden hated to hide anything. Keeping it secret made it seem dirty or shameful. His parents had raised him to believe that sex was something you did in private not because it was embarrassing, but because it was intimate." }, { "from": "human", "value": "With five fathers and three mothers, the sleeping arrangements were always complex at his house, but the discussions about who was bedding with whom were never hidden from him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It left him with a strong aversion to hiding his own activities.\n\nNaomi, on the other hand, thought they shouldn't do anything to upset the fragile equilibrium they'd found, and Holden trusted her instincts. She had an insight into group dynamics that he often lacked. So, for now, he was following her lead." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Besides, it would have felt like boasting, and that would have been rude." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Keeping his voice neutral and professional, he said, \"Naomi, can you pass the pepper?\"\n\nAmos' head snapped up, and he dropped his fork on the table with a loud clatter.\n\n\"Holy shit, you guys are doing it!\"\n\n\"Um,\" Holden said. \"What?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Something's been screwy ever since we got back on the Roci, but I couldn't figure. But that's it! You guys are finally playing hide the weasel.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden blinked twice at the big mechanic, unsure of what to say. He glanced at Naomi for support, but her head was down, and her hair completely covered her face. Her shoulders were shaking in silent laughter.\n\n\"Jesus, Cap,\" Amos said, a grin on his wide face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It fucking took you long enough. If she'd been throwing herself at me like that, I'd have been neck deep in that shit.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Uh,\" Alex said, looking shocked enough that it was clear he hadn't shared Amos' insights. \"Wow.\"\n\nNaomi stopped laughing and wiped tears away from the corners of her eyes.\n\n\"Busted,\" she said.\n\n\"Look. Guys, it's important that you know this doesn't affect our—\" Holden said, but Amos cut him off with a snort." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hey, Alex,\" Amos said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yo,\" Alex replied.\n\n\"XO boning the captain going to make you a really shitty pilot?\"\n\n\"Don't believe it will,\" Alex said with a grin, exaggerating his drawl.\n\n\"And, oddly enough, I don't feel the need to be a lousy mechanic.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden tried again. \"I think it's important that—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Cap'n?\" Amos continued, ignoring him. \"Consider that no one gives a fuck, it won't stop us from doing our jobs, and just enjoy it, since we'll probably all be dead in a few days anyway.\"\n\nNaomi started laughing again.\n\n\"Fine,\" she said. \"I mean, everyone knows I'm only doing it to get a promotion. Oh, wait, right. Already the second-in-command. Hey, can I be captain now?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No,\" Holden said, laughing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's a shit job. I'd never ask you to do it.\"\n\nNaomi grinned and shrugged. See? I'm not always right. Holden glanced at Alex, who was looking at him with genuine affection, clearly happy about the idea of him and Naomi together. Everything seemed right." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Eros spun like a potato-shaped top, its thick skin of rock hiding the horrors inside." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alex brought them in close to do a thorough scan of the station. The asteroid swelled on Holden's screen until it looked close enough to touch. At the other ops station, Naomi swept the surface with ladar, looking for anything that might pose a danger to the Tycho freighter crews, still a few days behind. On Holden's tactical display, the UNN science ship continued to flare in a braking maneuver toward Eros, its escort right beside it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Still not talking, huh?\" Holden asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Naomi shook her head, then tapped on her screen and sent the comm's monitoring information to his workstation.\n\n\"Nope,\" she said. \"But they see us. They've been bouncing radar off of us for a couple hours now.\"\n\nHolden tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair and thought about the choices. It was possible that the hull modifications Tycho had made to the Roci were fooling the Earth corvette's recognition software." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They might just ignore the Roci, thinking she was a Belter gas runner that happened to be hanging around." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But the Roci was running without a transponder, which made her illegal no matter what hull configuration she was showing. That the corvette wasn't trying to warn off a ship that was running dark made him nervous. The Belt and the inner planets were in a shooting war. A Belter ship with no identification was hanging around Eros while two Earth ships flew toward it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "No way any captain with half a brain would just ignore them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The corvette's silence meant something else.\n\n\"Naomi, I have a feeling that corvette is going to try and blow us up,\" Holden said with a sigh.\n\n\"It's what I'd do,\" she replied.\n\nHolden tapped one last complicated rhythm on his chair, then put his headset on." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"All right, I guess I make the first overture, then,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not wishing to make their conversation public, Holden targeted the Earther corvette with the Rocinante's laser array and signaled a generic linkup request. After a few seconds, the link established light went green, and his earplugs began to hiss with faint background static. Holden waited, but the UN ship offered no greeting. They wanted him to speak first." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He flicked off his mic, switching to the shipwide comm." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Alex, get us moving. One g for now. If I can't bluff this guy, it'll be a shooting match. Be ready to open her up.\"\n\n\"Roger,\" drawled Alex. \"Goin' on the juice, just in case.\"\n\nHolden glanced over at Naomi's station, but she'd already switched to her tactical screen and had the Roci plotting firing solutions and jamming tactics on the two approaching ships. Naomi had been in only one battle, but she was reacting now like a seasoned veteran." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He smiled at her back, then turned around before she had time to realize he was staring." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Amos?\" he said.\n\n\"Locked down and shipshape down here, Cap. The Roci's pawing at the turf. Let's go kick some ass.\"\n\nLet's hope we don't have to, Holden thought.\n\nHe turned his mic back on." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"This is Captain James Holden of the Rocinante, calling the captain of the approaching United Nations Navy corvette, call sign unknown. Please respond.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was a static-filled pause, followed by \"Rocinante. Leave our flight path immediately. If you do not begin moving away from Eros at best possible speed, you will be fired upon.\"\n\nThe voice was young. An aging corvette with the tedious task of following an asteroid-mapping ship around wouldn't be a much sought after command. The captain was probably a lieutenant without patrons or prospects." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He'd be inexperienced, but he might see a confrontation as an opportunity to prove himself to his superiors." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And that made the next few moments treacherous to navigate.\n\n\"Sorry,\" said Holden. \"Still don't know your call sign, or your name. But I can't do what you want. In fact, I can't let anyone land on Eros. I'm going to need you to stop approaching the station.\"\n\n\"Rocinante, I don't think you—\"\n\nHolden took control of the Roci's targeting system and began painting the approaching corvette with its targeting laser." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Let me explain what's happening here,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Right now, you're looking at your sensors, and you're seeing what looks like a thrown-together gas freighter that's giving your ship-recognition software fits. And all of a sudden, meaning right now, it's painting you with a state-of-the-art target-acquisition system.\"\n\n\"We don't—\"\n\n\"Don't lie. I know that's what's happening. So here's the deal. Despite how it looks, my ship is newer, faster, tougher, and better armed than yours. The only way for me to really prove that is to open fire, and I'm hoping not to do that.\"\n\n\"Are you threatening me, Rocinante?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "the young voice on Holden's headset said, its tone hitting just the right notes of arrogance and disbelief." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You? No,\" said Holden. \"I'm threatening the big, fat, slow-moving, and unarmed ship you're supposed to be protecting. You keep flying toward Eros, and I will unload everything I've got at it. I guarantee we will blow that flying science lab out of the sky. Now, it's possible you might get us while we do it, but by then your mission is screwed anyway, right?\"\n\nThe line went silent again, only the hiss of background radiation letting him know his headset hadn't died.\n\nWhen his answer came, it came on the shipwide comms." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alex said, \"They're stoppin', Captain. They just started hard brakin'. Tracking says they'll be relative stopped about two million klicks out. Want me to keep flyin' toward 'em?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, bring us back to our stationary position over Eros,\" Holden replied.\n\n\"Roger that.\"\n\n\"Naomi,\" Holden said, spinning his chair around to face her. \"Are they doing anything else?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Not that I can see through the clutter of their exhaust. But they could be tightbeaming messages the other direction and we'd never know,\" she said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden flipped the shipwide comm off. He scratched his head for a minute, then unbuckled his restraints.\n\n\"Well, we stopped them for now. I'm going to hit the head and then grab a drink. Want anything?\"\n\n\"He's not wrong, you know,\" Naomi said later that night." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden was floating in zero g on the ops deck, his station a few feet away." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He'd turned down the deck lights, and the cabin was as dim as a moonlit night. Alex and Amos were sleeping two decks below. They might as well have been a million light-years away. Naomi was floating near her own station, two meters away, her hair unbound and drifting around her like a black cloud." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The panel behind her lit her face in profile: the long forehead, flat nose, large lips." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He could tell that her eyes were closed. He felt like they were the only two people in the universe.\n\n\"Who's not wrong?\" he said, just to be saying something.\n\n\"Miller,\" she replied as though it were obvious." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I have no idea what you're talking about.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Naomi laughed, then swatted with one hand to rotate her body and face him in the air. Her eyes were open now, though with the panel lights behind her, they were visible only as black pools in her face.\n\n\"I've been thinking about Miller,\" she said. \"I treated him badly on Tycho. Ignored him because you were angry. I owed him better than that.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He saved your life on Eros.\"\n\nHolden snorted, but she kept going anyway.\n\n\"When you were in the navy,\" she finally said, \"what were you supposed to do when someone went crazy on the ship? Started doing things that endangered everyone?\"\n\nThinking they were talking about Miller, Holden said, \"You restrain him and remove him as a danger to the ship and crew. But Fred didn't—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Naomi cut him off." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What if it's wartime?\" she said. \"The middle of a battle?\"\n\n\"If he can't be easily restrained, the chief of the watch has an obligation to protect the ship and crew by whatever means necessary.\"\n\n\"Even shooting him?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If that's the only way to do it,\" Holden replied." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sure. But it would only be in the most pressing circumstances.\"\n\nNaomi nodded with her hand, sending her body slowly twisting the other way. She stopped her motion with one unconscious gesture. Holden was pretty good in zero g, but he'd never be that good." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The Belt is a network,\" Naomi said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's like one big distributed ship. We have nodes that make air, or water, or power, or structural materials. Those nodes may be separated by millions of kilometers of space, but that doesn't make them any less interconnected.\"\n\n\"I see where this is going,\" Holden said with a sigh. \"Dresden was a madman on the ship, Miller shot him to protect the rest of us. He gave me that speech back on Tycho. Didn't buy it then either.\"\n\n\"Why?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Because,\" Holden said. \"Dresden wasn't an immediate threat. He was just an evil little man in an expensive suit. He didn't have a gun in his hand, or his finger on a bomb trigger. And I will never trust a man who believes he has the right to unilaterally execute people.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden put his foot against the bulkhead and tapped off just hard enough to float a few feet closer to Naomi, close enough to see her eyes, read her reaction to him.\n\n\"If that science ship starts flying toward Eros again, I will throw every torpedo we have at it, and tell myself I was protecting the rest of the solar system from what's on Eros. But I won't just start shooting at it now, on the idea that it might decide to head to Eros again, because that's murder. What Miller did was murder.\"\n\nNaomi smiled at him, then grabbed his flight suit and pulled him close enough for a kiss.\n\n\"You might be the best person I know. But you're totally uncompromising on what you think is right, and that's what you hate about Miller.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I do?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes,\" she said. \"He's totally uncompromising too, but he has different ideas on how things work. You hate that. To Miller, Dresden was an active threat to the ship. Every second he stayed alive endangered everyone else around him. To Miller, it was self-defense.\"\n\n\"But he's wrong. The man was helpless.\"\n\n\"The man talked the UN Navy into giving his company state-of-the-art ships,\" she said. \"He talked his company into murdering a million and a half people. Everything Miller said about why the protomolecule is better off with us was just as true about Dresden. How long is he in an OPA lockup before he finds the jailer who can be bought?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He was a prisoner,\" Holden said, feeing the argument slipping away from him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He was a monster with power, access, and allies who would have paid any price to keep his science project going,\" Naomi said. \"And I'm telling you as a Belter, Miller wasn't wrong.\"\n\nHolden didn't answer; he just continued to float next to Naomi, keeping himself in her orbit. Was he angrier about the killing of Dresden or about Miller's making a decision that disagreed with him?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "And Miller had known." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When Holden had told him to find his own ride back to Tycho, he'd seen it in the detective's sad basset hound face. Miller had known it was coming, and had made no attempt to fight or argue. That meant that Miller had made his choice fully cognizant of the cost and ready to pay it. That meant something. Holden wasn't sure exactly what, but something." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A red telltale began flashing on the wall, and Naomi's panel woke up and began throwing data onto the screen." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She pulled herself down to it using the back of her chair, then tapped out several quick commands.\n\n\"Shit,\" she said.\n\n\"What is it?\"\n\n\"The corvette or science ship must have called for help,\" Naomi said, pointing at her screen." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "I'll be your writing partner today. I will set the scene, and you will continue the story with four sentences, channeling the voice and techniques of James S. A. Corey.i'll kick things off by writing a bit, then you'll take over and write the next four sentences in the distinctive voice of James S. A. Corey.Ive got a bit of writers block, im gonna send you something then keep it going four sentences at a time, also im going for a James S. A. Corey sorta thing." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You are, and you aren't,\" the Eros feed said through a semi-random drumming of static. \"You are, and you aren't. You are, and you aren't.\"\n\nThe little ship shuddered and bumped. From a crash couch, one of the OPA techs called out a string of obscenities remarkable more for inventiveness than actual rancor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller closed his eyes, trying to keep the micro-g adjustments of their nonstandard docking from nauseating him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After days of joint-aching acceleration and an equally bruising braking routine, the small shifts and movements felt arbitrary and strange.\n\n\"You are, are, are, are, are, are, are...\"\n\nHe'd spent some time listening to the newsfeeds. Three days after they'd left Tycho, the news of Protogen's involvement with Eros broke." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Amazingly, Holden hadn't been the one to do it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Since then, the corporation had gone from total denial, to blaming a rogue subcontractor, to claiming immunity under an Earth defense secrets statute. It didn't sound good for them. Earth's blockade of Mars was still in place, but attention had shifted to the power struggle within Earth, and the Martian navy had slowed its burn, giving the Earth forces a little more breathing room before any permanent decisions had to be made. It looked like they'd postponed Armageddon for a few weeks, anyway." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller found he could take a certain joy in that." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It also left him tired.\n\nMore often, he listened to the voice of Eros. Sometimes he watched the video feeds too, but usually, he just listened. Over the hours and days, he began to hear, if not patterns, at least common structures." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Some of the voices spooling out of the dying station were consistent—broadcasters and entertainers who were overrepresented in the audio files archives, he guessed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There seemed to be some specific tendencies in, for want of a better term, the music of it too. Hours of random, fluting static and snatched bits of phrases would give way, and Eros would latch on to some word or phrase, fixating on it with greater and greater intensity until it broke apart and the randomness poured back in.\n\n\"...are, are, are, ARE, ARE, ARE...\"\n\nAren't, Miller thought, and the ship suddenly shoved itself up, leaving Miller's stomach about half a foot from where it had been." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A series of loud clanks followed, and then the brief wail of a Klaxon." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Dieu! Dieu!\" someone shouted. \"Bombs son vamen roja! Going to fry it! Fry us toda!\"\n\nThere was the usual polite chuckle that the same joke had occasioned over the course of the trip, and the boy who'd made it—a pimply Belter no more than fifteen years old—grinned with pleasure at his own wit. If he didn't stop that shit, someone was going to beat him with a crowbar before they got back to Tycho." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But Miller figured that someone wasn't him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A massive jolt forward pushed him hard into the couch, and then gravity was back, the familiar 0.3 g. Maybe a little more. Except that with the airlocks pointing toward ship's down, the pilot had to grapple the spinning skin of Eros' belly first. The spin gravity made what had been the ceiling the new floor; the lowest rank of couches was now the top; and while they rigged the fusion bombs to the docks, they were all going to have to climb up onto a cold, dark rock that was trying to fling them off into the vacuum.\n\nSuch were the joys of sabotage." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller suited up. After the military-grade suits of the Rocinante, the OPA's motley assortment of equipment felt like third-hand clothes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His suit smelled of someone else's body, and the Mylar faceplate had a deformation where it had cracked and been repaired. He didn't like thinking about what had happened to the poor bastard who'd been wearing it. The magnetic boots had a thick layer of corroded plastic and old mud between the plates and a triggering mechanism so old that Miller could feel it click on and off even before he moved his foot. He had the image of the suit locking on to Eros and never letting go." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The thought made him smile." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You belong with me, his own private Julie had said. It was true, and now that he was here, he felt perfectly certain that he wasn't going to leave. He'd been a cop for too long, and the idea of trying to reconnect to humanity again filled him with the presentiment of exhaustion. He was here to do the last part of his job." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And then he was done." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oi! Pampaw!\"\n\n\"I'm coming,\" Miller said. \"Hold your damn horses. It's not like the station's going anyplace.\"\n\n\"A rainbow is a circle you can't see. Can't see. Can't see,\" Eros said in a child's singsong voice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller turned down the volume of his feed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The rocky surface of the station had no particular purchase for the suits and control waldoes. Two other ships had made polar landings where there was no spin gravity to fight against, but the Coriolis would leave everyone with a subliminal nausea. Miller's team had to keep to the exposed metal plates of the dock, clinging like flies looking down into the starlit abyss.\n\nEngineering the placement of the fusion bombs wasn't trivial work." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If the bombs didn't pump enough energy into the station, the surface might cool enough to give someone another chance to put a science team on it before the penumbra of the sun swallowed it and whatever parts of the Nauvoo were still clinging to it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even with the best minds of Tycho, there was still the chance that the detonations wouldn't sync up. If the pressure waves traveling through the rock amplified in ways they hadn't anticipated, the station could crack open like an egg, spreading the protomolecule through the wide, empty track of the solar system like scattering a handful of dust. But the difference between success and disaster might be literally a question of meters.\n\nMiller crawled up the airlock and out to the station surface." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The first wave of technicians were setting up resonance seismographs, the glow of the work lights and readouts the brightest thing in the universe." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller set his boots on a wide swath of a ceramic steel alloy and let the spin stretch the kinks out of his back. After days in the acceleration couch, the freedom felt euphoric. One of the techs raised her hands, the physical Belter idiom that called for attention. Miller upped the suit volume." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"...insectes rampant sur ma peau...\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With a stab of impatience, he switched from the Eros feed to the team channel.\n\n\"Got to move,\" a woman's voice said. \"Too much splashback here. We have to get to the other side of the docks.\"\n\n\"These go on for almost two kilometers,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Is,\" she agreed. \"We can unmoor and move the ship under power or we can tow it. We've got enough lead line.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Which one's fastest? We don't have a lot of spare time here.\"\n\n\"Towing.\"\n\n\"Tow it, then,\" Miller said.\n\nSlowly, the ship rose, twenty small, crawling transport drones clinging to leads like they were hauling a great metallic zeppelin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The ship was going to stay with him, here on the station, strapped to the rock like a sacrifice to the gods." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller walked with the crew as they crossed the wide, closed bay doors. The only sounds were the tapping of his soles as the electromagnets jolted onto the surface and then a tick when they let go again. The only smells were of his own body and the fresh plastic of the air recycler. The metal under his feet shone like someone had cleaned it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Any dust or pebbles had been hurled away long ago." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They worked fast to place the ship, arm the bombs, and fit the security codes, everyone tacitly aware of the great missile that had been the Nauvoo speeding toward them.\n\nIf another ship came down and tried to disarm the trap, the ship would send synchronizing signals to all the other OPA bomb ships studding the moon's surface. Three seconds later, the surface of Eros would be scrubbed clean. The spare air and supplies were loaded off the ship, bundled together and ready for reclamation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "No reason to waste the resources." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nothing horrific crawled out of an airlock and tried to attack the crew, which made Miller's presence during the mission entirely superfluous. Or maybe not. Maybe it was just a ride.\n\nWhen everything was done that could be, Miller sent the all clear, relayed through the now-dead ship's system. The return transport appeared slowly, a dot of light that grew gradually brighter and then spread, the null-g boarding web strung out like scaffolding." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At the new ship's word, Miller's team turned off their boots and fired simple maneuvering thrusters either from their suits or, if the suits were too old, from shared ablative evacuation shells." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller watched them drop away.\n\n\"Call va and roll, Pampaw,\" Diogo said from someplace. Miller wasn't sure which of them he was at this distance. \"This tube don't sit.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm not coming,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sa que?\"\n\n\"I decided. I'm staying here.\"\n\nThere was a moment of silence. Miller had been waiting for this." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had the security codes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If he needed to crawl back into the shell of their old ship and lock the door behind him, he could. But he didn't want to. He'd prepared his arguments: He would only be going back to Tycho as a political pawn for Fred Johnson's negotiations; he was tired and old in a way that years didn't describe; he'd already died on Eros once, and he wanted to be here to finish it. He'd earned that much." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Diogo and the others owed it to him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He waited for the boy to react, to try to talk him out of it.\n\n\"All correct, then,\" Diogo said. \"Buona morte.\"\n\n\"Buona morte,\" Miller said, and shut off his radio. The universe was silent." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The stars below him shifted slowly but perceptibly as the station he hung from spun." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One of those lights was the Rocinante. Two others were the ships Holden had been sent out to stall. Miller couldn't pick them out. Julie floated beside him, her dark hair floating in the vacuum, the stars shining through her. She looked peaceful." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If you had it to do again, she said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If you could do it all over from the beginning?\n\n\"I wouldn't,\" he said.\n\nHe watched the OPA transport ship start up its engines, glowing gold and white, and pull away until it was a star again. A small one. And then lost." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller turned and considered the dark, empty moonscape and the permanent night." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He just needed to be with her for another few hours, and they would both be safe. They would all be safe. It was enough. Miller found himself smiling and weeping, the tears tracking up from his eyes and into his hair.\n\nIt's going to be fine, Julie said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I know,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He stood silently for almost an hour, then turned and made his slow, precarious way back to the sacrificed ship, down the airlock, and into the dim belly. There was enough residual atmosphere that he didn't need to sleep in his suit. He stripped naked, chose an acceleration couch, and curled up on the hard blue gel. Not twenty meters away, five fusion devices powerful enough to outshine the sun waited for a signal." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Above him, everything that had once been human in Eros Station changed and re-formed, pouring from one shape to another like Hieronymous Bosch made real." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And still almost a day away, the Nauvoo, the hammer of God, hurtled toward him.\n\nMiller set his suit to play some old pop tunes he'd enjoyed when he was young and let himself be sung to sleep. When he dreamed, he dreamed he'd found a tunnel at the back of his old hole on Ceres that meant he would at last, at last, be free.\n\nHis last breakfast was a hard kibble bar and a handful of chocolate scrounged from a forgotten survival pack." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He ate it with tepid recycled water that tasted of iron and rot." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The signals from Eros were almost drowned by the oscillating frequencies blasting out from the station above him, but Miller made out enough to know where things stood.\n\nHolden had won, much as Miller had expected him to. The OPA was responding to a thousand angry accusations from Earth and Mars and, in the true and permanent style, factions within the OPA itself. It was too late." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Nauvoo was due in hours now." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The end was coming.\n\nMiller put on his suit for the last time, turned out the lights, and crawled back up the airlock. For a long moment, the exterior release didn't respond, the safety lights glowing red, and he had a stab of fear that he would spend his last moments there, trapped in a tube like a torpedo ready to fire. But he cycled the lock's power, and it opened." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Eros feed was wordless now, with only a soft murmuring like water over stone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller walked out across the wide mouth of the docking bays. The sky above him turned, and the Nauvoo rose from the horizon like sun. His splayed hand held at full arm's length wasn't big enough to cover the glow of its engines. He hung by his boots, watching the ship approach." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The phantom Julie watched with him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If he'd done the math right, the Nauvoo's impact site would be at the center of Eros' major axis. Miller would be able to see it when it happened, and the giddy excitement in his chest reminded him of being young. It would be a show. Oh, it would be something to see." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He considered recording it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His suit would be able to make a simple visual file and stream the data out in real time. But no. This was his moment. His and Julie's. The rest of humanity could guess what it had been like if they cared.\n\nThe massive glow of the Nauvoo filled a quarter of the sky now, and the full circle of it was free of the horizon." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Eros feed's soft murmur shifted to something more clearly synthetic: a rising, spiraling sound that reminded him for no particular reason of the green sweeping radar screens of ancient films." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were voices at the back of it, but he couldn't make out the words or even the language.\n\nThe great torch of the Nauvoo was a full half of the sky, the stars around it blotted out by the light of full burn. Miller's suit chirped a radiation warning and he shut it off.\n\nA manned Nauvoo would never have sustained a burn like that; even in the best couch, the thrust gravity would have pulped bones." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He tried to guess how fast the ship would be going when it hit." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fast enough. That was all that mattered. Fast enough.\n\nThere, in the center of the fiery bloom, Miller saw a dark spot, no more than the dot of a pencil's tip. The ship itself. He took a deep breath. When he closed his eyes, the light pressed red through his lids." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When he opened them again, the Nauvoo had length. Shape." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was a needle, an arrow, a missile. A fist rising from the depths. For the first time in memory, Miller felt awe.\n\nEros shouted." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"DON'T YOU FUCKING TOUCH ME!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Slowly, the bloom of engine fire changed from a circle to an oval to a great feathery plume, the Nauvoo itself showing silver in rough profile. Miller gaped.\n\nThe Nauvoo had missed. It had turned. It was right now, right now, speeding past Eros and not into it. But he hadn't seen any kind of maneuvering rockets fire." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And how would you turn something that big, moving that quickly, so abruptly that it would veer off between one breath and the next without also tearing the ship apart?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The acceleration g alone...\n\nMiller looked at the stars as if there was some answer written in them. And to his surprise, there was. The sweep of the Milky Way, the infinite scattering of stars were still there." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But the angles had changed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The rotation of Eros had shifted. Its relation to the plane of the ecliptic.\n\nFor the Nauvoo to change course at the last minute without falling apart would have been impossible. And so it hadn't happened." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Eros was roughly six hundred cubic kilometers." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Before Protogen, it had housed the second-largest active port in the Belt.\n\nAnd without so much as overcoming the grip of Miller's magnetic boots, Eros Station had dodged." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "The user will write a bit then you need to write around 4 sentences continuing directly from the user's text. Try to mimic the style of James S. A. Corey.Produce 4 sentences using the prose and structure of James S. A. Corey every time its your turn using what the user wrote as a seed." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Holy shit,\" said Amos in a flat voice.\n\n\"Jim,\" Naomi said to Holden's back, but he waved her off and opened a channel to Alex in the cockpit.\n\n\"Alex, did we just see what my sensors say we saw?\"\n\n\"Yeah, Cap,\" the pilot replied." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Radar and scopes are both sayin' Eros jumped two hundred klicks spinward in a little less than a minute.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Holy shit,\" Amos repeated in exactly the same emotionless tone. The metallic bang of deck hatches opening and closing echoed through the ship, signaling Amos' approach up the crew ladder.\n\nHolden shook off the flush of irritation he felt at Amos' leaving his post. He'd deal with that later." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He needed to be sure that the Rocinante and her crew hadn't just experienced a group hallucination." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Naomi, give me comms,\" he said.\n\nNaomi turned around in her chair to face him, her face ashen.\n\n\"How can you be so calm?\" she asked.\n\n\"Panic won't help. We need to know what's going on before we can plan intelligently. Please transfer the comms to me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Holy shit,\" Amos said as he climbed into the ops deck." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The deck hatch shut with a punctuating bang.\n\n\"I don't remember ordering you to leave your post, sailor,\" Holden said.\n\n\"Plan intelligently,\" Naomi said like they were words in a foreign language that she almost understood. \"Plan intelligently.\"\n\nAmos threw himself at a chair hard enough that the cushioning gel grabbed him and kept him from bouncing off." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Eros is really fucking big,\" Amos said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Plan intelligently,\" Naomi repeated, speaking to herself now.\n\n\"I mean, really fucking big,\" Amos said. \"Do you know how much energy it took to spin that rock up? I mean, it took years to do that shit.\"\n\nHolden put his headset on to drown Amos and Naomi out, and called up Alex again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Alex, is Eros still changing velocity?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, Cap. Just sitting there like a rock.\"\n\n\"Okay,\" Holden said. \"Amos and Naomi are vapor locked. How are you doing?\"\n\n\"Not taking my hands off the stick while that bastard is anywhere in my space, that's for damn sure.\"\n\nThank God for military training, Holden thought." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Good, keep us at a constant distance of five thousand klicks until I say otherwise. Let me know if it moves again, even an inch.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Roger that, Cap,\" said Alex.\n\nHolden took off his headset and turned to face the rest of the crew. Amos was looking at the ceiling, ticking points off with his fingers, his eyes unfocused.\n\n\"—don't really remember the mass of Eros off the top of my head...\" he was saying to no one in particular." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"About seven thousand trillion kilos,\" Naomi replied." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Give or take. And the heat signature's up about two degrees.\"\n\n\"Jesus,\" the mechanic said. \"I can't do that math in my head. That much mass coming up two degrees like that?\"\n\n\"A lot,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So let's move on—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"About ten exajoules,\" Naomi said. \"That's just off the top of my head, but I'm not off by an order of magnitude or anything.\"\n\nAmos whistled.\n\n\"Ten exajoules is like, what, a two-gigaton fusion bomb?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's about a hundred kilos converted directly to energy,\" Naomi said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her voice began to steady. \"Which, of course, we couldn't do. But at least whatever they did wasn't magic.\"\n\nHolden's mind grabbed on to her words with an almost physical sensation. Naomi was, in fact, about the smartest person he knew." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She had just spoken directly to the half-articulated fear he'd been harboring since Eros had jumped sideways: that this was magic, that the protomolecule didn't have to obey the laws of physics." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Because if that was true, humans didn't stand a chance.\n\n\"Explain,\" he said.\n\n\"Well,\" she replied, tapping on her keypad. \"Heating Eros up didn't move it. So I assume that means it was waste heat from whatever it was they actually did.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And that means?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That entropy still exists. That they can't convert mass to energy with perfect efficiency. That their machines or processes or whatever they use to move seven thousand trillion tons of rock wastes some energy. About a two-gigaton bomb's worth of it.\"\n\n\"Ah.\"\n\n\"You couldn't move Eros two hundred kilometers with a two-gigaton bomb,\" Amos said with a snort.\n\n\"No, you couldn't,\" Naomi replied." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"This is just the leftovers. Heat by-product. Their efficiency is still off the charts, but it isn't perfect. Which means the laws of physics still hold. Which means it isn't magic.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Might as well be,\" Amos said.\n\nNaomi looked at Holden.\n\n\"So, we—\" he started when Alex interrupted over the shipwide comm.\n\n\"Cap, Eros is movin' again.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Follow it, get me a course and speed as soon as you can,\" Holden said, turning back to his console." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Amos, get back down to engineering. If you leave it again without a direct order, I'll have the XO beat you to death with a pipe wrench.\"\n\nThe only reply was the hiss of the deck hatch opening and the bang as it closed behind the descending mechanic.\n\n\"Alex,\" Holden said, staring at the data stream the Rocinante was feeding him about Eros. \"Tell me something.\"\n\n\"Sunward is all we know for sure,\" Alex replied, his voice still calm and professional." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When Holden had been in the military, he'd been officer track right from the start." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He'd never been to military pilot school, but he knew that years of training had compartmentalized Alex's brain into two halves: piloting problems and, secondarily, everything else. Matching Eros and getting a course for it was the former. Extra-solar space aliens trying to destroy humanity wasn't a piloting issue and could be safely ignored until he left the cockpit. He might have a nervous breakdown afterward, but until then, Alex would keep doing his job." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Drop back to fifty thousand klicks and maintain a constant distance,\" Holden told him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Huh,\" said Alex. \"Maintainin' a constant distance might be tough, Cap. Eros just disappeared off the radar.\"\n\nHolden felt his throat go tight.\n\n\"Say again?\"\n\n\"Eros just disappeared off the radar,\" Alex was saying, but Holden was already punching up the sensor suite to check for himself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His telescopes showed the rock still moving on its new course toward the sun." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Thermal imaging showed it as slightly warmer than space. The weird feed of voices and madness that had been leaking out of the station was still detectable, if faint. But radar said there was nothing there.\n\nMagic, a small voice at the back of his mind said again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "No, not magic. Humans had stealth ships too." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was just a matter of absorbing the radar's energy rather than reflecting it. But suddenly, keeping the asteroid in visual range became all the more important. Eros had shown that it could move fast and maneuver wildly, and it was now invisible to radar. It was entirely possible that a mountain-sized rock could disappear completely." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gravity began to pile up as the Roci chased Eros toward the sun." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Naomi?\"\n\nShe looked up at him. The fear was still in her eyes, but she was holding it together. For now.\n\n\"Jim?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The comm? Could you...?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The chagrin on her face was the most reassuring thing he'd seen in hours. She shifted control to his station, and he opened a connection request.\n\n\"UNN corvette, this is the Rocinante, please respond.\"\n\n\"Go ahead, Rocinante,\" the other ship said after half a minute of static." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Calling to confirm our sensor data,\" Holden said, then transmitted the data regarding Eros' movement." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You guys seeing the same thing?\"\n\nAnother delay, this one longer.\n\n\"Roger that, Rocinante.\"\n\n\"I know we were just about to shoot each other and all, but I think we're a little past that now,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Anyway, we're chasing the rock. If we lose sight of it, we might never find it again. Want to come with? Might be nice to have some backup if it decides to shoot at us or something.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Another delay, this one almost two minutes long; then a different voice came on the line. Older, female, and totally lacking the arrogance and anger of the young male voice he'd been dealing with so far.\n\n\"Rocinante, this is Captain McBride of the UNN Escort Vessel Ravi.\" Ah, thought Holden. I've been talking to the first officer all along." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The captain finally took the horn." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That might be a good sign. \"I've sent word to fleet command, but it's a twenty-three minute lag right now, and that rock's putting on speed. You have a plan?\"\n\n\"Not really, Ravi. Just follow and gather intel until we find an opportunity to do something that makes a difference. But if you came along, maybe none of your people will shoot at us accidentally while we figure it out.\"\n\nThere was a long pause." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden knew that the captain of the Ravi was weighing the chance that he was telling the truth against the threat he'd made against their science vessel." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What if he was in on whatever was happening? He'd be wondering the same thing in their position.\n\n\"Look,\" he said. \"I've told you my name. James Holden. I served as a lieutenant in the UNN. My records should be on file. It'll show a dishonorable discharge, but they'll also show that my family lives in Montana. I don't want that rock to hit Earth any more than you do.\"\n\nThe silence on the other end continued for another few minutes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Captain,\" she said, \"I believe my superiors would want me to keep an eye on you. We'll be coming along for the ride while the brains figure this out.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden let out a long, noisy exhale.\n\n\"Thanks for that, McBride. Keep trying to get your people on the line. I'm going to make a few calls myself. Two corvettes are not going to fix this problem.\"\n\n\"Roger that,\" the Ravi replied, then killed the connection.\n\n\"I've opened a connection with Tycho,\" Naomi said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden leaned back in his chair, the mounting gravity of their acceleration pressing against him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A watery lump was gathering low in his gut, the loose knot telling him that he had no idea what he was doing, that all the best plans had failed, and that the end was near. The brief hope he'd felt was already starting to slip away.\n\nHow can you be so calm?\n\nI think I'm watching the end of the human race, Holden thought." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I'm calling Fred so that it isn't my fault when no one has an idea how to stop it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Of course I'm not calm.\n\nI'm just spreading the guilt.\n\n\"How fast?\" Fred Johnson asked incredulously.\n\n\"Four g's now and climbing,\" Holden replied, his voice thick as his throat compressed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh, and it's invisible to radar now.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Four g. Do you know how heavy Eros is?\"\n\n\"There's, uh, been some discussion,\" Holden said, only the acceleration keeping his impatience from showing in his voice. \"The question is, now what? The Nauvoo missed. Our plans are shot to shit.\"\n\nThere was another perceptible increase in pressure as Alex sped the ship up to keep up with Eros." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A little while longer and speech wouldn't be possible." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's definitely headed for Earth?\" Fred asked.\n\n\"Alex and Naomi are ninety percent or so. Hard to be totally accurate when we can only use visual data. But I trust them. I'd go to where there are thirty billion new hosts too.\"\n\nThirty billion new hosts. Eight of whom were his parents." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He imagined Father Tom as a bundle of tubes oozing brown goo." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mother Elise as a rib cage dragging itself across the floor with one skeletal arm. And with that much biomass, what could it do then? Move Earth? Turn out the sun?\n\n\"Have to warn them,\" Holden said, trying not to strangle on his own tongue as he spoke." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You don't think they know?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They see a threat. They may not see the end of all native life in the solar system,\" Holden said. \"You wanted a reason to sit at the table? How about this one: Come together or die.\"\n\nFred was quiet for a moment. Background radiation spoke to Holden in mystic whispers full of dire portents while he waited." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Newcomer, it said. Hang around for fourteen billion years or so." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "See what I've seen. Then all this nonsense won't seem so important.\n\n\"I'll see what I can do,\" Fred said, interrupting the universe's lecture on transience. \"In the meantime, what are you going to do?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Get outrun by a rock and then watch the cradle of humanity die." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm open to suggestions,\" Holden said.\n\n\"Maybe you could detonate some of the surface nukes the demo team put down. Deflect Eros' course. Buy us time.\"\n\n\"They're on proximity fuses. Can't set them off,\" Holden said, the last word turning into a yelp as his chair stabbed him in a dozen different places and injected him full of fire. Alex had hit them with the juice, which meant Eros was still speeding up, and he was worried they'd all black out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "How fast was it going to go?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even on the juice they couldn't sustain prolonged acceleration past seven or eight g without serious risk. If Eros kept this rate of increase up, it would outrun them.\n\n\"You can remote detonate,\" Fred said. \"Miller will have the codes. Have the demo team calculate which ones to set off for maximum effect.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Roger that,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll give Miller a call.\"\n\n\"I'll work on the inners,\" Fred said, using the Belter slang without a hint of self-consciousness. \"See what I can do.\"\n\nHolden broke the connection, then linked up to Miller's ship." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yo,\" said whoever was manning the radio there." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This is Holden, on the Rocinante. Give me Miller.\"\n\n\"Uh...\" said the voice. \"Okay.\"\n\nThere was a click, then static, then Miller saying hello with a faint echo. Still wearing his helmet, then." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Miller, this is Holden. We need to talk about what just happened.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Eros moved.\"\n\nMiller sounded strange, his voice distant, as though he was only barely paying attention to the conversation. Holden felt a flush of irritation but tamped it back down. He needed Miller right now, whether he wanted to or not." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Look,\" he said. \"I've talked to Fred and he wants us to coordinate with your demo guys. You've got remote codes. If we set off all of them on one side, we can deflect its course. Get your techs on the line, and we'll work it out.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Huh, yeah, that sounds like a good idea. I'll send the codes along,\" said Miller, his voice no longer distant, but holding back a laugh. Like a man about to tell the punch line of a really good joke. \"But I can't really help you with the techs.\"\n\n\"Shit, Miller, you pissed those people off, too?\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "I'll be your writing partner today. I will set the scene, and you will continue the story with four sentences, channeling the voice and techniques of James S. A. Corey.i'll kick things off by writing a bit, then you'll take over and write the next four sentences in the distinctive voice of James S. A. Corey.Ive got a bit of writers block, im gonna send you something then keep it going four sentences at a time, also im going for a James S. A. Corey sorta thing." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What do you mean you're on Eros?\" Holden said.\n\n\"Pretty much that,\" Miller said, covering his growing sense of shame with a casual tone of voice. \"Hanging upside down outside the tertiary docks, where we moored one of the ships. Feel like a freaking bat.\"\n\n\"But—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Funny thing, too. I didn't feel it when the thing moved. You'd think accelerating like that, it would have thrown me off or squashed me flat, one or the other. But there was nothing.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Okay, hold on. We're coming to get you.\"\n\n\"Holden,\" Miller said. \"Just stop it, all right?\"\n\nThe silence didn't last more than a dozen seconds, but it carried a wealth of meaning. It's not safe to bring the Rocinante to Eros, and I came here to die, and Don't make this harder than it is." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yeah, I just...\" Holden said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And then: \"Okay. Let me... let me coordinate with the technicians. I'll... Jesus. I'll let you know what they say.\"\n\n\"One thing, though,\" Miller said. \"You're talking about deflecting this sonofabitch? Just keep in mind it's not a rock anymore. It's a ship.\"\n\n\"Right,\" Holden said. And a moment later: \"Okay.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The connection dropped with a tick." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller checked his oxygen supply. Three hours in-suit, but he could head back to his little ship and refill it well before that. So Eros was moving, was it? He still didn't feel it, but watching the curved surface of the asteroid, he could see micro-asteroids, all coming from the same direction, bouncing off." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If the station kept accelerating, they'd start coming more often, more powerfully." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He'd need to stay in the ship.\n\nHe turned his hand terminal back to the Eros feed. The station beneath him was chirping and muttering, long slow vowel sounds radiating out from it like recorded whale song. After the angry words and static, the voice of Eros sounded peaceful." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He wondered what kind of music Diogo's friends would be making out of this." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Slow dancing didn't seem like their style. An annoying itch settled in the small of his back, and he shifted in his suit, trying to rub it away. Almost without his noticing it, he grinned. And then laughed. A wave of euphoria passed into him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was alien life in the universe, and he was riding on it like a tick on a dog." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Eros Station had moved of its own free will and by mechanisms he couldn't begin to imagine. He didn't know how many years it had been since he'd been overwhelmed by awe. He'd forgotten the feeling. He raised his arms to his sides, reaching out as if he could embrace the endless dark vacuum below him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then, with a sigh, he turned back toward the ship." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Back in the protective shell, he took off the vac suit and hooked the air supply to the recyclers to charge up. With only one person to care for, even low-level life support would have it ready to go within the hour. The ship batteries were still almost fully charged. His hand terminal chimed twice, reminding him that it was once again time for the anti-cancer meds." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The ones he'd earned the last time he'd been on Eros." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The ones he'd be on for the rest of his life. Good joke.\n\nThe fusion bombs were in the ship's cargo hold: gray square boxes about half again as long as they were tall, like bricks in a mortar of pink adhesive foam. It took Miller twenty minutes of searching through storage lockers to find a can of solvent that still had charge in it. The thin spray from it smelled like ozone and oil, and the stiff pink foam melted under it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller squatted beside the bombs and ate a ration bar that tasted convincingly like apples." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Julie sat beside him, her head resting weightlessly on his shoulder.\n\nThere had been a few times that Miller had flirted with faith. Most had been when he was young and trying out everything. Then when he was older, wiser, more worn, and in the crushing pain of the divorce." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He understood the longing for a greater being, a huge and compassionate intelligence that could see everything from a perspective that dissolved the pettiness and evil and made everything all right." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He still felt that longing. He just couldn't convince himself it was true.\n\nAnd still, maybe there was something like a plan. Maybe the universe had put him in the right place at the right time to do the thing that no one else would do." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Maybe all the pain and suffering he'd been through, all the disappointments and soul-crushing years wallowing through the worst that humanity had to offer up, had been meant to bring him here, to this moment, when he was ready to die if it bought humanity a little time." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It would be pretty to think so, Julie said in his mind.\n\n\"It would,\" he agreed with a sigh. At the sound of his voice, the vision of her vanished, just another daydream.\n\nThe bombs were heavier than he'd remembered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Under a full g, he wouldn't have been able to move them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At only one-third, it was a struggle, but possible. An agonizing centimeter at a time, he dragged one of them onto a handcart and hauled it to the airlock. Eros, above him, sang to itself.\n\nHe had to rest before he tackled the hard work." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The airlock was thin enough that only the bomb or he could fit through at a time." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He climbed on top of it to get out the outer airlock door, then had to lift the bomb out with straps he rigged from cargo netting. And once out, it had to be tethered to the ship with magnetic clamps to keep Eros' spin from slinging it out into the void. After he'd pulled it out and strapped it to the cart, he stopped to rest for half an hour.\n\nThere were more impacts now, a rough sign that Eros was indeed accelerating." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Each one a rifle shot, capable of bouncing clean through him or the ship behind him if bad luck sent it in the right direction." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But the odds were low of one of the occasional rocks lining up a killing shot with his tiny antlike figure crawling across the surface. Once Eros cleared the Belt, they'd stop, anyway. Was Eros leaving the Belt? He realized he had no idea where Eros was going." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He'd assumed it was Earth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden would know by now, probably.\n\nHis shoulders ached a little from his efforts, but not badly. He worried that he'd overloaded the cart. Its wheels were stronger than his mag boots, but they could still be overcome." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The asteroid above him lurched once, a new and unsettling motion that didn't repeat." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His hand terminal cut off the Eros feed, alerting him that he had an incoming connection. He looked at it, shrugged, and let the call come through.\n\n\"Naomi,\" he said before she could speak. \"How've you been doing?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hey,\" she said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The silence between them stretched.\n\n\"You talked to Holden, then?\"\n\n\"I did,\" she said. \"He's still talking about ways to get you off that thing.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He's a good guy,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Talk him out of it for me, okay?\"\n\nThe silence hung long enough that Miller started to get uncomfortable.\n\n\"What are you doing there?\" she asked. As if there were an answer for that." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As if all his life could be summarized in answer to one simple question." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He danced around what she meant and replied only to what she'd said.\n\n\"Well, I've got a nuclear bomb strapped to a cargo wagon. I'm hauling it over to the access hatch and taking it into station.\"\n\n\"Miller—\"\n\n\"The thing is, we were treating this like a rock. Now everyone knows that's a little simplistic, but it's going to take people time to adjust. Navies are still going to be thinking of this thing like a billiard ball when it's really a rat.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was talking too fast." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The words spilling out of him in a rush. If he didn't give her room, she wouldn't talk. He wouldn't have to hear what she had to say. He wouldn't have to keep her from talking him down." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's going to have structure. Engines or control centers. Something. If I truck this thing inside, get it close to whatever coordinates the thing, I can break it. Turn it back into a billiard ball. Even if it's just for a little while, that gives the rest of you a chance.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I figured,\" she said. \"It makes sense. It's the right thing to do.\"\n\nMiller chuckled. A particularly solid impact tocked against the ship beneath him, the vibration of it jarring his bones. Gas started venting out of the new hole." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The station was moving faster." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yeah,\" he said. \"Well.\"\n\n\"I was talking to Amos,\" she said. \"You need a dead man's switch. So that if something happens, the bomb still goes off. If you have the access codes...?\"\n\n\"I do.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Good. I've got a routine you can put on your hand terminal. You'll need to keep your finger on the select button. If you go away for five seconds, it sends the go signal. If you want, I can upload it to you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So I have to wander around the station with my finger mashed on a button?\"\n\nNaomi's tone made it an apology. \"They might take you out with a head shot. Or wrestle you down. The longer the gap, the more chance for the protomolecule to disable the bomb before it goes off. If you need more, I can reprogram it.\"\n\nMiller looked at the bomb resting on its cart just outside the ship's airlock." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Its readouts all glowed green and gold." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His sigh briefly fogged the inside of his helmet.\n\n\"Yeah, no. Five is good. Upload the routine. Am I going to need to tweak it, or is there a simple place I can put the arm-and-fire string?\"\n\n\"There's a setup section,\" Naomi said. \"It prompts you.\"\n\nThe hand terminal chirped, announcing the new file." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller accepted it, ran it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was easy as keying in a door code. Somehow he felt that arming fusion bombs to detonate around him should have been more difficult.\n\n\"Got it,\" he said. \"We're good to go. I mean, I still have to move this bastard, but other than that. How fast am I accelerating on this thing, anyway?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Eventually it will be faster than the Roci can go. Four g and ramping up with no sign of easing off the throttle.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Can't feel it at all,\" he said.\n\n\"I'm sorry about before,\" Naomi said.\n\n\"It was a bad situation. We did what we had to do. Same as always.\"\n\n\"Same as always,\" she echoed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They didn't speak for a few seconds." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Thanks for the trigger,\" Miller said. \"Tell Amos I appreciate it.\"\n\nHe cut the connection before she could answer. Long goodbyes weren't anyone's strong suit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The bomb rested in the handcart, magnetic clamps in place and a wide woven-steel belt around the whole mess." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He moved slowly across the metallic surface of the port docks. If the cart lost its grip on Eros, he wouldn't be strong enough to hold it back. Of course, if one of the increasingly frequent strikes hit him, it would be a lot like getting shot, so waiting around wasn't a good solve either. He put both dangers out of his mind and did the work." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For ten nervous minutes, his suit smelled of overheating plastic." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All the diagnostics showed within the error bars, and by the time the recyclers cleared it, his air supply still looked good. Another little mystery he wasn't going to solve.\n\nThe abyss above him shone with unflickering stars. One of the dots of light was Earth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He didn't know which one." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The service hatch had been tucked in a natural outcropping of stone, the raw-ferrous cart track like a ribbon of silver in the darkness. Grunting, Miller hauled the cart and the bomb and his own exhausted body up around the curve, and spin gravity once again pressed down on his feet instead of stretching his knees and spine. Light-headed, he keyed in the codes until the hatch opened.\n\nEros lay before him, darker than the empty sky." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He ran the hand terminal connection through the suit, calling Holden for what he expected was the last time." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Miller,\" Holden said almost immediately.\n\n\"I'm heading in now,\" he said.\n\n\"Wait. Look, there's a way we might be able to get an automated cart. If the Roci—\"\n\n\"Yeah, but you know how it is. I'm already here. And we don't know how fast this sonofabitch can go. We've got a problem we need to fix. This is how we do it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden's hope had been weak, anyway." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Pro forma. A gesture and, Miller thought, maybe even heartfelt. Trying to save everyone, right to the last.\n\n\"I understand,\" Holden finally said.\n\n\"Okay. So once I've broken whatever the hell I find in there...?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We're working on ways to annihilate the station.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Good. I'd hate to go through the trouble for nothing.\"\n\n\"Is there... Is there anything you want me to do? After?\"\n\n\"Nah,\" Miller said, and then Julie was at his side, her hair floating around her like they were underwater. She glowed in more starlight than was actually there." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Wait. Yes. A couple things. Julie's parents. They run Mao-Kwikowski Mercantile. They knew the war was going start before it did. They've got to have links to Protogen. Make sure they don't get away with it. And if you see them, tell them I'm sorry I didn't find her in time.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Right,\" Holden said.\n\nMiller squatted in the darkness. Was there anything else? Shouldn't there be more?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "A message to Havelock, maybe?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Or Muss. Or Diogo and his OPA friends? But then there would have to be something to say.\n\n\"Okay,\" Miller said. \"That's it, then. It was good working with you.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry it came down this way,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It wasn't an apology for what he'd done or said, for what he'd chosen and refused." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yeah,\" Miller said. \"But what can you do, right?\"\n\nIt was as close to goodbye as either of them could get. Miller shut the connection, brought up the script Naomi had sent him, and enabled it. While he was at it, he turned the Eros feed back on." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "The user will write a bit then you need to write around four sentences continuing directly from the user's text. Try to mimic the style of James S. A. Corey.Produce four sentences using the prose and structure of James S. A. Corey every time its your turn using what the user wrote as a seed." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden knew that humans could tolerate extremely high g-forces over short durations. With proper safety systems, professional daredevils had sustained impacts in excess of twenty-five g's and survived. The human body deformed naturally, absorbed energy in soft tissues, and diffused impacts across larger areas.\n\nHe also knew that the problem with extended exposure to high g was that the constant pressure on the circulatory system would begin exposing weaknesses." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Have a weak spot in an artery that could turn into an aneurysm in forty years?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A few hours at seven g might just pop it open now. Capillaries in the eyes started to leak. The eye itself deformed, sometimes causing permanent damage. And then there were the hollow spaces, like the lungs and digestive tract." }, { "from": "human", "value": "You piled on enough gravity, and they collapsed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And while combat ships might maneuver at very high g for short durations, every moment spent under thrust multiplied the danger.\n\nEros didn't need to shoot anything at them. It could just keep speeding up until their bodies exploded under the pressure. His console was showing five g, but even as he watched, it shifted to six." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They couldn't keep this up." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Eros was going to get away. There was nothing he could do about it.\n\nBut he still didn't order Alex to stop accelerating.\n\nAs if Naomi were reading his mind, WE CAN'T KEEP THIS UP POPPED UP on his console, her user ID in front of the text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "FRED'S WORKING ON IT." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "THEY MIGHT NEED US TO BE WITHIN RANGE OF EROS WHEN THEY COME UP WITH A PLAN, he replied. Even moving his fingers the millimeters necessary to use the controls built into his chair for exactly this reason was painfully difficult.\n\nWITHIN RANGE FOR WHAT? NAOMI TYPED.\n\nHolden didn't answer. He had no idea." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His blood was burning with drugs to keep him awake and alert even while his body was being crushed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The drugs had the contradictory effect of making his brain run at double speed while not allowing him to actually think. But Fred would come up with something. Lots of smart people were thinking about it.\n\nAnd Miller." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller was lugging a fusion bomb through Eros right now." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When your enemy had the tech advantage, you came at him as low-tech as you could get. Maybe one sad detective pulling a nuclear weapon on a wagon would slip through their defenses. Naomi had said they weren't magic. Maybe Miller could make it and give them the opening they needed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Either way, Holden had to be there, even if it was just to see." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "FRED, Naomi typed to him.\n\nHolden opened the connection. Fred looked to him like a man suppressing a grin.\n\n\"Holden,\" he said. \"How are you guys holding up?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "SIX G'S. SPIT IT OUT." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Right. So it turns out that the UN cops have been ripping Protogen's network apart, looking for clues as to what the hell's been going on. Guess who showed up as public enemy number one for the Protogen bigwigs? Yours truly. Suddenly all is forgiven, and Earth welcomes me back into her warm embrace. The enemy of my enemy thinks I am a righteous bastard.\"\n\nGOODY. MY SPLEEN IS COLLAPSING. HURRY UP.\n\n\"The idea of Eros crashing into Earth is bad enough. Extinction-level event, even if it's just a rock. But the UN people have been watching the Eros feeds, and it's scaring the shit out of them.\"\n\nAND." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Earth is preparing to launch her entire ground-based nuclear arsenal. Thousands of nukes. They're going to vaporize that rock. The navy will intercept what's left after the initial attack and sterilize that entire area of space with constant nuclear bombardment. I know it's a risk, but it's what we have.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden resisted the urge to shake his head. He didn't want to wind up with one cheek stuck to the chair permanently.\n\nEROS DODGED THE NAUVOO. IT'S GOING SIX G'S RIGHT NOW, AND ACCORDING TO NAOMI, MILLER FEELS NO ACCELERATION." }, { "from": "human", "value": "WHATEVER IT'S DOING, IT DOESN'T HAVE THE SAME INERTIAL LIMITATIONS WE HAVE." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "WHAT'S TO STOP IT FROM JUST DODGING AGAIN? AT THESE SPEEDS, THE MISSILES WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO TURN AROUND AND CATCH IT. AND WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TARGETING ON? EROS DOESN'T REFLECT RADAR ANYMORE." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's where you come in. We need you to try bouncing a laser off of it. We can use the Rocinante's targeting system to guide the missiles in.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I HATE TO BREAK IT TO YOU, BUT WE'LL BE OUT OF THIS GAME LONG BEFORE THOSE MISSILES SHOW. WE CAN'T KEEP UP. WE CAN'T GUIDE THE MISSILES IN FOR YOU. AND ONCE WE LOSE VISUAL, NO ONE WILL BE ABLE TO TRACK WHERE EROS IS." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You might have to put it on autopilot,\" Fred said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Meaning You might all have to die in the seats you're in right now.\n\nI'VE ALWAYS WANTED TO DIE A MARTYR AND ALL, BUT WHAT MAKES YOU THINK THE ROCI CAN BEAT THIS THING ON ITS OWN? I'M NOT KILLING MY CREW BECAUSE YOU CAN'T COME UP WITH A GOOD PLAN.\n\nFred leaned toward the screen, his eyes narrowing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For the first time, Fred's mask slipped and Holden saw the fear and helplessness behind it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Look, I know what I'm asking, but you know the stakes. This is what we have. I didn't call you to hear how it won't work. Either help or give up. Right now devil's advocate is just another name for asshole.\"\n\nI'm crushing myself to death, probably doing permanent damage, just because I wouldn't give up, you bastard. So sorry I didn't sign my crew up to die the minute you said to do it.\n\nHaving to type everything out had the advantage of restraining emotional outbursts." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Instead of ripping into Fred for questioning his commitment, Holden just typed LET ME THINK ABOUT IT and cut the connection." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The optical tracking system watching Eros flashed a warning to him that the asteroid was increasing speed again. The giant sitting on his chest added a few pounds as Alex pushed the Rocinante to keep up. A flashing red indicator informed Holden that because of the duration they'd spent at the current acceleration, he could expect as much as 12 percent of the crew to stroke out. It would go up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Enough time, and it would reach 100 percent." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He tried to remember the Roci's maximum theoretical acceleration. Alex had already flown it at twelve g briefly when they'd left the Donnager. The actual limit was one of those trivial numbers, a way to brag about something your ship would never really do. Fifteen g, was it? Twenty?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller hadn't felt any acceleration at all." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "How fast could you go if you didn't even feel it?\n\nAlmost without realizing he was going to do it, Holden activated the master engine cutoff switch. Within seconds he was in free fall, wracked with coughs as his organs tried to find their original resting places inside his body. When Holden had recovered enough to take one really deep breath, his first in hours, Alex came on the comm." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Cap, did you kill the engines?\" the pilot said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yeah, that was me. We're done. Eros is getting away no matter what we do. We were just prolonging the inevitable, and risking some crew deaths in the process.\"\n\nNaomi turned her chair and gave him a sad little smile. She was sporting a black eye from the acceleration.\n\n\"We did our best,\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden shoved out of his chair hard enough that he bruised his forearms on the ceiling, then shoved off hard again and pinned his back to a bulkhead by grabbing on to a fire extinguisher mount." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Naomi was watching him from across the deck, her mouth a comical O of surprise. He knew he probably looked ridiculous, like a petulant child throwing a tantrum, but he couldn't stop himself. He broke free of his grip on the fire extinguisher and floated into the middle of the deck. He hadn't known he'd been pounding on the bulkhead with his other fist." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Now that he did, his hand hurt." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"God dammit,\" he said. \"Just God dammit.\"\n\n\"We—\" Naomi started, but he cut her off.\n\n\"We did our best? What the hell does that matter?\" Holden felt a red haze in his mind, and not all of it was from the drugs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I did my best to help the Canterbury, too. I tried to do the right thing when I let us be taken by the Donnager. Did my good intentions mean jack shit?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Naomi's expression went flat. Now her eyelids dropped, and she stared at him from narrow slits. Her lips pressed together until they were almost white. They wanted me to kill you, Holden thought." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They wanted me to kill my crew just in case Eros can't break fifteen g, and I couldn't do it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The guilt and rage and sorrow played against each other, turning into something thin and unfamiliar. He couldn't put a name to the feeling.\n\n\"You're the last person I'd expect to hear self-pity from,\" she said, her voice tight. \"Where's the captain who's always asking, 'What can we do right now to make things better?'\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden gestured around himself helplessly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Show me which button to push to stop everyone on Earth from being killed, I'll push it.\"\n\nJust as long as it doesn't kill you.\n\nNaomi unbuckled her harness and floated toward the crew ladder.\n\n\"I'm going below to check on Amos,\" she said, then opened the deck hatch." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She paused. \"I'm your operations officer, Holden. Monitoring communication lines is part of the job. I know what Fred wanted.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden blinked, and Naomi pulled herself out of sight. The hatch slammed behind her with a bang that couldn't have been any harder than normal but felt like it was anyway.\n\nHolden called up to the cockpit and told Alex to take a break and get some coffee. The pilot stopped on his way through the deck, looking like he wanted to talk, but Holden just waved him on." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alex shrugged and left." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The watery feeling in his gut had taken root and bloomed into a full-fledged, limb-shaking panic. Some vicious, vindictive, self-flagellating part of his mind insisted on running nonstop movies of Eros hurtling toward Earth. It would come screaming down out of the sky like every religion's vision of apocalypse made real, fire and earthquakes and pestilential rain sweeping the land. But each time Eros hit the Earth in his mind, it was the explosion of the Canterbury he saw." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A shockingly sudden white light, and then nothing but the sound of ice pebbles rattling across his hull like gentle hail." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mars would survive, for a while. Pockets of the Belt would hold out even longer, probably. They had a culture of making do, surviving on scraps, living on the bleeding edge of their resources. But in the end, without Earth, everything would eventually die." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Humans had been out of the gravity well a long time." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Long enough to have developed the technology to cut that umbilical cord, but they'd just never bothered to do it. Stagnant. Humanity, for all its desire to fling itself into every livable pocket it could reach, had become stagnant. Satisfied to fly around in ships built half a century before, using technology that hadn't changed in longer than that.\n\nEarth had been so focused on her own problems that she'd ignored her far-flung children, except when asking for her share of their labors." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mars had bent her entire population to the task of remaking the planet, changing its red face to green." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Trying to make a new Earth to end their reliance on the old. And the Belt had become the slums of the solar system. Everyone too busy trying to survive to spend any time creating something new.\n\nWe found the protomolecule at exactly the right time for it to do the most damage to us, Holden thought." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It had looked like a shortcut." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A way to avoid having to do any of the work, to just jump straight to godhood. And it had been so long since anything was a real threat to humanity outside of itself that no one was even smart enough to be scared. Dresden had said it himself: The things that had made the protomolecule, loaded it into Phoebe, and shot it at the Earth were already godlike back when humanity's ancestors thought photosynthesis and the flagellum were cutting-edge. But he'd taken their ancient engine of destruction and turned the key anyway, because when you got right down to it, humans were still just curious monkeys." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They still had to poke everything they found with a stick to see what it did." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The red haze in Holden's vision had taken on a strange strobing pattern. It took him a moment to realize that a red telltale on his panel was flashing, letting him know that the Ravi was calling. He kicked off a nearby crash couch, floated back to his station, and opened the link.\n\n\"Rocinante here, Ravi, go ahead.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Holden, why are we stopped?\" McBride asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Because we weren't going to keep up anyway, and the danger of crew casualties was getting too high,\" he replied. It sounded weak even to him. Cowardly. McBride didn't seem to notice.\n\n\"Roger. I'm going to get new orders. Will let you know if anything changes.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden killed the connection and stared blankly at the console." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The visual tracking system was doing its very best to keep Eros in sight. The Roci was a good ship. State of the art. And since Alex had tagged the asteroid as a threat, the computer would do everything in its power to keep track of it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But Eros was a fast-moving, low-albedo object that didn't reflect radar." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It could move unpredictably and at high speed. It was just a matter of time before they lost track of it, especially if it wanted to be lost track of.\n\nNext to the tracking information on his console, a small data window opened to inform him that the Ravi had turned on its transponder. It was standard practice even for military ships to keep them on when there was no apparent threat or need for stealth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The radio man on the little UNN corvette must have flipped it back on out of habit." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And now the Roci registered it as a known vessel and threw it onto the threat display with a gently pulsing green dot and a name tag. Holden looked at it blankly for a long moment. He felt his eyes go wide.\n\n\"Shit,\" Holden said, then opened the shipwide comm." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Naomi, I need you in ops.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I think I'd rather stay down here for a bit,\" she replied.\n\nHolden hit the battle station's alert button on his console. The deck lights shifted to red and a Klaxon sounded three times.\n\n\"XO Nagata to ops,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Let her chew him out later." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He'd have it coming. But right now he didn't have any time to waste.\n\nNaomi was on the ops deck in less than a minute. Holden had already buckled back into his crash couch and was pulling up the comm logs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Naomi pushed over to her chair and belted in as well." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She gave him an inquiring look—Are we going to die after all?—but said nothing. If he said so, she would. He felt a spike of equal parts admiration for and impatience with her. He found what he was looking for in the logs before speaking." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Okay,\" he said. \"We've had radio contact with Miller after Eros dropped off of radar. Is that right?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, that's right,\" she said. \"But his suit isn't powerful enough to transmit through the shell of Eros out to much distance, so one of the moored ships is boosting the signal for him.\"\n\n\"Which means that whatever Eros is doing to kill the radar isn't killing all radio transmissions from outside.\"\n\n\"That seems right,\" Naomi said, a growing curiosity in her voice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And you still have the control codes for the five OPA freighters on the surface, right?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, sir.\" And then a moment later: \"Oh, shit.\"\n\n\"Okay,\" Holden said, turning in his chair to face Naomi with a grin. \"Why do the Roci and every other naval ship in the system have a switch to turn off their transponders?\"\n\n\"So the enemy can't get a missile lock on the transponder signal and blow them up,\" she said, sharing his grin now." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden spun his chair back around and began opening a comm channel to Tycho Station." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"XO, would you be so kind as to use the control codes Miller gave you to turn those five OPA freighters back on and fire up their transponders? Unless our visitor on Eros can outrun radio waves, I think we've gotten around the acceleration problem.\"\n\n\"Aye, aye, Captain,\" Naomi replied. Even looking the other way, Holden could hear the smile in her voice, and it melted the last of the ice in his gut. They had a plan." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were going to make a difference." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Call coming in from the Ravi,\" Naomi said. \"You want it before I turn the transponders on?\"\n\n\"Hell yes.\"\n\nThe line clicked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Captain Holden. We've got our new orders. Seems we're going to be chasing that thing a little further.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "McBride sounded almost like someone who hadn't just been sent to her death. Stoic.\n\n\"You might want to hold off on that for a couple minutes,\" Holden said. \"We have an alternative.\"\n\nAs Naomi activated the transponders on the five OPA freighters Miller had left moored to the surface of Eros, Holden laid out the plan to McBride and then, on a separate line, Fred." }, { "from": "human", "value": "By the time Fred had gotten back to him with an enthusiastic approval of the plan from both him and the UN Naval command, the five freighters were pinging away, telling the solar system where they were." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "An hour after that, the largest swarm of interplanetary nuclear weapons in the history of humanity had been fired and were winging their way toward Eros.\n\nWe're going to win, Holden thought as he watched the missiles take flight like a swarm of angry red dots on his threat display. We're going to beat this thing. And what was more, his crew was going to see the end of it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "No one else had to die." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Except...\n\n\"Miller's calling,\" Naomi said. \"Probably noticed we turned his ships back on.\"\n\nHolden had a wrenching feeling in his stomach." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller would be there, on Eros, when those missiles arrived." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 5 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not everyone would get to celebrate the coming victory.\n\n\"Hey. Miller. How you doing?\" he said, not quite able to keep the funereal tone out of his voice.\n\nMiller's voice was choppy, and half drowned by static, but not so garbled that Holden couldn't hear the tone in it and know that he was about to take a piss all over their parade.\n\n\"Holden,\" Miller said. \"We have a problem.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Expand the story by adding 4 sentences." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One. Two. Three." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller pushed down on the hand terminal, resetting the trigger again. The double doors in front of him had once been one of thousands of quietly automated mechanisms. They had run reliably in their subtle magnetic tracks, maybe for years. Now something black with the texture of tree bark grew like creepers around their sides, deforming the metal." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Past them lay the port corridors, the warehouses, the casino." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Everything that had been Eros Station and was now the vanguard of an invading alien intelligence. But to reach it, Miller had to pry open a stuck door. In less than five seconds. While wearing an environment suit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He put the hand terminal down again and reached quickly for the thin crack where the two doors met. One. Two." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The door shifted a centimeter, flakes of black matter sifting down. Three.\n\nFour.\n\nHe grabbed the hand terminal again, resetting the trigger.\n\nThis shit just wasn't going to work." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller sat on the ground beside the cart." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Eros feed whispered and muttered, apparently unaware of the tiny invader scratching at the station's skin. Miller took a long, deep breath. Door didn't move. He had to get past it.\n\nNaomi wasn't going to like this." }, { "from": "human", "value": "With his one free hand, Miller loosened the woven metal strap around the bomb until it could rock back and forth a little." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Carefully, slowly, he lifted the corner of it. Then, watching the status readouts, he wedged the hand terminal under it, the metal corner digging hard into the touch screen over the enter button. The trigger stayed green. If the station shook or shifted, he'd still have five seconds to get to it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Good enough." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Braced with both hands, Miller tugged at the doors. More of the black crust fell away as he levered the doors open far enough to see through. The corridor beyond was nearly round; the dark growth had filled in the corners until the passage looked like a huge desiccated blood vessel. The only lights were his suit's headlights and a million tiny luminescent dots that swirled in the air like blue fireflies." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When the Eros feed pulsed, growing momentarily louder, the fireflies dimmed and then returned." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The environment suit reported breathable air with higher than expected concentrations of argon, ozone, and benzene.\n\nOne of the luminescent dots floated past him, swirling on currents he couldn't feel. Miller ignored it, pushing at the doors, widening the gap centimeter by centimeter. He could put in an arm to feel the crust." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It seemed solid enough to support the cart." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That was a godsend. If it had been thigh-high alien mud, he would have had to find some other way to carry the bomb. It was going to be bad enough hauling the cart up to the rounded surface.\n\nNo rest for the wicked, Julie Mao said in his mind." }, { "from": "human", "value": "No peace for the good." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He went back to work.\n\nBy the time he'd shoved the doors wide enough to get through, he was sweating. His arms and back ached. The dark crust had started growing down the corridor, tendrils shooting out toward the airlock, keeping to the edges, where walls met floor or ceiling." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The blue glow had colonized the air." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Eros was heading out the corridor as quickly as he was heading in. Faster, maybe.\n\nMiller hauled the cart up with both hands, watching the hand terminal closely. The bomb rocked, but not so much it lost its grip on the trigger. Once he was safely in the corridor, he took the terminal back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One. Two." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The heavy bomb casing had carved a little divot in the touch pad, but it still worked. Miller took the cart handle and leaned forward, the uneven, organic surface beneath him translated into the rough tug and flutter of the cart's vibration.\n\nHe'd died here once. He'd been poisoned. Shot." }, { "from": "human", "value": "These halls, or ones much like them, had been his battleground. His and Holden's." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were unrecognizable now.\n\nHe passed through a wide, nearly empty space. The crust had thinned here, the metal walls of the warehouse showing through in places. One LED still glowed in the ceiling, the cool white light spilling onto the darkness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The path led him to the casino level, the architecture of commerce still bringing visitors to the same spot." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The alien bark was nearly gone, but the space had been transformed. Pachinko machines stood in their rows, half melted or exploded or, like a few, still glittering and asking for the financial information that would unlock the gaudy lights and festive, celebratory sound effects. The card tables were still visible under mushroom caps of clear glutinous gel. Lining the walls and cathedral-high ceilings, black ribs rippled with hairlike threads that glowed at the tips without offering any illumination." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Something screamed, the sound muffled by Miller's suit." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The broadcast feed of the station sounded louder and richer now that he was under its skin. He had the sudden, transporting memory of being a child and watching a video feed of a boy who'd been swallowed by a monstrous whale.\n\nSomething gray and the size of Miller's two fists together flew by almost too fast to see. It hadn't been a bird." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Something scuttled behind an overturned vending machine." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He realized what was missing. There had been a million and a half people on Eros, and a large percentage of them had been here, on the casino level, when their own personal apocalypse came. But there were no bodies. Or, no. That wasn't true." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The black crust, the millions of dark rills above him with their soft, oceanic glow." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Those were the corpses of Eros, recreated. Human flesh, remade. A suit alarm told him he was starting to hyperventilate. Darkness started to creep in at the edge of his vision.\n\nMiller sank to his knees." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Don't pass out, you son of a bitch, he told himself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Don't pass out, or if you do, at least land so your weight's on the damned trigger.\n\nJulie put her hand on his. He could almost feel it, and it steadied him. She was right. They were only bodies. Just dead people." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Victims." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Just another slab of recycled meat, same as every unlicensed whore he'd seen stabbed to death in the cheap hotels on Ceres. Same as all the suicides who'd thrown themselves out of airlocks. Okay, the protomolecule had mutilated the flesh in weird ways. Didn't change what it was." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Didn't change what he was." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"When you're a cop,\" he told Julie, repeating something he'd told every rookie he'd been partnered with in his career, \"you don't have the luxury of feeling things. You have to do the job.\"\n\nSo do the job, she said gently.\n\nHe nodded. He stood. Do the job.\n\nAs if in response, the sound in his suit changed, the Eros feed fluting up through a hundred different frequencies before exploding in a harsh flood of what he thought was Hindi." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Human voices. Till human voices wake us, he thought, without quite being able to recall where the phrase came from." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Somewhere in the station, there was going to be... something. A control mechanism or a power supply or whatever the protomolecule was using instead of an engine. He didn't know what it would look like or how it would be defended. He didn't have any idea how it worked, apart from the assumption that if he blew it up, it wouldn't keep going very well." }, { "from": "human", "value": "So we go back, he told Julie." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We go back to what we do know.\n\nThe thing that was growing inside Eros, using the stone skin of the asteroid as its own unarticulated exoskeleton, hadn't cut off the ports. It hadn't moved the interior walls or recreated the chambers and passages of the casino level. So the station's layout should be pretty near what it had always been. Okay." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Whatever it used to drive the station through space, it was using a shitload of energy. Okay." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So find the hot spot. With his free hand, he checked the environment suit. Ambient temperature was twenty-seven degrees: hot but far from unbearable. He walked briskly back toward the port corridor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The temperature dropped by less than a hundredth of a degree, but it did drop." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All right, then. He could go to each of the corridors, find which one was hottest, and follow it. When he found a place in the station that was, say, three or four degrees hotter than the rest, that would be the place. He'd roll the cart up beside it, let up his thumb, and count to five.\n\nNo problem." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When he got back to the cart, something golden with the soft look of heather was growing around the wheels." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller scraped it off as best he could, but one of the wheels had still developed a squeak. Nothing to be done about that.\n\nWith one hand hauling the cart and the other mashing down on his hand terminal's dead-man's-switch, Miller headed up, deeper into the station.\n\n\"She's mine,\" mindless Eros said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It had been stuck on the phrase for the better part of an hour." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She's mine. She's... mine.\"\n\n\"Fine,\" Miller muttered. \"You can have her.\"\n\nHis shoulder ached. The squeak in the cart's wheel had grown worse, the whine of it cutting through the souls-of-the-damned madness of the Eros feed. His thumb was starting to tingle from the constant, relentless pressure of not annihilating himself quite yet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "With each level he rose, the spin gravity grew lighter and the Coriolis a little more noticeable." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It wasn't quite the same as on Ceres, but it was close and felt like coming home. He found himself looking forward to when the job was done. He imagined himself back in his hole, a six-pack of beer, some music on the speakers that had an actual composer instead of the wild, empty-minded glossolalia of the dead station. Maybe some light jazz." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Who ever thought the idea of light jazz would be appealing?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Catch me if you can, cocksuckers,\" Eros said. \"I am gone and gone and gone. Gone and gone and gone.\"\n\nThe inner levels of the station were both more familiar and stranger. Away from the mass grave of the casino level, more of Eros' old life showed through." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tube stops still glowed, announcing line errors and counseling patience." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Air recyclers hummed. The floors were relatively clean and clear. The sense of near normalcy made the changes stand out eerily. Dark fronds coated the walls with swirling nautilus patterns. Flakes of the stuff drifted down from above, whirling in the spin gravity like soot." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Eros still had spin gravity but didn't have gravity from the massive acceleration it was under." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller chose not to try to figure that out.\n\nA flock of softball-sized spiderlike things crawled through the corridor, leaving a slick sheen of glowing slime behind them. It wasn't until he paused to knock one off the cart that he recognized them as severed hands, the trailing wrist bones charred black and remade. Part of his mind was screaming, but it was a distant one and easy to ignore." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had to respect the protomolecule." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For something that had been expecting prokaryotic anaerobes, it was doing a bang-up job of making do. He paused to check his suit's sensor array. The temperature had risen half a degree since he'd left the casino and a tenth of a degree since he'd entered this particular main hall. The background radiation was also climbing, his poor abused flesh sucking in more rads." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The concentration of benzene was going down, and his suit was picking up more exotic aromatic molecules—tetracene, anthracene, naphthalene—with behavior sufficiently strange to confuse the sensors." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So it was the right direction. He leaned forward, the cart resisting his pull like a bored kid. As he recalled, the structural layout was roughly like Ceres', and he knew Ceres like he knew his name. One more level up—maybe two—there would be a confluence of services from the lower, high-g levels and the supply and energy systems that did better at lower gravity." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It seemed as likely a place to grow a command and control center as any." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As good a location for a brain.\n\n\"Gone and gone and gone,\" Eros said. \"And gone.\"\n\nIt was funny, he thought, how the ruins of the past shaped everything that came after. It seemed to work on all levels; one of the truths of the universe." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Back in the ancient days, when humanity still lived entirely down a well, the paths laid down by Roman legions had become asphalt and later ferroconcrete without ever changing a curve or a turn." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On Ceres, Eros, Tycho, the bore of the standard corridor had been determined by mining tools built to accommodate the trucks and lifts of Earth, which had in turn been designed to go down tracks wide enough for a mule cart's axle.\n\nAnd now the alien—the thing from out in the vast dark—was growing along the corridors, ducts, tube routes, and water pipes laid out by a handful of ambitious primates. He wondered what it would have been like if the protomolecule hadn't been captured by Saturn, had actually found its way into the soup of primordial Earth. No fusion reactors, no navigation drives, no complex flesh to appropriate." }, { "from": "human", "value": "What would it have done differently if it hadn't had to build around some other evolution's design choices?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller, Julie said. Keep moving.\n\nHe blinked. He was standing in the empty passageway at the base of an access ramp. He didn't know how long he'd been lost in his own mind.\n\nYears, maybe." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He blew out a long breath and started up the ramp." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The corridors above him were reading as considerably hotter than ambient. Almost three degrees. He was getting close. There was no light, though. He took his tingling, half-numbed thumb off the select button, turned on the hand terminal's little utility LED, and got back to the dead man's switch just before the count of four." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Gone and gone and... and... and and and and.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Eros feed squealed, a chorus of voices chattering in Russian and Hindi clamoring over the old singular voice and being drowned out in turn by a deep creaking howl. Whale song, maybe. Miller's suit mentioned politely that he had half an hour of oxygen left. He shut the alarm down.\n\nThe transfer station was overgrown." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Pale fronds swarmed along the corridors and twisted into ropes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Recognizable insects—flies, cockroaches, water spiders—crawled along the thick white cables in purposeful waves. Tendrils of something that looked like articulated bile swept back and forth, leaving a film of scurrying larvae. They were as much victim of the protomolecule as the human population. Poor bastards.\n\n\"You can't take the razor back,\" Eros said, and its voice sounded almost triumphant." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You can't take the razor back. She is gone and gone and gone.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The temperature was climbing faster now. It took him a few minutes to decide that spinward might be slightly warmer. He hauled the cart. He could feel the squeaking, a tiny, rattling tremor in the bones of his hand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Between the mass of the bomb and the failing wheel bearings, his shoulders were starting to really ache." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Good thing he wasn't going to have to haul this damn thing back down.\n\nJulie was waiting for him in the darkness; the thin beam from his hand terminal cut through her. Her hair floated, spin gravity having, after all, no effect on phantoms of the mind. Her expression was grave." }, { "from": "human", "value": "How does it know? she asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller paused. Every now and then, all through his career, some daydreamed witness would say something, use some phrase, laugh at the wrong thing, and he'd know that the back of his mind had a new angle on the case.\n\nThis was that moment.\n\n\"You can't take the razor back,\" Eros crowed.\n\nThe comet that took the protomolecule into the solar system in the first place was a dead drop, not a ship, Julie said, her dark lips never moving." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was just ballistic." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Any ice bullet with the protomolecule in deep freeze. It was aimed at Earth, but it missed and got grabbed by Saturn instead. The payload didn't steer it. Didn't drive it. Didn't navigate." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It didn't need to,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It's navigating now. It's going to Earth. How does it know to go to Earth? Where did that information come from? It's talking. Where did that grammar come from?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Who is the voice of Eros?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller closed his eyes. His suit mentioned that he only had twenty minutes of air.\n\n\"You can't take the Razorback! She is gone and gone and gone!\"\n\n\"Oh fuck,\" Miller said. \"Oh Jesus.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He let go of the cart, turning back toward the ramp and the light and the wide station corridors." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Everything was shaking, the station itself trembling like someone on the edge of hypothermia. Only of course it wasn't. The only one shaking was him. It was all in the voice of Eros." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It had been there all the time." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He should have known.\n\nMaybe he had.\n\nThe protomolecule didn't know English or Hindi or Russian or any of the languages it had been spouting. All of that had been in the minds and softwares of Eros' dead, coded in the neurons and grammar programs that the protomolecule had eaten." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Eaten, but not destroyed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It had kept the information and languages and complex cognitive structures, building itself on them like asphalt over the roads the legions built.\n\nThe dead of Eros weren't dead. Juliette Andromeda Mao was alive.\n\nHe was grinning so hard his cheeks ached." }, { "from": "human", "value": "With one gloved hand, he tried the connection." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The signal was too weak. He couldn't get through. He told his uplink on the surface ship to crank up the power, got a connection.\n\nHolden's voice came over the link." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Task: The user will write a bit then you need to write around four sentences continuing directly from the user's text.\n\nAuthor style: James S. A. Corey" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Actually, we've sort of figured out how to solve the problem,\" Holden replied.\n\n\"I don't think so. I'm linking you to my suit's med data,\" Miller said.\n\nA few seconds later, four columns of numbers popped up in a small window on Holden's console. It all looked fairly normal, though there were subtleties that only a med-tech, like Shed, would be able to interpret correctly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Okay,\" Holden said. \"That's great. You're getting a little irradiated, but other than that—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller cut him off.\n\n\"Am I suffering from hypoxia?\" he said.\n\nThe data from his suit showed 87 mmHg, comfortably above baseline.\n\n\"No,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Anything that would make a guy hallucinate or get demented? Alcohol, opiates. Something like that?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not that I can see,\" Holden said, growing impatient. \"What's this about? Are you seeing things?\"\n\n\"Just the usual,\" Miller replied. \"I wanted to get that shit out the way, because I know what you're going to say next.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He stopped talking, and the radio hissed and popped in Holden's ear." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When Miller spoke again after several seconds of silence, his voice had taken on a different tone. It wasn't quite pleading, but close enough to make Holden shift uncomfortably in his seat.\n\n\"She's alive.\"\n\nThere was only one she in Miller's universe." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Julie Mao. \"Uh, okay. Not sure how to respond to that.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You'll have to take my word that I'm not having a nervous breakdown or psychotic episode or anything like that. But Julie's in here. She's driving Eros.\"\n\nHolden looked at the suit's medical data again, but it kept reporting normal readings, all the numbers except for radiation comfortably in the green. His blood chemistry didn't even look like he was particularly stressed for a guy carrying a fusion bomb to his own funeral.\n\n\"Miller, Julie's dead. We both saw the body. We saw what the protomolecule... did to it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We saw her body, sure. We just assumed she was dead because of the damage—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She didn't have a heartbeat,\" Holden said. \"No brain activity, no metabolism. That's pretty much the definition of dead.\"\n\n\"How do we know what dead looks like to the protomolecule?\"\n\n\"We—\" Holden started, then stopped." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We don't, I guess. But no heartbeat, that's a pretty good start.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller laughed.\n\n\"We've both seen the feeds, Holden. Those rib cages equipped with one arm that drag themselves around, think they have a heartbeat? This shit hasn't been playing by our rules since day one, you expect it to start now?\"\n\nHolden smiled to himself. Miller was right.\n\n\"Okay, so what makes you think Julie isn't just a rib cage and a mass of tentacles?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She might be, but it's not her body I'm talking about,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She's in here. Her mind. It's like she's flying her old racing pinnace. The Razorback. She's been babbling about it on the radio for hours now, and I just didn't put it together. But now that I have, it's pretty goddamn clear.\"\n\n\"Why is she headed toward Earth?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" Miller said. He sounded excited, interested." }, { "from": "human", "value": "More alive than Holden had ever heard him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Maybe the protomolecule wants to get there and it's messing with her. Julie wasn't the first person to get infected, but she's the first one that survived long enough to get somewhere. Maybe she's the seed crystal and everything that the protomolecule's doing is built on her. I don't know that, but I can find out. I just need to find her. Talk to her.\"\n\n\"You need to get that bomb to wherever the controls are and set it off.\"\n\n\"I can't do that,\" Miller said. Because of course he couldn't." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It doesn't matter, Holden thought." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In a little less than thirty hours, you're both radioactive dust.\n\n\"All right. Can you find your girl in less than\"—Holden had the Roci do a revised time of impact for the incoming missiles—\"twenty-seven hours?\"\n\n\"Why? What happens in twenty-seven hours?\"\n\n\"Earth fired her entire interplanetary nuclear arsenal at Eros a few hours ago. We just turned the transponders on in the five freighters you parked on the surface. The missiles are targeting them. The Roci is guessing twenty-seven hours to impact based on the current acceleration curve. The Martian and UN navies are on their way to sterilize the area after detonation. Make sure nothing survives or slips the net.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Jesus.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yeah,\" Holden said with a sigh. \"I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner. I've had a lot going on, and it sort of slipped my mind.\"\n\nThere was another long silence on the line.\n\n\"You can stop them,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Shut down the transponders.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden spun his chair around to face Naomi. Her face had the same what did he just say? look that he knew was on his own. She pulled the suit's medical data over to her console, then called up the Roci's medical expert system and began running a full medical diagnostic." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The implication was clear." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She thought something was wrong with Miller that wasn't immediately apparent from the data they were getting. If the protomolecule had infected him, used him as a last-ditch misdirection...\n\n\"Not a chance, Miller. This is our last shot. If we blow this one, Eros can orbit the Earth, spraying brown goo all over it. No way we take that risk.\"\n\n\"Look,\" Miller said, his tone alternating between the earlier pleading and a growing frustration." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Julie is in here. If I can find her, a way to talk to her, I can stop this without the nukes.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What, ask the protomolecule to pretty please not infect the Earth, when that was what it was designed to do? Appeal to its better nature?\"\n\nMiller paused for a moment before speaking again.\n\n\"Look, Holden, I think I know what's going on here. This thing was intended to infect single-celled organisms. The most basic forms of life, right?\"\n\nHolden shrugged, then remembered there was no video feed and said, \"Okay.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That didn't work, but it's a smart bastard. Adaptive. It got into a human host, a complex multicelled organism. Aerobic. Huge brain. Nothing like what it was built for. It's been improvising ever since. That mess on the stealth ship? That was its first try. We saw what it was doing with Julie in that Eros bathroom. It was learning how to work with us.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Where are you going with this?\" Holden said. There was no time pressure yet, with the missiles still more than a day away, but he couldn't quite keep the impatience out of his voice.\n\n\"All I'm saying is Eros now isn't what the protomolecule's designers planned on. It's their original plan laid over the top of billions of years of our evolution. And when you improvise, you use what you've got. You use what works. Julie's the template. Her brain, her emotions are all over this thing. She sees this run to Earth as a race, and she's crowing about winning. Laughing at you because you can't keep up.\"\n\n\"Wait,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She's not attacking Earth, she's going home. For all we know, she's not heading for Earth at all. Luna, maybe. She grew up there. The protomolecule piggybacked on her structure, her brain. And so she infected it as much as it infected her. If I can make her understand what's really going on, then maybe I can negotiate with her.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How do you know that?\"\n\n\"Call it a hunch,\" Miller said. \"I'm good with hunches.\"\n\nHolden whistled, the entire situation doing a flip-flop in his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The new perspective was dizzying." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But the protomolecule still wants to obey its program,\" Holden said. \"And we have no idea what that is.\"\n\n\"I can damn sure tell you it isn't wiping humans out. The things that shot Phoebe at us two billion years ago didn't know what the hell humans were. Whatever it wants to do needed biomass, and it's got that now.\"\n\nHolden couldn't stop himself from snorting at that." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So, what? They don't mean us any harm? Seriously? You think if we explain that we'd rather not have it land on Earth, then it will just agree and go somewhere else?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not it,\" Miller said. \"Her.\"\n\nNaomi looked up at Holden, shaking her head. She wasn't seeing anything organic wrong with Miller either.\n\n\"I've been working this case for, shit, almost a year,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I've climbed into her life, read her mail, met her friends. I know her. She's about as independent as a person can be, and she loves us.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Us?\" Holden asked.\n\n\"People. She loves humans. She gave up being the little rich girl and joined the OPA. She backed the Belt because it was the right thing to do. No way she kills us if she knows that's what's happening. I just need to find a way to explain. I can do this. Give me a chance.\"\n\nHolden ran a hand through his hair, grimacing at the accumulating grease. A day or two at high g was not conducive to regular showering." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Can't do it,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Stakes are too high. We're going ahead with the plan. I'm sorry.\"\n\n\"She'll beat you,\" Miller said.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Okay, maybe she won't. You've got a shitload of firepower. But the protomolecule's figured out how to get around inertia. And Julie? She's a fighter, Holden. If you take her on, my money's on her.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden had seen the video of Julie fighting off her attackers on board the stealth ship." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She'd been methodical and ruthless in her own defense. She'd fought without giving quarter. He'd seen the wildness in her eyes when she felt trapped and threatened. Only her attackers' combat armor had kept her from doing a lot more damage before they took her down." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up at the idea of Eros actually fighting." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So far it had been content to run from their clumsy attacks. What happened when it went to war?\n\n\"You could find her,\" Holden said, \"and use the bomb.\"\n\n\"If I can't get through to her,\" Miller said, \"that's my deal. I'll find her. I'll talk to her. If I can't get through, I'll take her out, and you can turn Eros into a cinder. I'm fine with that. But you have to give me time to try it my way first.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden looked at Naomi looking back at him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her face was pale. He wanted to see the answer in her expression, to know what he should do based on what she thought. He didn't. It was his call.\n\n\"Do you need more than twenty-seven hours?\" Holden finally asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He heard Miller exhale loudly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was gratitude in his voice that was, in its own way, worse than the pleading had been.\n\n\"I don't know. There are a couple thousand kilometers of tunnels down here, and none of the transit systems work. I have to walk everywhere pulling this damn wagon. Not to mention the fact that I don't really know what I'm even looking for. But give me a little time, I'll figure it.\"\n\n\"And you know that if this doesn't work, you'll have to kill her. Yourself and Julie?\"\n\n\"I know.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden had the Roci calculate how long it would take Eros to reach the Earth at the current rate of acceleration." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The missiles from Earth were covering the distance a lot faster than Eros was. The IPBMs were just overpowered Epstein drives with nuclear bombs riding up front. Their acceleration limits were the functional limits of the Epstein drive itself. If the missiles didn't arrive, it would still take nearly a week for Eros to get to Earth, even if it kept a constant rate of acceleration." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was some flexibility in there." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hold on, let me work something out here,\" Holden said to Miller, then muted the connection. \"Naomi, the missiles are flying in a straight line toward Eros, and the Roci thinks they'll intercept it in about twenty-seven hours, give or take. How much time do we buy if we turn that straight line into a curve? How much of a curve can we do and still give the missiles a chance to catch Eros before it gets too close?\"\n\nNaomi tipped her head to one side, looking at him suspiciously through narrowed eyes.\n\n\"What are you about to do?\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Maybe give Miller a chance to head off the first interspecies war.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You trust Miller?\" she said with surprising vehemence. \"You think he's insane. You threw him off the ship because you thought he was a psychopath and a killer, and now you're going to let him speak for humanity to an alien God-thing that wants to rip us to shreds?\"\n\nHolden had to suppress a smile. Telling an angry woman was how attractive her anger made her would make it stop being cute very quickly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And besides that, he needed it to make sense to her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That was how he'd know if he was right.\n\n\"You told me once that Miller was right, even when I thought he was wrong.\"\n\n\"I didn't make it a blanket statement,\" Naomi said, spacing her words out like she was speaking to an idiot child. \"I said he was right to shoot Dresden. That doesn't mean Miller's stable. He's in the process of committing suicide, Jim. He's fixated on this dead girl. I can't even begin to imagine what might be going through his head right now.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Agreed. But he's there, on the scene, and he's got a keen eye for observation and just plain figuring shit out. This guy tracked us to Eros based on the ship name we picked. That's pretty damned impressive. He'd never even met me, and he knew me well enough from researching me to know I'd like naming my ship after Don Quixote's horse.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Naomi laughed. \"Really? Is that where that comes from?\"\n\n\"So when he says that he knows Julie, I believe him.\"\n\nNaomi started to say something, then paused.\n\n\"You think she'll beat the nukes?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Naomi said, more softly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He thinks she can. And he thinks he can talk her into not killing us all. I have to give him that chance. I owe it to him.\"\n\n\"Even if it means killing Earth?\"\n\n\"No,\" Holden said. \"Not that much.\"\n\nNaomi paused again. Her anger faded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So delay the impact, not abort,\" Naomi said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Buy him some time. How much can we get?\"\n\nNaomi frowned, looking at the readouts. He could almost see the options clicking through her mind. She smiled, her fierceness gone now, replaced by the mischievous look she got when she knew she was being really clever." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"As much as you want.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You want to do what?\" Fred asked.\n\n\"Pull the nukes off course for a while to buy Miller some time, but not so much that we can't still use them to destroy Eros if we need to,\" Holden said.\n\n\"It's simple,\" Naomi added. \"I'm sending you detailed instructions.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Give me the overview,\" Fred said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Earth has targeted their missiles on the five freighter transponders on Eros,\" Naomi said, pulling her plan up as an overlay on the comm video. \"You have ships and stations all over the Belt. You use the transponder reconfiguring program you gave us way back when, and you keep shifting those transponder codes to ships or stations along these vectors to pull the missiles into a long arc that eventually wraps back around to Eros.\"\n\nFred shook his head.\n\n\"Won't work. The minute UNN Command sees we're doing it, they'll just tell the missiles to stop following those particular codes, and they'll try to figure out some other way to target Eros,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And they'll also be really pissed at us.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yeah, they're going to be pissed all right,\" Holden said. \"But they're not going to get their missiles back. Just before you start leading the missiles off course, we're going to launch a massive hacking attempt from multiple locations on the missiles.\"\n\n\"So they'll assume an enemy is trying to trick them, and shut down mid-flight reprogramming,\" Fred said.\n\n\"Yep,\" Holden replied. \"We'll tell them we're going to trick them so they stop listening, and once they're not listening, we'll trick them.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fred shook his head again, this time giving Holden the vaguely frightened look of a man who wanted to back slowly out of the room." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There is no way in hell I am going along with this,\" he said. \"Miller isn't going to work some magical deal with the aliens. We're going to wind up nuking Eros no matter what. Why delay the inevitable?\"\n\n\"Because,\" Holden said. \"I'm starting to think it might be less dangerous this way. If we use the missiles without taking out Eros' command center... brain... whatever, we don't know if it'll work, but I'm pretty sure our chances go down. Miller's the only one who can do that. And these are his terms.\"\n\nFred said something obscene." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If Miller doesn't manage to talk to it, he'll take it out. I do trust him for that,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Come on, Fred, you know these missile designs as well as I do. Better. They put enough fuel pellets in those drives to fly around the solar system twice. We aren't losing anything by giving Miller a little more time.\"\n\nFred shook his head a third time. Holden saw his face go hard. He wasn't going to buy it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Before he could say no, Holden said, \"Remember that box with the protomolecule samples, and all the lab notes? Want to know what my price is for it?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You,\" Fred said slowly, drawing it out, \"are out of your God damn mind.\"\n\n\"Want to buy it or what?\" Holden replied. \"You want the magic ticket to a seat at the table? You know my price now. Give Miller his chance, and the sample's yours.\"\n\n\"I'd be curious to know how you talked them into it,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I was thinking I was probably screwed.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Doesn't matter,\" Holden said. \"We bought you your time. Go find the girl and save humanity. We'll be waiting to hear back.\" And ready to nuke you into dust if we don't remained unsaid. There was no need." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I've been thinking about where to go, if I can talk to her,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had the already lost hopefulness of a man with a lottery ticket. \"I mean, she's got to park this thing somewhere.\"\n\nIf we live. If I can save her. If the miracle is true." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden shrugged, even though no one could see it." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Give her Venus,\" he said. \"It's an awful place.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Task: The user will write a bit then you need to write around 4 sentences continuing directly from the user's text.\n\nAuthor style: James S. A. Corey" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't and I don't,\" the voice of Eros muttered. Juliette Mao, talking in her sleep. \"I don't and I don't and I don't...\"\n\n\"Come on,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Come on, you sonofabitch. Be here.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The medical bays were lush and overgrown, black spirals with filaments of bronze and steel climbing the walls, encrusting the examination tables, feeding on the supplies of narcotics, steroids, and antibiotics spilling out of the broken supply cabinets. Miller dug through the clutter with one hand, his suit alarm chiming. His air had the sour taste that came from being through the recyclers too many times. His thumb, still mashed on the dead man's switch, tingled when it wasn't shooting with pain." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He brushed the almost fungal growth off a storage box that wasn't broken yet, found the latch." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Four medical gas cylinders: two red, one green, one blue. He looked at the seal. The protomolecule hadn't gotten them yet. Red for anesthetic. Blue nitrogen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He picked up the green." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The sterile shield on the delivery nipple was in place. He took a deep sighing breath of dying air. Another few hours. He put down his hand terminal (one... two...), popped the seal (three...), fed the nipple into his suit's intake (four...), and put a finger on the hand terminal. He stood, feeling the cool of the oxygen tank in his hand while his suit revised his life span." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Ten minutes, an hour, four hours." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The medical cylinder's pressure hit equality with the suit's, and he popped it off. Four more hours. He'd won himself four more hours.\n\nIt was the third time he'd managed an emergency resupply since he'd talked to Holden. The first had been at a fire-suppression station, the second at a backup recycling unit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If he went back down to the port, there would probably be some uncompromised oxygen in some of the supply closets and docked ships." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If he went all the way back to the surface, the OPA ships would have plenty.\n\nBut there wasn't time for that. He wasn't looking for air; he was looking for Juliette. He let himself stretch." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The kinks in his neck and back were threatening to turn into cramps." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The CO2 levels in the suit were still on the high side of acceptable, even with the new oxygen coming into the mix. The suit needed maintenance and a new filter. It'd have to wait. Behind him, the bomb in its cart kept its own counsel." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had to find her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Somewhere in the maze of corridors and rooms, the dead city, Juliette Mao was driving them back to Earth. He'd tracked four hot spots. Three had been decent candidates for his original plan of vast nuclear immolation: hubs of wire and black alien filament tangling into huge organic-looking nodes. The fourth had been a cheap lab reactor churning on its way to meltdown." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It had taken him fifteen minutes to get the emergency shutdown going, and he probably shouldn't have wasted the time." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But wherever he went, no Julie. Even the Julie of his imagination was gone, as if the ghost had no place now that he knew the real woman was still alive. He missed having her around, even if she'd only been a vision.\n\nA wave went through the medical bays, all the alien growth rising and falling like iron filings with a magnet passed beneath them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller's heart sped up, adrenaline leaking into his blood, but it didn't happen again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had to find her. He had to find her soon. He could feel exhaustion grinding at him, little teeth chewing at the back of his mind. He already wasn't thinking as clearly as he should." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Back on Ceres, he'd have gone back to his hole, slept for a day, and come back to the problem whole." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not an option here.\n\nFull circle. He'd come full circle. Once, in a different life, he'd taken on the task of finding her; then, when he'd failed, there'd been taking vengeance. And now he had the chance to find her again, to save her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And if he couldn't, he was still pulling a cheap, squeaky-wheeled wagon behind him that would do for revenge." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller shook his head. He was having too many moments like this, getting lost in his own thoughts. He took a fresh grip on the cart full of fusion bomb, leaned forward, and headed out. The station around him creaked the way he imagined an old sailing ship might have, timbers bent by waves of salt water and the great tidal tug-of-war between earth and moon." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Here, it was stone, and Miller couldn't guess what forces were acting on it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hopefully nothing that would interfere with the signal between his hand terminal and his cargo. He didn't want to be reduced to his component atoms unintentionally.\n\nIt was getting more and more clear that he couldn't cover the whole station. He'd known that from the start." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If Julie had gotten herself someplace obscure—hidden in some niche or hole like a dying cat—he wouldn't find her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He'd become a gambler, betting against all hope on drawing the inside straight. The voice of Eros shifted, different voices now, singing something in Hindi. A child's round, Eros harmonizing with itself in a growing richness of voices. Now that he knew to listen for it, he heard Julie's voice threading its way among the others." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Maybe it had always been there." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His frustration verged on physical pain. She was so close, but he couldn't quite reach her.\n\nHe pulled himself back into the main corridor complex. The hospital bays had been a good place to look for her too. Plausible. Fruitless." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He'd looked at the two mercantile bio-labs. Nothing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He'd tried the morgue, the police holding tanks. He'd even gone through the evidence room, bin after plastic bin of contraband drugs and confiscated weapons scattered on the floor like oak leaves in one of the grand parks. It had all meant something once. Each one had been part of a small human drama, waiting to be brought out into the light, part of a trial or at least a hearing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Some small practice for judgment day, postponed now forever." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All points were moot.\n\nSomething silver flew above him, faster than a bird, and then another, and then a flock, streaming by overhead. Light glittered off the living metal, bright as fish scales. Miller watched the alien molecule improvising in the space above him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "You can't stop here, Holden said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You have to stop running and get on the right road.\n\nMiller looked over his shoulder. The captain stood, real and not, where his inner Julie would have been.\n\nWell, that's interesting, Miller thought." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I know,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's just... I don't know where she went. And... well, look around. Big place, you know?\"\n\nYou can stop her or I will, his imaginary Holden said.\n\n\"If I just knew where she went,\" Miller said.\n\nShe didn't, Holden said. She never went." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miller turned to look at him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The swarm of silver roiled overhead, chittering like insects or a badly tuned drive. The captain looked tired. Miller's imagination had put a surprising swath of blood at the corner of the man's mouth. And then it wasn't Holden anymore; it was Havelock." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The other Earther. His old partner." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And then it was Muss, her eyes as dead as his own.\n\nJulie didn't go anyplace. Miller had seen her in the hotel room, back when he still hadn't believed that anything but a bad smell could rise from the grave. Back before. She'd been taken away in a body bag." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And then taken somewhere else." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Protogen scientists had recovered her, harvested the protomolecule, and spread Julie's remade flesh through the station like bees pollinating a field of wildflowers. They'd given her the station, but before they'd done it, they'd put her someplace they thought they would be safe.\n\nSafe room. Until they were ready to distribute the thing, they'd want to contain it. To pretend it could be contained." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It wasn't likely they'd have gone to the trouble of cleaning up after they'd gotten what they needed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It wasn't as if anyone else was going to be around to use the space, so chances were good she was still there. That narrowed things.\n\nThere would be isolation wards in the hospital, but Protogen wouldn't have been likely to use facilities where non-Protogen doctors and nurses might wonder what was happening. Unnecessary risk.\n\nAll right.\n\nThey could have set up in one of the manufacturing plants down by the port." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There were plenty of places there that required all-waldo work." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But again, it would have been at the risk of being discovered or questioned before the trap was ready to spring.\n\nIt's a drug house, Muss said in his mind. You want privacy, you want control. Extracting the bug from the dead girl and extracting the good shit from the poppy seeds might have different chemistry, but it's still crime." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Good point,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And near the casino level... No, that's not right. The casino was the second stage. The first was the radiation scare. They put a bunch of people in the radiation shelters and cooked them to get the protomolecule good and happy, then they infected the casino level.\"\n\nSo where would you put a drug kitchen that was close to the rad shelters? Muss asked.\n\nThe roiling silver stream overhead veered left and then right, pouring through the air. Tiny curls of metal began to rain down, drawing thin trails of smoke behind them as they did." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If I had the access? The backup environment controls. It's an emergency facility. No foot traffic unless someone's running inventory. It's got all the equipment for isolation built in already. Wouldn't be hard.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And since Protogen ran Eros security even before they put the disposable thugs in place, they'd be able to arrange it, Muss said, and she smiled joylessly. See? I knew you could think that through.\n\nFor less than a second, Muss was gone and Julie Mao—his Julie—was in her place. She was smiling and beautiful." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Radiant. Her hair floated around her as if she were swimming in zero g. And then she was gone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His suit alarm warned him about an increasingly corrosive environment.\n\n\"Hang tight,\" he said to the burning air. \"I'll be right there.\"\n\nIt was just less than thirty-three hours from the moment he'd realized that Juliette Andromeda Mao wasn't dead to the one when he cycled down the emergency seals and pulled his cart into Eros' backup environmental control facility." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The clean, simple lines and error-reducing design of the place still showed under the outgrowth of the protomolecule." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Barely. Knots of dark filament and nautilus spirals softened the corners of wall and floor and ceiling. Loops hung from the ceiling like Spanish moss. The familiar LED lights still shone under the soft growth, but more illumination came from the swarm of faint blue dots glowing in the air. His first step onto the floor sank him into a thick carpet up the ankle; the bomb cart would have to stay outside." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His suit reported a wild mix of exotic gases and aromatic molecules, but all he smelled was himself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All the interior rooms had been remade. Transformed. He walked through the wastewater treatment control areas like a scuba diver in a grotto. The blue lights swirled around him as he passed, a few dozen adhering to his suit and glittering there. He almost didn't brush them off the helmet's faceplate, thinking they would smear like dead fireflies, but they only swirled back up into the air." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The air recycling monitors still danced and glowed, the thousand alarms and incident reports silhouetting the latticework of protomolecule that covered the screens." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Water was flowing somewhere close by.\n\nShe was in a hazmat analysis node, lying on a bed of the dark thread that spilled out from her spine until it was indistinguishable from a massive fairy-tale cushion of her own flowing hair. Tiny points of blue light glittered on her face, her arms, her breasts. The bone spurs that had been pressing out of her skin had grown into sweeping, almost architectural connections with the lushness around her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her legs were gone, lost in the tangle of dark alien webs; she reminded Miller of a mermaid who had traded her fins for a space station." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her eyes were closed, but he could see them shifting and dancing under the lids. And she was breathing.\n\nMiller stood beside her. She didn't have quite the same face as his imagined Julie." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The real woman was wider through the jaw, and her nose wasn't as straight as he remembered it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He didn't notice that he was weeping until he tried to wipe the tears away, batting his helmet with a gloved hand. He had to make do with blinking hard until his sight cleared.\n\nAll this time. All this way. And here was what he'd come for." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Julie,\" he said, putting his free hand on her shoulder." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hey. Julie. Wake up. I need you to wake up now.\"\n\nHe had his suit's medical supplies. If he needed to, he could dose her with adrenaline or amphetamines. Instead, he rocked her gently, like he had Candace on a sleepy Sunday morning, back when she'd still been his wife, back in some distant, near-forgotten lifetime." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Julie frowned, opened her mouth, closed it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Julie. You need to wake up now.\"\n\nShe moaned and lifted an ineffectual arm to push him away.\n\n\"Come back to me,\" he said. \"You need to come back now.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her eyes opened. They weren't human anymore—the sclera etched with swirls of red and black, the iris the same luminous blue as the fireflies." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not human, but still Julie. Her lips moved soundlessly. And then:\n\n\"Where am I?\"\n\n\"Eros Station,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The place isn't what it used to be. Not even where it used to be, but...\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He pressed the bed of filament with his hand, judging it, and then rested his hip at her side like he was sitting on her bed. His body felt achingly tired and also lighter than it should. Not like low gravity. The unreal buoyancy had nothing to do with the weary flesh." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Julie tried to talk again, struggled, stopped, tried again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Who are you?\"\n\n\"Yeah, we haven't officially met, have we? My name's Miller. I used to be a detective for Star Helix Security back on Ceres. Your parents contracted with us, only it was really more a friends-in-high-places thing. I was supposed to track you down, grab you, ship you back down the well.\"\n\n\"Kidnap job?\" she said. Her voice was stronger." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her gaze seemed more focused." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Pretty standard,\" Miller said, then sighed. \"I kind of cocked it up, though.\"\n\nHer eyes fluttered closed, but she kept talking.\n\n\"Something happened to me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yeah. It did.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm scared.\"\n\n\"No, no, no. Don't be scared. It's all right. In an ass-backward kind of way, but it's all right. Look, right now the whole station is heading back for Earth. Really fast.\"\n\n\"I dreamed I was racing. I was going home.\"\n\n\"Yeah, we need to stop that.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her eyes opened again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She looked lost, anguished, alone. A tear streaked down from the corner of her eye, glowing blue.\n\n\"Give me your hand,\" Miller said. \"No, really, I need you to hold something for me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She lifted her hand slowly, seaweed in a soft current." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He took his hand terminal, settled it in her palm, pressed her thumb to the dead man's switch.\n\n\"Just hold that there. Don't let it up.\"\n\n\"What is it?\" she asked.\n\n\"Long story, just don't let up.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "His suit alarms shrieked at him when he undid his helmet seals." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He turned them off. The air was strange: acetate and cumin and a deep, powerful musk that made him think of hibernating animals. Julie watched him as he stripped off his gloves. Right then, the protomolecule was latching on to him, burrowing into his skin and eyes, getting ready to do to him what it had done to everyone on Eros." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He didn't care. He took the hand terminal back and then laced his fingers through hers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're driving this bus, Julie,\" he said. \"Do you know that? I mean, can you tell?\"\n\nHer fingers were cool in his, but not cold.\n\n\"I can feel... something,\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm hungry? Not hungry, but... I want something. I want to go back to Earth.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We can't do that. I need you to change course,\" Miller replied. What had Holden said? Give her Venus. \"Head for Venus instead.\"\n\n\"That's not what it wants,\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's what we've got on offer,\" Miller said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then, a moment later: \"We can't go home. We need to go to Venus.\"\n\nShe was quiet for a long moment.\n\n\"You're a fighter, Julie. You've never let anyone call your shots for you. Don't start now. If we go to Earth—\"\n\n\"It'll eat them too. The same way it ate me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yeah.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She looked up at him.\n\n\"Yeah,\" he said again. \"Like that.\"\n\n\"What happens on Venus?\"\n\n\"We die maybe. I don't know. But we don't take a lot of people with us, and we make sure no one gets a hold of this crap,\" he said, gesturing at the grotto around them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And if we don't die, then... well, that'll be interesting.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't think I can.\"\n\n\"You can. The thing that's doing all this? You're smarter than it is. You're in control. Take us to Venus.\"\n\nThe fireflies swirled around them, the blue light pulsing slightly: bright and dim, bright and dim. Miller saw it in her face when she made the decision." }, { "from": "human", "value": "All around them, the lights went bright, the grotto flooding in soft blue, and then dimmed back to where they had been before." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller felt something catch at the back of his neck like the first warning of a sore throat. He wondered if he'd have time to deactivate the bomb. And then he looked at Julie. Juliette Andromeda Mao. OPA pilot." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Heir to the Mao-Kwikowski corporate throne." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The seed crystal of a future beyond anything he'd ever dreamed. He'd have plenty of time.\n\n\"I'm afraid,\" she said.\n\n\"Don't be,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't know what's going to happen,\" she said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No one ever does. And, look, you don't have to do this alone,\" he said.\n\n\"I can feel something in the back of my mind. It wants something I don't understand. It's so big.\"\n\nReflexively, he kissed the back of her hand. There was an ache starting deep in his belly." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Task: The user will write a bit then you need to write around 4 sentences continuing directly from the user's text.\n\nAuthor style: James S. A. Corey" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden dreamed.\n\nHe'd been a lucid dreamer most of his life, so when he found himself sitting in his parents' kitchen in the old house in Montana, talking to Naomi, he knew. He couldn't quite understand what she was saying, but she kept pushing her hair out of her eyes as she munched cookies and drank tea. And while he found that he wasn't ever able to pick a cookie up and take a bite out of it, he could smell them, and the memory of Mother Elise's chocolate chip oatmeal cookies was a very good one." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was a good dream." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The kitchen strobed red once, and something changed. Holden felt the wrongness of it, felt the dream slipping from warm memory into nightmare. He tried to say something to Naomi but couldn't form the words. The room strobed red again, but she didn't seem to notice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He got up and went to the kitchen window and looked out." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When the room strobed a third time, he saw what was causing it. Meteors were falling out of the sky, leaving behind them fiery trails the color of blood. He somehow knew they were chunks of Eros as it crashed through the atmosphere. Miller had failed. The nuclear attack had failed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Julie had come home." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He turned around to tell Naomi to run, but black tendrils had burst through the floor and wrapped her up, pierced her body in multiple places. They poured from her mouth and eyes.\n\nHolden tried to run to her, to help her, but he couldn't move, and when he looked down, he saw that the tendrils had come up and grabbed him too. One wrapped around his waist and held him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Another pressed into his mouth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He woke with a yell in a dark room that was strobing with red light. Something was holding him around the waist. In a panic he began clawing at it, threatening to tear a fingernail loose on his left hand, before his rational mind reminded him where he was. On the ops deck, in his chair, belted down in zero g." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He popped his finger into his mouth, trying to soothe the abused fingertip he'd damaged on one of the chair buckles, and took a few deep breaths through his nose." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The deck was empty. Naomi was asleep down in her cabin. Alex and Amos were off duty and presumably sleeping too. They'd spent almost two days without rest during the high-g chase of Eros." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden had ordered everyone to get some shut-eye and had volunteered to take first watch." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And then had promptly fallen asleep. Not good.\n\nThe room flashed red again. Holden shook his head to clear the last of the sleep away, and refocused his attention on his console. A red warning light pulsed, and he tapped the screen to open up the menu." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was his threat panel." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Someone was hitting them with a targeting laser.\n\nHe opened up the threat display and turned on the active sensors. The only ship within millions of kilometers was the Ravi, and it was the ship that was targeting them. According to the automatic logs, it had just started a few seconds earlier." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He reached out to activate the comm and call the Ravi as his incoming-message light flickered on." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He opened the connection, and a second later, McBride's voice said, \"Rocinante, cease maneuvering, open your outer airlock door, and prepare to be boarded.\"\n\nHolden frowned at his console. Was that a weird joke?\n\n\"McBride, this is Holden. Uh, what?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her reply was in a clipped tone that was not encouraging." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Holden, open your outer airlock and prepare for boarding. If I see a single defensive system wake up, I will fire on your ship. Is that understood?\"\n\n\"No,\" he said, not quite able to keep the annoyance out of his voice. \"It's not understood. And I'm not going to let you board me. What the hell is going on?\"\n\n\"I've been ordered by UNN Command to take control of your vessel. You're charged with interfering with UNN military operations, unlawfully commandeering UNN military assets, and a list of other crimes I'm not going to bother reading right now. If you do not surrender immediately, we will be forced to fire on you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh,\" said Holden. The UNN had discovered that their missiles were changing course, had attempted to reprogram them, and had discovered that the missiles weren't listening." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were upset.\n\n\"McBride,\" Holden said after a moment. \"Boarding us won't do any good. We can't give you those missiles back. And it's unnecessary, anyway. They're just taking a little detour.\"\n\nMcBride's laugh sounded more like the sharp bark of an angry dog just before it bit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Detour?\" she said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You handed three thousand five hundred and seventy-three high-yield thermonuclear interplanetary ballistic missiles over to a traitor and accused war criminal!\"\n\nIt took Holden a minute.\n\n\"You mean Fred? I think traitor is a bit harsh—\"\n\nMcBride cut in." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Deactivate the false transponders leading our missiles away from Eros, and reactivate the transponders on the surface, or we will fire on your ship. You have ten minutes to comply.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The connection dropped with a click. Holden looked at the console with something between disbelief and outrage, then shrugged and hit the battle stations alarm. Deck lights came on all over the ship in an angry red. The warning Klaxon sounded three times." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In less than two minutes, Alex rushed up the ladder to the cockpit, and half a minute behind him, Naomi threw herself into her ops station." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alex spoke first.\n\n\"The Ravi is four hundred kilometers away,\" he said. \"Ladar says her tube is open, and she's got us locked.\"\n\nClearly enunciating his words, Holden said, \"Do not—I repeat, do not—open our tubes or attempt to get a target lock on the Ravi at this time. Just keep a close eye on her, and prepare to go defensive if she looks like she's firing. Let's not do anything to provoke her.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Shall I begin jamming?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Naomi said from behind him.\n\n\"No, that would look aggressive. But prep a countermeasures package and have your finger on the ready button,\" Holden said. \"Amos, you in engineering?\"\n\n\"Roger that, Cap. Ready to go down here.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Bring the reactor up to one hundred percent and pull control of the point defense cannons to your console down there. If they shoot at us at this range, Alex won't have time to fly and shoot back. You see a red dot on the threat console, you open up with the PDCs immediately. Copy?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Roger that,\" Amos said.\n\nHolden blew a long breath through his teeth, then opened the channel to the Ravi again.\n\n\"McBride, this is Holden. We are not surrendering, we are not going to let you board us, and we aren't going to comply with your demands. Where do we go from here?\"\n\n\"Holden,\" McBride said. \"Your reactor is coming up. Are you getting ready to fight with us?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No, just getting ready to try and survive. Why, are we fighting?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Another short harsh laugh.\n\n\"Holden,\" McBride said. \"Why do I get the feeling you aren't taking this seriously?\"\n\n\"Oh, I absolutely am,\" Holden replied. \"I don't want you to kill me, and believe it or not, I have no desire to kill you. The nukes are on a little detour, but this isn't something we need to go down in flames over. I can't give you what you want, and I'm not interested in spending the next thirty years in a military prison. You gain nothing by shooting us, and I will fight back if it comes to that.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "McBride cut the channel." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Captain,\" Alex said. \"The Ravi is startin' to maneuver. She's spraying clutter. I think she's gettin' ready to make an attack run.\"\n\nShit. Holden had been so sure he could talk her out of it.\n\n\"Okay, go defensive. Naomi, start your countermeasures. Amos? Got your finger on that button?\"\n\n\"Ready,\" Amos replied." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't hit it until you see a missile launch. Don't want to force their hand.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sudden crushing g's hit Holden, stuffing him into his chair. Alex had started maneuvering.\n\n\"At this distance, maybe I can out-turn her. Keep her from bein' able to take a shot,\" the pilot said.\n\n\"Do it, and open the tubes.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Roger,\" Alex said, his professional pilot's calm not quite able to keep the excitement about a possible battle out of his voice." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I've broken the targeting lock,\" Naomi said. \"Their laser array is not nearly as good as the Roci's. I'm just drowning it in clutter.\"\n\n\"Hooray for bloated Martian defense budgets,\" Holden replied.\n\nThe ship jerked suddenly through a series of wild maneuvers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Damn,\" Alex said, his voice strained by the g-force of the sharp turns." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The Ravi just opened up on us with her PDCs.\"\n\nHolden checked his threat display and saw the long glowing pearl strands of incoming rounds displayed there. The shots were falling well behind them. The Roci reported the distance between the ships as 370 kilometers—pretty long range for computer targeting systems to hit a wildly maneuvering ship with a ballistic shot from another wildly maneuvering ship." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Return fire?\" Amos yelled into the comm." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No!\" Holden yelled back. \"If she wanted us dead, she'd be throwing torpedoes. Don't give her a reason to want us dead.\"\n\n\"Cap, we're out-turnin' her,\" Alex said. \"The Roci's just too fast. We'll have a firing solution in less than a minute.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Roger,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do I take the shot?\" Alex asked, his silly Martian cowboy accent fading as his tension rose.\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Their targeting laser just shut off,\" Naomi said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Which means they've given up trying to cut our jamming,\" Holden replied, \"and have just switched their missiles over to radar tracking.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not as accurate,\" Naomi said hopefully.\n\n\"A corvette like that carries at least a dozen fish. They only need to hit us with one to make us dead. And at this range...\"\n\nA gentle sound came from his threat console, letting him know that the Roci had calculated a firing solution to the Ravi.\n\n\"I've got tone!\" Alex yelled. \"Fire?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No!\" Holden said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He knew that inside the Ravi, they were getting the loud warning buzz of an enemy lock. Stop, Holden willed them. Please don't make me kill you.\n\n\"Uh,\" Alex said in a low voice. \"Huh.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Behind Holden, at almost the same moment, Naomi said, \"Jim?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Before he could ask, Alex came back on the general comm.\n\n\"Hey, Captain, Eros just came back.\"\n\n\"What?\" Holden said, a brief image of the asteroid sneaking up like a cartoon villain on the two circling warships popping into his head.\n\n\"Yeah,\" Alex said. \"Eros. It just popped back up on radar. Whatever it was doing to block our sensors, it just stopped doing it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What's it doing?\" Holden said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Get me a course.\"\n\nNaomi pulled the tracking information to her console and began working on it, but Alex was done a few seconds sooner.\n\n\"Yeah,\" he said. \"Good guess. It's changing course. Still heading sunward, but deflecting away from the Earth vector it was on.\"\n\n\"If it keeps this course and speed,\" Naomi chimed in, \"I'd say it was heading toward Venus.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Wow,\" said Holden. \"That was a joke.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Good joke,\" Naomi said.\n\n\"Well, someone tell McBride she doesn't need to shoot us now.\"\n\n\"Hey,\" Alex said, his voice thoughtful. \"If we made those nukes stop listening, that means we can't shut 'em down, right? Wonder where Fred's going to drop those.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hell if I know,\" Amos said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Just disarmed Earth, though. That's gotta be fucking embarrassing.\"\n\n\"Unintended consequences,\" Naomi sighed. \"Always with the unintended consequences.\"\n\nEros crashing into Venus was the most widely broadcast and recorded event in history." }, { "from": "human", "value": "By the time the asteroid reached the sun's second planet, several hundred ships had taken up orbits there." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Military vessels tried to keep the civilian ships away, but it was no use. They were just outnumbered. The video of Eros' descent was captured by military gun cameras, civilian ship telescopes, and the observatories on two planets and five moons.\n\nHolden wished he could have been there to see it up close, but Eros had picked up speed after it had turned, almost as though the asteroid were impatient for the journey to end now that the destination was in sight." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He and the crew sat in the galley of the Rocinante and watched it on the broadcast newsfeeds." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amos had dug up yet another bottle of faux tequila from somewhere and was liberally splashing it into coffee cups. Alex had them flying toward Tycho at a gentle one-third g. No need to hurry now.\n\nIt was all over but the fireworks.\n\nHolden reached out, took Naomi's hand, and held it tightly as the asteroid entered Venus orbit and then seemed to stop." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He felt like he could feel the entire human race holding their breath." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No one knew what Eros—no, what Julie—would do now. No one had spoken to Miller after the last time Holden had, and he wasn't answering his hand terminal. No one knew for sure what had happened on the asteroid.\n\nWhen the end came, it was beautiful." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In orbit around Venus, Eros came apart like a puzzle box." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The giant asteroid split into a dozen chunks, stringing out around the equator of the planet in a long necklace. Then those dozen pieces split into a dozen more, and then a dozen after that, a glittering fractal seed cloud spreading out across the entire surface of the planet, disappearing into the thick cloud layer that usually hid Venus from view.\n\n\"Wow,\" Amos said, his voice almost reverent.\n\n\"That was gorgeous,\" Naomi said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Vaguely unsettling, but gorgeous.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They won't stay there forever,\" Holden said.\n\nAlex tossed off the last of the tequila in his glass, then refilled it from the bottle.\n\n\"What d'ya mean, Cap?\" he asked.\n\n\"Well, I'm just guessing. But I doubt the things that built the protomolecule just wanted to store it here. This was part of a bigger plan. We saved the Earth, Mars, the Belt. Question is, what happens now?\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Today you will be acting as a writing assistant, your partner will send something and you will write the next four sentences." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Frederick Lucius Johnson. Former colonel in Earth's armed forces, Butcher of Anderson Station. Thoth Station now too. Unelected prime minister of the OPA. He had faced his own mortality a dozen times, lost friends to violence and politics and betrayal." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He'd lived through four assassination attempts, only two of which were on any record." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He'd killed a pistol-wielding attacker using only a table knife. He'd given the orders that had ended hundreds of lives, and stood by his decisions.\n\nAnd yet public speaking still made him nervous as hell. It didn't make sense, but there it was." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Ladies and gentlemen, we stand at a crossroads—" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"General Sebastian will be at the reception,\" his personal secretary said. \"Remember not to ask after her husband.\"\n\n\"Why? I didn't kill him, did I?\"\n\n\"No, sir. He's having a very public affair, and the general's a bit touchy about it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So she might want me to kill him.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You can make the offer, sir.\"\n\nThe \"greenroom\" was actually done in red and ochre, with a black leather couch, a mirrored wall, and a table laid out with hydroponic strawberries and carefully mineralized drinking water. The head of Ceres security, a dour-faced woman named Shaddid, had escorted him from the dock to the conference facilities three hours earlier. Since then, he'd been pacing—three steps in one direction, turn, three steps back—like the captain of an ancient ship of the line on his quarterdeck." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Elsewhere in the station, the representatives of the formerly warring factions were in rooms of their own, with secretaries of their own." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Most of them hated Fred, which wasn't particularly a problem. Most of them feared him too. Not because of his standing in the OPA, of course. Because of the protomolecule." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The political rift between Earth and Mars was probably irreparable; the Earth forces loyal to Protogen had engineered a betrayal too deep for apologies, and too many lives had been lost on both sides for the coming peace to look anything like it had been before." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The naive among the OPA thought this was a good thing: an opportunity to play one planet against the other. Fred knew better. Unless all three forces—Earth, Mars, and the Belt—could reach a real peace, they would inevitably fall back into a real war.\n\nNow if only Earth or Mars thought of the Belt as something more than an annoyance to be squashed after their true enemy was humiliated... But in truth, anti-Mars sentiment on Earth was higher now than it had been during the shooting war, and Martian elections were only four months away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A significant shift in the Martian polity could ease the tensions or make things immeasurably worse." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Both sides had to see the big picture.\n\nFred stopped before a mirror, adjusted his tunic for the hundredth time, and grimaced.\n\n\"When did I turn into a damned marriage counselor?\" he said.\n\n\"We aren't still talking about General Sebastian, are we, sir?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No. Forget I said anything. What else do I need to know?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There's a possibility that Blue Mars will try to disrupt your presentation. Hecklers and signs, not guns. Captain Shaddid has several Blues in custody, but some may have slipped past her.\"\n\n\"All right.\"\n\n\"You have interviews scheduled with two political narrowcasts and a news source based on Europa. The Europa interviewer is likely to ask about Anderson Station.\"\n\n\"All right. Anything new from Venus?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Something's happening down there,\" his secretary said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's not dead, then.\"\n\n\"Apparently not, sir.\"\n\n\"Great,\" he said bitterly.\n\nLadies and gentlemen, we stand at a crossroads." }, { "from": "human", "value": "On one hand there is the very real threat of mutual annihilation, and on the other—" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And on the other, there's the bogeyman of Venus, getting ready to crawl up out of its well and slaughter you all in your sleep. I have the live sample, which is your best, if not only, hope of divining what its intentions and capabilities are, and which I have hidden so that you can't just march over and take it from me. It's the only reason any of you are listening to me in the first place. So how about a little respect here?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "His secretary's terminal chirped, and she consulted it briefly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's Captain Holden, sir.\"\n\n\"Do I have to?\"\n\n\"It would be best if he felt he was part of the effort, sir. He has a track record of amateur press releases.\"\n\n\"Fine. Bring him in.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The weeks that had passed since Eros Station had come apart in the thick skies of Venus had been good to Holden, but prolonged high-g dives like the one the Rocinante had sustained chasing Eros had long-lasting effects." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The burst blood vessels in the man's sclera had healed; the pressure bruising was gone from around his eyes and the back of his neck. Only a little hesitation in the way he walked spoke of the deep joint pain, cartilage still on its way back to its natural form. Acceleration swagger, they'd called it, back when Fred had been a different man.\n\n\"Hey,\" Holden said. \"You're looking pretty. Did you see the latest feed from Venus? Two-kilometer-high crystal towers. What do you think that is?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Your fault?\" Fred suggested, keeping the tone friendly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You could have told Miller to drive it into the sun.\"\n\n\"Yes, because two-kilometer-high crystal towers coming out of the sun wouldn't be creepy at all,\" Holden said. \"Are those strawberries?\"\n\n\"Have some,\" Fred said. He hadn't been able to eat anything since that morning." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So,\" Holden said around a mouthful of fruit, \"are they really going to sue me over this?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Unilaterally giving away all mineral and development rights to an entire planet on an open radio channel?\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" Holden said.\n\n\"I would guess the people who actually owned those rights are probably going to sue you,\" Fred said. \"If they ever figure out who they are.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Could you give me a hand with that?\" Holden asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll be a character witness,\" Fred said. \"I don't actually make the law.\"\n\n\"Then what exactly are you all doing here? Couldn't there be some kind of amnesty? We retrieved the protomolecule, tracked down Julie Mao on Eros, broke Protogen, and saved Earth.\"\n\n\"You saved Earth?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We helped,\" Holden said, but his voice had a more somber tone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miller's death still bothered the captain. Fred knew how that felt. \"It was a joint effort.\"\n\nFred's personal secretary cleared her throat and glanced toward the door." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They'd need to go soon." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll do what I can,\" Fred said. \"I've got a lot of other things on the plate, but I'll do what I can.\"\n\n\"And Mars can't have the Roci back,\" Holden said. \"Right of salvage says that's my ship now.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They aren't going to see it that way, but I will do what I can.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You keep saying that.\"\n\n\"It keeps being all I can do.\"\n\n\"And you'll tell them about him, right?\" Holden said. \"Miller. He deserves the credit.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The Belter who went back into Eros of his own free will in order to save Earth? You're damn right I'm going to tell them about him.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not 'the Belter.' Him. Josephus Aloisus Miller.\"\n\nHolden had stopped eating the free strawberries. Fred crossed his arms.\n\n\"You've been reading up,\" Fred said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yeah. Well. I didn't know him all that well.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Neither did anybody else,\" Fred said, and then softened a little. \"I know it's hard, but we don't need a real man with a complex life. We need a symbol of the Belt. An icon.\"\n\n\"Sir,\" the secretary said. \"We really do need to go now.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's what got us here,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Icons. Symbols. People without names. All of those Protogen scientists were thinking about biomass and populations. Not Mary who worked in supply and raised flowers in her spare time. None of them killed her.\"\n\n\"You think they wouldn't have?\"\n\n\"I think if they were going to, they owed it to her to know her name. All their names. And you owe it to Miller not to make him into something he wasn't.\"\n\nFred laughed. He couldn't help it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Captain,\" he said, \"if you're saying that I should amend my address to the peace conference so that it wasn't a noble Belter sacrificing himself to save the Earth—if you're suggesting that I say something like 'We happened to have a suicidal ex-cop on-site' instead—you understand this process less than I thought you did. Miller's sacrifice is a tool, and I'm going to use it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Even if it makes him faceless,\" Holden said. \"Even if it makes him something he never was?\"\n\n\"Especially if it makes him something he never was,\" Fred said. \"Do you remember what he was like?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden frowned and then something flickered in his eyes. Amusement. Memory." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He was kind of a pain in the ass, wasn't he?\" Holden said.\n\n\"That man could take a visitation from God with thirty underdressed angels announcing that sex was okay after all and make it seem vaguely depressing.\"\n\n\"He was a good man,\" Holden said.\n\n\"He wasn't,\" Fred said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But he did his job. And now I've got to go do mine.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Give 'em hell,\" Holden said. \"And amnesty. Keep talking up the amnesty.\"\n\nFred walked down the curving hallway, his secretary close behind him. The conference halls had been designed for smaller things." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Petty ones. Hydroponics scientists getting away from their husbands and wives and children to get drunk and talk about raising bean sprouts." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miners coming together to lecture each other about waste minimization and tailings disposal. High school band competitions. And instead, these work carpets and brushed-stone walls were going to have to bear the fulcrum of history. It was Holden's fault that the shabby, small surroundings reminded him of the dead detective. They hadn't before." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The delegations were seated across the aisle from each other." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The generals and political appointees and general secretaries of Earth and Mars, the two great powers together at his invitation to Ceres, to the Belt. Territory made neutral because neither side took it seriously enough to be concerned about their demands.\n\nAll of history had brought them here, to this moment, and now, in the next few minutes, Fred's job was to change that trajectory. The fear was gone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Smiling, he stepped up to the speaker's dais, the podium." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The pulpit.\n\nThere was a scattering of polite applause. A few smiles, and a few frowns. Fred grinned. He wasn't a man anymore." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was a symbol, an icon." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A narrative about himself and about the forces at play in the solar system.\n\nAnd for a moment, he was tempted. In that hesitation between drawing breath and speaking, part of him wondered what would happen if he shed the patterns of history and spoke about himself as a man, about the Joe Miller who he'd known briefly, about the responsibility they all shared to tear down the images they held of one another and find the genuine, flawed, conflicted people they actually were.\n\nIt would have been a noble way to fail." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Expand the story by adding four sentences." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The twin shipyards of Callisto stood side by side on the hemisphere of the moon that faced permanently away from Jupiter. The sun was only the brightest star in the endless night, the wide smear of the Milky Way brighter by far. All along the ridges of the craters, harsh white work lights glared down onto buildings, loaders, scaffolds. The ribs of half-built ships arced up over the regolith of stone dust and ice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Two shipyards, one civilian and one military, one Earth-based and one owned by Mars." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Both protected by the same anti-meteor rail-gun defenses, both dedicated to building and repairing the vessels that would take humanity out to the new worlds beyond the rings when and if the fight on Ilus got worked out.\n\nBoth in a lot more trouble than they guessed.\n\nFilip slid forward, the rest of his team close behind him. The suit LEDs had been gouged out, the ceramic plating scoured until nothing was smooth enough to cast a reflection." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Even the heads-up display was dimmed almost to the point of invisibility." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The voices in Filip's ears—ship traffic, security feeds, civilian chatter—were picked up on passive. He listened while transmitting nothing in return. The targeting laser strapped to his back was powered down. He and his team were shadows among shadows." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The faint countdown timer in the left of his visual field passed the fifteen-minute mark." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Filip patted air barely thicker than vacuum with an open palm, the Belters' physical idiom to move forward slowly. Around him, his team followed.\n\nHigh in the void above them, too distant to see, the Martian naval vessels guarding the shipyard spoke in clipped, professional tones. As thinly as their fleet had been stretched, they had only two ships in orbit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Probably only two. It was possible that there were others hidden in the black, hugging their own waste heat and shielded from radar. Possible but unlikely." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And life, as Filip's father said, was risky work.\n\nFourteen minutes, thirty seconds. Two secondary timers appeared beside it, one with a forty-five second counter, the other with two minutes.\n\n\"Transport ship Frank Aiken, you are cleared to approach.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Message received, Carson Lei,\" Cyn's familiar growl came." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Filip could hear the old Belter's smile in the words. \"Coyos sabe best ai sus bebe come we low?\"\n\nSomewhere up there, the Frank Aiken was painting the Martian ships with innocuous ranging lasers set at the same frequency as the one strapped to Filip's own back. When the Martian comm officer spoke, there was nothing in his voice that showed fear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't copy you, Frank Aiken. Please repeat.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sorry, sorry.\" Cyn laughed. \"You fine upstanding gentlefolk know any good bars a poor Belter crew could get a drink once we get to the surface?\"\n\n\"Can't help you, Frank Aiken,\" the Martian said. \"Maintain course.\"\n\n\"Sabez sa. Solid as a stone, straight as a bullet, us.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Filip's crew topped the crater ridge, looking down at the no-man's-land of the Martian military yard; it was just as he had expected it to be." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He picked out the warehouses and supply depots. He pulled off the targeting laser, set the base into the dirty ice, and powered it up. The others, spread along the line wide enough that none of the guards would be out of all their sight lines, did the same. The lasers were old, the tracking platforms strapped to them salvaged from a dozen different sources." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Before the tiny red LED on its base turned green, the first of his two secondary timers reached zero." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The security alert tritone sounded on the civilian channel, followed by a woman's anxious voice.\n\n\"We've got a runaway loading mech on the field. It's... ah, shit. It's heading for the meteor array.\"\n\nThe panic and alarm cascaded in his ears as Filip moved his team along the rim of the crater. Thin puffs of dust rose around them and didn't fall, widening instead like a mist." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The loader mech, failing to respond to overrides, trundled across the no-man's-land and into the wide eyes of the meteor defense cannons, blinding them, if only for a few minutes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Four Martian marines emerged from their bunker, as protocol demanded. Their powered armor let them slide over the surface like they were skating on ice. Any one of them could kill his whole team and suffer nothing worse than a moment's pity. Filip hated them all and each one individually on principle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The repair crews were already scrambling for the damaged array." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The whole thing would be back in order within the hour.\n\nTwelve minutes, forty-five seconds.\n\nFilip paused, looking back at his team. Ten volunteer soldiers, the best the Belt had to offer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Apart from himself, none of them knew why the mission to raid the Martian supply depot was important or what it was leading to." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All of them ready to die if he told them to, because of who he was. Because of who his father was. Filip felt it in his belly and in his throat. Not fear, pride. It was pride." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Twelve minutes, thirty-five seconds. Thirty-four. Thirty-three." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The lasers they'd placed came to life, painting the four marines, the bunker with the backup team, the perimeter fences, the workshops, and the barracks. The Martians turned, their armor so sensitive that even the gentle caress of invisible beams of light was noticed. As they moved they lifted their weapons. Filip saw one recognize the team, gun shifting away from the lasers and toward them. Toward him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He caught his breath." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Eighteen days before, a ship—Filip didn't even know which one—out in the Jovian system somewhere had made a hard burn, topping out at ten, maybe fifteen gs. At the nanosecond specified by the computers, the ship had released a few dozen lengths of tungsten with four disposable, short-burn rockets at the center of mass and cheap single-frequency sensors tied to them. They were barely complicated enough to be called machines. Six-year-old children built things more sophisticated every day, but accelerated as they were to one hundred and fifty kilometers per second, they didn't need to be complex." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Just shown where to go." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the time it took for the signal to propagate from Filip's eye, down his optic nerve, and into his visual neocortex, it was over. He was aware of the thump, of the ejecta plumes where the marines had been, of the two brief new stars that had been warships overhead, only after the enemy was dead. He changed his suit radio to active.\n\n\"Ichiban,\" he said, proud that his voice was so calm." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Together, they bounced down the crater's side, shuffling their feet." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Martian shipyards were like something from a dream, plumes of flame rising from the shattered workshops as the stored volatile gasses vented as fire. Soft snow billowed from the barracks as the released atmosphere sprayed out and froze. The marines were gone, their bodies ripped apart and scattered. A cloud of dust and ice filled the crater, only the guidance of his HUD showing him where the targets were." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Ten minutes, thirteen seconds." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Filip's team divided. Three went to the middle of the open space, finding a place large enough to begin unfolding the thin black carbon structure of the evacuation scaffold. Two others unstrapped recoilless machine pistols, ready to shoot anyone who emerged from the rubble. Two more ran toward the armory, and three came with him, to the supply sheds. The building loomed up from the dust, stark and forbidding." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The access doors were shut." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A loading mech lay toppled on its side, the driver dead or dying. His tech specialist went to the door controls, prying the housing open with a powered cutting bar.\n\nNine minutes, seven seconds.\n\n\"Josie,\" Filip said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Trabajan, sa sa?\" Josie replied curtly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I know you're working,\" Filip said. \"If you can't open it—\"\n\nThe great access doors shifted, shuddered, and rose. Josie turned back and flicked the suit's helmet lights on so that Filip could see the expression on his craggy face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They went into the warehouse." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Towers of curved ceramic and steel made great piles, denser than mountains. Hair-thin wire hundreds of kilometers long stood on plastic spools taller than Filip. Massive printers waited, ready to fashion the plates that would fit together over the emptiness, define a volume and make it a bubble of air and water and complex organics that passed for a human environment. Emergency lights flickered, giving the wide space the eerie glow of disaster." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He moved forward. He didn't remember drawing his gun, but it was in his hand." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miral, not Josie, was strapping into a loader.\n\nSeven minutes.\n\nThe red-and-white strobe of the first emergency vehicles flickered in the chaos of the shipyard, the light coming from everywhere and nowhere. Filip shuffled down the rows of welding rigs and metal printers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tubs of steel and ceramic dust finer than talcum." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Spiral-core mounts. Layers of Kevlar and foam strike armor piled up like the biggest bed in the solar system. In one open corner of the space, an entire Epstein drive lay disassembled like the universe's most complex jigsaw puzzle. Filip ignored it all.\n\nThe air wasn't thick enough to carry the sound of gunfire." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His HUD brought up a fast-mover alert in the same moment that a bright patch appeared on the steel beam to his right." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Filip dropped, his body seeping down in the microgravity more slowly than it would have under burn. The Martian jumped down the aisle. Not the powered armor of the guards, but a technical exoskeleton. Filip aimed for the center of mass and emptied half his clip." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The rounds flared as they left the muzzle, burning their own fuel, tracing lines of fire and red-gray exhaust through the thin Callistan air." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Four hit the Martian, and gouts of blood drifted down in a frozen red snowfall. The exoskeleton flipped to emergency alert status, its LEDs turning a grim amber. On some frequency, it was reporting to the yard's emergency services that something terrible had happened. Its mindless devotion to duty was almost funny, in context." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miral's voice was soft in his ear." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hoy, Filipito. Sa boîte sa palla?\"\n\nIt took Filip a moment to find the man. He was in his loader, his blackened vacuum suit becoming one with the huge mech as if they'd been made for each other. Only the dim split circle symbol of the Outer Planets Alliance still just visible beneath the grime marked Miral as anything but an ill-kept Martian mech driver." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The canisters he'd been talking about were still lashed to their pallets." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A thousand liters each, four of them. On the curving face: High Density Resonance Coating. The energy-absorbent coating helped Martian military ships avoid detection. Stealth tech. He'd found it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A fear he hadn't known he was carrying fell away." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes,\" Filip said. \"That's it.\"\n\nFour minutes, thirty-seven seconds.\n\nThe loading mech's whirring was distant, the sound carried by the vibrations in the structure's flooring more than the thin atmosphere. Filip and Josie moved toward the doors." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The flashing lights were brighter, and had taken on a kind of directionality." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Filip's suit radio filtered through frequencies crowded with screaming voices and security alerts. The Martian military was ordering back the relief vehicles from the civilian shipyard, concerned that the first responders might be terrorists and enemies in disguise. Which was fair. Under other circumstances, they might have been. Filip's HUD had the outlines of the buildings, the half-built evac scaffold, its best guess on the locations of the vehicles given IR and light trace data too subtle for Filip's eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He felt like he was walking through a schematic drawing, everything defined by edges, all surfaces merely implied." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As he shuffled onto the regolith, a deep shudder passed through the ground. A detonation, maybe. Or a building finally completing its long, slow collapse. Miral's loading mech appeared in the open door, backlit by the warehouse lights. The canisters in its claws were anonymous and black." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Filip moved toward the scaffold, switching to their encrypted channel as he shuffled." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Status?\"\n\n\"Small trouble,\" Aaman said. He was with the scaffold. Filip's mouth flooded with the metal taste of fear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No such thing here, coyo,\" he said, fighting to sound calm. \"What is it?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Some of the ejecta crap's fouling the scaffold. I've got grit in the joints.\"\n\nThree minutes, forty seconds. Thirty-nine.\n\n\"I'm coming,\" Filip said.\n\nAndrew's voice cut in." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We're taking fire in the armory, bosslet.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Filip ignored the diminutive. \"How much?\"\n\n\"Plenty some,\" Andrew said. \"Chuchu's down, and I'm pretty pinned. Might need a hand.\"\n\n\"Hang tight,\" Filip said, his mind racing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His two guards stood by the evac scaffold, ready to shoot anybody that wasn't them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The three builders were struggling with a brace. Filip jumped over to them, catching himself on the black frame. On the line, Andrew grunted.\n\nOnce he saw the stuck connector, black grit fouling it, the problem was clear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In atmosphere, it would have just taken a hard breath to clean it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not an option here. Aaman was digging frantically with a blade, flipping out tiny bit after tiny bit, trying to empty the thin, complex channels where the metal fit together.\n\nThree minutes.\n\nAaman hauled the brace into place and tried to force the connection." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was close, very close, but when he tugged back, it came apart." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Filip saw the man cursing, flecks of spit dotting the inside of his faceplate. If they'd only brought a can of air, Filip thought...\n\nWhich, of course, they had.\n\nHe plucked the knife from Aaman's hand and shoved the blade into his suit's wrist where the articulation made it thinnest." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A bright pain told him he'd gone just a little too far." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That was fine. His suit alarm blinked into place, and he ignored it. He leaned forward, pressing the tiny opening in his suit to the clogged connector, the escaping air scattering the dirt and ice. A single drop of blood spat out, freezing into a perfect crimson sphere and bouncing away from the material. He stepped back, and Aaman slid the connection together." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When he tugged this time, it held." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The injured suit sealed the hole as soon as he pulled the knife out.\n\nFilip turned back. Miral and Josie had cut the canisters free of their pallets and strapped one to the scaffold. The flashing emergency lights had dimmed, the relief vehicles passing them by in the haze and confusion. Heading, likely, for the firefight at the armory." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was where Filip would have seen the greatest threat too, if he hadn't known better." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Bosslet,\" Andrew said, his voice thin and anxious. \"Cutting close here.\"\n\n\"No preoccupes,\" Filip said. \"Ge gut.\"\n\nOne of the two guards put a hand on his shoulder. \"You want me to go fix that?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "she asked. Should I go save them?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Filip lifted a fist and shook it gently back and forth. No. She stiffened when she understood what he was saying, and for a moment, he thought she'd disobey. Her choice. Mutiny now was its own punishment. Josie slid the last canister into place, tightened down the straps." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Aaman and his people fit the last brace in position." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One minute, twenty seconds.\n\n\"Bosslet!\" Andrew screamed.\n\n\"I'm sorry, Andrew,\" Filip said. There was a moment of stunned silence and then a stream of obscenity and invective." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Filip changed frequencies. The emergency services for the military shipyards were shouting less." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A woman's voice speaking crisp, calm German was delivering commands with the almost-bored efficiency of someone well accustomed to crisis, and the voices answering her took their professionalism from hers. Filip pointed to the scaffold. Chuchu and Andrew were dead. Even if they weren't dead, they were dead." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Filip pulled himself into his position on the scaffold, fitted the straps around his waist and under his crotch, across his chest, then laid his head back against the thick padding." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fifty-seven seconds.\n\n\"Niban,\" he said.\n\nNothing happened.\n\nHe turned his radio back to the encrypted channel." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Andrew was weeping now. Wailing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Niban! Andale!\" Filip shouted.\n\nThe evac scaffold bucked under him, and he suddenly had weight. Four chemical rockets under high burn lit the ground below him, scattering the empty pallets and knocking Miral's abandoned loading mech on its back. Acceleration pushed the blood down into Filip's legs, and his vision narrowed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The sounds of the radio grew thinner, more distant, and his consciousness flickered, stuttered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His suit clamped down on his thighs like being squeezed by a giant, forcing the blood back up out of them. His mind returned a bit.\n\nBelow, the crater was an oblong blister of dust on the face of the moon. Lights moved in it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The towers at the crater's edge had gone dark, but flickered now as the systems tried to reboot." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The shipyards of Callisto reeled like a drunkard, or a person struck in the head.\n\nThe countdown timer slid to two seconds, then one.\n\nAt zero, the second strike came. Filip didn't see the rock hit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As with the tungsten slugs, it was going much too fast for mere human sight, but he saw the dust cloud jump like someone had surprised it, and then the vast shock wave, blooming out so powerfully that even in the barely-extant atmosphere it was visible." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Brace,\" Filip said, though there was no need. Everyone on the scaffold was already braced. In a thicker atmosphere, it would have been death for all of them. Here, it was little worse than a bad storm. Aaman grunted." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Problem?\" Filip asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Pinché rock holed my foot,\" Aaman said. \"Hurts.\"\n\nJosie answered. \"Gratia sa didn't get your cock, coyo.\"\n\n\"Not complaining,\" Aaman said. \"No complaints.\"\n\nThe scaffold rockets exhausted themselves; the acceleration gravity dropped away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Below them, death had come to the shipyards." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were no lights now. Not even fires burning. Filip turned his gaze to the bright smear of stars, the galactic disk shining on them all. One of those lights wasn't a star, but the exhaust plume of the Pella, coming to collect its wayward crew." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Except Chuchu. Except Andrew." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Filip wondered why he didn't feel bad about the loss of two people under his command. His first command. His proof that he could handle a real mission, with real stakes, and come through clean.\n\nHe didn't mean to speak. Maybe he didn't. Maybe it was only a sigh that passed his lips. Miral chuckled." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Task: The user will write a bit then you need to write around 4 sentences continuing directly from the user's text.\n\nAuthor style: James S. A. Corey" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A year after the Callisto attacks, almost three years after he and his crew had headed out for Ilus, and about six days after they'd gotten back, James Holden floated next to his ship and watched a demolition mech cut her apart. Eight taut cables anchored the Rocinante to the walls of her berth. Only one of many in the Tycho Station repair dock, and the repair section was only one of many in the massive construction sphere. Around them in the kilometer-wide volume of the sphere a thousand other projects were going on, but Holden only had eyes for his ship." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The mech finished cutting and pulled off a large section of the outer hull." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Beneath lay the skeleton of the ship, sturdy ribs surrounded by a tangled confusion of cabling and conduit, and under that, the second skin of the inner hull.\n\n\"Yeah,\" Fred Johnson said, floating next to him, \"you kind of fucked her up.\"\n\nFred's words, flattened and distorted by the comm system of their vacuum suits, were still a punch to the gut. That Fred, the nominal leader of the Outer Planets Alliance and one of the three most powerful people in the solar system, was taking a personal interest in his ship's condition should have been reassuring." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Instead, Holden felt like he had a father checking over his homework to make sure he hadn't screwed anything up too badly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Interior mount's bent,\" a third voice said over the comm. A sour-faced man named Sakai, the new chief engineer at Tycho after the death of Samantha Rosenberg at what everyone was now calling the Slow Zone Incident. Sakai was monitoring the repairs from his office nearby through the mech's suite of cameras and x-ray scanners.\n\n\"How did you do that?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fred pointed at the rail-gun housing along the ship's keel." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The barrel of the gun ran nearly the entire length of the ship, and the support struts that attached it to the frame were visibly buckling in places.\n\n\"So,\" Holden said, \"have I ever told you the one about the time we used the Roci to drag a heavy freighter to a higher planetary orbit using our rail gun as a reaction drive?\"\n\n\"Yeah, that's a good one,\" Sakai said without humor. \"Some of those struts might be fixable, but I'm betting we're going to find enough micro-fracturing in the alloy that replacing them all is the better bet.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fred whistled. \"That won't be cheap.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The OPA leader was the Rocinante crew's on-again, off-again patron and sponsor. Holden hoped they were in the on-again phase of the rocky relationship. Without a preferred client discount, the ship's repair was going to get noticeably more expensive. Not that they couldn't afford it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Lots of badly patched holes in the outer hull,\" Sakai continued." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Inner looks okay from here, but we'll go over it with a fine-toothed comb and make sure it's sealed.\"\n\nHolden started to point out that the trip back from Ilus would have involved a lot more asphyxiation and death if the inner hull hadn't been airtight, but stopped himself. There was no reason to antagonize the man who was now responsible for keeping his ship flying. Holden thought of Sam's impish smile and habit of tempering her criticism with silliness, and felt something clench behind his breastbone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It had been years, but the grief could still sneak up on him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Thank you,\" he said instead.\n\n\"This won't be fast,\" Sakai replied. The mech jetted off to another part of the ship, anchored itself on magnetic feet, and began cutting another section of the outer hull away with a bright flash.\n\n\"Let's move to my office,\" Fred said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"At my age, you can only take an e-suit so long.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Many things about ship repair were made easier by the lack of gravity and atmosphere. The trade-off was forcing technicians to wear environment suits while they worked. Holden took Fred's words to mean the old man needed to pee and hadn't bothered with the condom catheter.\n\n\"Okay, let's go.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fred's office was large for something on a space station, and smelled of old leather and good coffee." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The captain's safe on the wall was done in titanium and bruised steel, like a prop from an old movie. The wall screen behind his desk showed a view of three skeletal ships under construction. Their design was large, bulky, and functional. Like sledgehammers. They were the beginnings of a custom built OPA naval fleet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden knew why the alliance felt the need to create its own armed defensive force, but given everything that had happened over the past few years, he couldn't help but feel like humanity kept learning the wrong lessons from its traumas." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Coffee?\" Fred asked. At Holden's nod, he began puttering around the coffee station on a side table, fixing two cups. The one he held out to Holden had a faded insignia on it. The split circle of the OPA, worn almost to invisibility." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden took it, waved at the screen, and said, \"How long?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Six months is our current projection,\" Fred said, then sat in his chair with an old man's grunt. \"Might as well be forever. A year and a half from now human social structures in this galaxy will be unrecognizable.\"\n\n\"The diaspora.\"\n\n\"If that's what you want to call it,\" Fred said with a nod." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I call it the land rush. A whole lot of covered wagons heading for the promised land.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Over a thousand worlds open for the taking. People from every planet and station and rock in the solar system rushing to grab a piece. And back in the home system, three governments racing to build enough warships to control it all.\n\nA welding array flared to life on the skin of one of the ships so brightly that the monitor dimmed in response." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If Ilus was anything, it was a warning that a lot of people are going to die,\" Holden said. \"Was anyone listening?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not really. You familiar with the land rush in North America?\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" Holden said, then took a sip of Fred's coffee. It was delicious. Earth grown, and rich. The privileges of rank." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I got your covered wagon reference. I grew up in Montana, you know. That frontier shit is still the story the people there tell about themselves.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So you know that the mythology of manifest destiny hides a lot of tragedy. Many of those covered wagons never made it. And more than a few of the people who did wound up as cheap labor for the railroads, mines, and rich farmers.\"\n\nHolden drank his coffee and watched the ship construction. \"Not to mention all the people who were living there before the covered wagons showed up and gave everyone a nifty new plague. At least our version of galactic destiny doesn't displace anything more advanced than a mimic lizard.\"\n\nFred nodded. \"Maybe. Seems that way so far. But not all thirteen hundred systems have good surveys yet. Who knows what we'll find.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Killer robot things and continent-sized fusion reactors just waiting for someone to flip the switch so they can blow half the planet into space, if memory serves.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Based on our sample of one. It could get weirder.\"\n\nHolden shrugged and finished off his coffee. Fred was right. There was no way to know what might be waiting on all of those worlds. No telling what dangers lay in store for the would-be colonists rushing to claim them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Avasarala isn't happy with me,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, she is not,\" Fred agreed. \"But I am.\"\n\n\"Come again?\"\n\n\"Look, the old lady wanted you to go out there and show everyone in the solar system how bad it all was. Scare them into waiting for the government to tell them it was okay. Put the control back in her hands.\"\n\n\"It was pretty scary,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Was I not clear on that?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sure. But it was also survivable. And now Ilus is getting ready to send freighters full of lithium ore to the markets here. They'll be rich. They may wind up being the exception, but by the time everyone figures that out, people will be on all those worlds looking for the next gold mine.\"\n\n\"Not sure what I could have done differently.\"\n\n\"Nothing,\" Fred agreed. \"But Avasarala and Prime Minister Smith on Mars and the rest of the political wonks want to control this. And you've made sure they can't.\"\n\n\"So why are you happy?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Because,\" Fred said, his grin wide, \"I'm not trying to control it. Which is why I'll wind up in control of it. I'm playing the long game.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden got up and poured himself another cup of Fred's delicious coffee. \"Yeah, you're going to need to parse that for me,\" he said, leaning against the wall next to the coffee pot.\n\n\"I've got Medina Station, a self-sustaining craft that everyone going through the rings has to go past, handing out seed packs and emergency shelters to any ship that needs them. We're selling potting soil and water filters at cost. Any colony that survives is going to do so in part because we helped them. So when it comes time to organize some sort of galactic governing body, who are they going to turn to? The people who want to enforce hegemony at the barrel of a gun? Or the folks who were and are there to help out in a crisis?\"\n\n\"They turn to you,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And that's why you're building ships. You need to look helpful at the beginning when everyone needs help, but when they start looking for a government, you want to look strong.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes,\" Fred said, leaning back in his chair. \"The Outer Planets Alliance has always meant everything past the Belt. That's still true. It's just... expanded a bit.\"\n\n\"It can't be that simple. No way Earth and Mars just sit back and let you run the galaxy because you handed out tents and bag lunches.\"\n\n\"Nothing ever is,\" Fred admitted." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But that's where we'll start. And as long as I own Medina Station, I control the center of the board.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Did you actually read my report?\" Holden asked, not able to keep all the disbelief out of his voice.\n\n\"I'm not underestimating the dangers left on those worlds—\"\n\n\"Forget what got left behind,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He put down his half-empty coffee cup and stalked across the room to lean across Fred's desk." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The old man sat back with a frown. \"Forget the robots and railroad systems that still work after being powered down for a billion years or so. The exploding reactors. Forget lethal slugs and microbes that crawl into your eyes and blind you.\"\n\n\"How long is this list?\"\n\nHolden ignored him. \"The thing you should be remembering is the magic bullet that stopped it all.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The artifact was a lucky find for you, given what was—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, it wasn't. It was the scariest fucking answer to Fermi's paradox I can think of. Do you know why there aren't any Indians in your Old West analogy? Because they're already dead. The whatever-they-were that built all that got a head start and used their protomolecule gate builder to kill all the rest. And that's not even the scary part. The really frightening part is that something else came along, shot the first guys in the back of the head, and left their corpses scattered across the galaxy. The thing we should be asking is, who fired the magic bullet? And are they going to be okay with us taking all of the victims' stuff?\"\n\nFred had given the crew two suites in the management housing level of Tycho Station's habitation ring. Holden and Naomi shared one, while Alex and Amos lived in the other, though in practice that usually just meant they slept there. When the boys weren't partaking of Tycho's many entertainment options, they seemed to spend all their time in Holden and Naomi's apartment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When Holden came in, Naomi was sitting in the dining area scrolling through something complex on her hand terminal." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She smiled at him without looking up. Alex was sitting on the couch in their living room. The wall screen was on, the graphics and talking heads of a newsfeed playing, but the sound was muted and the pilot's head lay back and his eyes were closed. He snored quietly.\n\n\"Now they're sleeping here too?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden asked, sitting down across the table from Naomi." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Amos is picking up dinner. How did your thing go?\"\n\n\"You want the bad news or the worse news?\"\n\nNaomi finally looked up from her work. She cocked her head to one side and narrowed her eyes at him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Did you get us fired again?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not this time. The Roci's pretty beat up. Sakai says—\"\n\n\"Twenty-eight weeks,\" Naomi said.\n\n\"Yeah. Have you bugged my terminal?\"\n\n\"I'm looking at the spreadsheets,\" she said, pointing at her screen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Got them an hour ago. He's—Sakai's pretty good.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not as good as Sam hung in the air between them, unspoken. Naomi looked back down at the table, hiding behind her hair.\n\n\"So, yeah, that's the bad news,\" Holden said. \"Half a year of downtime, and I'm still waiting for Fred to come out and say that he's paying for it. Or some of it. Any of it, really.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We're still pretty flush. The UN's payment came through yesterday.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden nodded the comment away. \"But forgetting money for a minute, I still can't get anyone to listen to me when it comes to the artifact.\"\n\nNaomi gave him a Belter shrug of her hands. \"Because this time it would be different? They've never listened before.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Just once I'd like to be rewarded for my optimistic view of humanity.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I made coffee,\" she said, pointing at the kitchen with a tilt of her head.\n\n\"Fred gave me some of his, which was good enough that I am ruined for lesser coffees from now on. Yet another way in which my meeting with him was unsatisfying.\"\n\nThe door to the apartment slid open, and Amos stomped in carrying a pair of large sacks. A curry and onion scent filled the air around him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Chow,\" he said, then dumped the bags on the table in front of Holden." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hey, Cap'n, when do I get my ship back?\"\n\n\"Is that food?\" Alex said in a loud, groggy voice from the living room. Amos didn't answer; he was already taking foam cartons out of the bags and setting them around the table. Holden had thought he was too annoyed to eat, but the spicy smell of Indian food changed his mind." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Not for a long time,\" Naomi said to Amos around a mouthful of bean curd." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We bent the mount.\"\n\n\"Shit,\" Amos said, sitting and grabbing a pair of chopsticks. \"I leave you guys alone for a couple weeks and you fuck my girl up.\"\n\n\"Alien superweapons were used,\" Alex said, walking into the room, sleep-sweaty hair standing out from his skull in every direction." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The laws of physics were altered, mistakes were made.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Same shit, different day,\" Amos replied and handed the pilot a carton of curried rice. \"Turn the sound up. That looks like Ilus.\"\n\nNaomi turned up the sound on the video feed, and the voice of a newscaster filled the apartment. \"—partial power restored, but sources on the ground say this setback will—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Is that real chicken?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alex asked, grabbing at one of the cartons. \"Splurgin' a bit, are we?\"\n\n\"Shush,\" Amos said. \"They're talking about the colony.\"\n\nAlex rolled his eyes, but said nothing as he piled spicy strips of chicken on his plate." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"—in other news, a draft report detailing the investigation into last year's attack on the Callisto shipyards was leaked this week. While the text is not finalized, the early reports suggest that a splinter faction of the Outer Planets Alliance was involved, and places blame for the high casualty—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amos shut off the sound with an angry stab at the table's controls. \"Shit, wanted to hear more about what's going on with Ilus, not some dumbass OPA cowboys getting themselves blown up.\"\n\n\"I wonder if Fred knows who was behind that,\" Holden said. \"The OPA hardliners are having trouble getting over their 'us against the solar system' theology.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What did they want there anyway?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alex said. \"Callisto didn't have any of the heavy munitions. No nukes. Nothing worth a raid like that.\"\n\n\"Oh, now we're expecting this shit to make sense?\" Amos asked. \"Gimme that naan.\"\n\nHolden sighed and leaned back in his chair." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I know it makes me a naïve idiot, but after Ilus I actually thought we might get a moment's peace. No one needing to blow anyone else up.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This is what that looks like,\" Naomi said, then stifled a burp and put her chopsticks down. \"Earth and Mars are in a prickly detente, the legitimate wing of the OPA is governing instead of fighting. The colonists on Ilus are working with the UN instead of everyone shooting each other. This is as good as it gets. Can't expect everyone to be on the same page. We're still humans after all. Some percentage of us are always going to be assholes.\"\n\n\"Truer words were never spoken, boss,\" Amos said.\n\nThey finished eating and sat in companionable silence for several minutes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Amos pulled beers out of the small refrigerator and handed them around." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alex picked his teeth with his pinky fingernail. Naomi went back to her repair projections.\n\n\"So,\" she said after a few minutes poring over the numbers, \"the good news is that even if the UN and the OPA decide that we're responsible for our own repair bills, we'll be able to cover them with just what we have in the ship's emergency fund.\"\n\n\"Lots of work flyin' colonists out through the rings,\" Alex said." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Let's engage in a collaborative writing exercise. I'll provide a starting point, and You'll continue with 4 sentences in the style of James S. A. Corey." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The thing Alex Kamal liked most about the long haul was how it changed the experience of time." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The weeks—sometimes months—spent on the burn were like stepping out of history into some small, separate universe. Everything narrowed down to the ship and the people in it. For long stretches, there would be nothing but the basic maintenance work to do, and so life lost all its urgency. Everything was working according to the plan, and the plan was for nothing critical to happen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Traveling through the vacuum of space gave him an irrational sense of peace and well-being." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was why he could do the job.\n\nHe'd known other people, usually young men and women, whose experience was different. Back when he'd been in the Navy there had been a pilot who'd done a lot of work in the inner planets, running between Earth, Luna, and Mars. He'd transferred in for a trip out to the Jovian moons under Alex." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Just about the time an inner planet run would have ended, the young man started falling apart: getting angry over trivial slights, eating too much or not at all, passing restlessly through the ship from command center to engine room and back again like a tiger pacing its cage." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "By the time they'd reached Ganymede, the ship's doctor and Alex agreed to start putting sedatives in the guy's food just to keep things from getting out of hand. At the end of the mission, Alex had recommended the pilot never be assigned a long run again. Some kinds of pilots couldn't be trained as much as tested for.\n\nNot that there weren't stresses and worries that he carried with him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Ever since the death of the Canterbury, Alex had carried a certain amount of baseline anxiety." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With just the four of them, the Rocinante was structurally undercrewed. Amos and Holden were two strong masculine personalities that, if they ever locked horns, could blow the crew dynamic apart. The captain and the XO were lovers, and if they ever broke up, it would mean the end of more than just the job. It was the same sort of thing he'd always worried about, whatever crew he was with." }, { "from": "human", "value": "With the Roci, it had been the same worries for years now without any of them ever being how it went off the rails, and that in itself was a kind of stability." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As it was, Alex always felt relieved to get to the end of a run and he always felt relieved to start the next one. Or if not always, at least usually.\n\nThe arrival at Tycho Station should have been a relief. The Roci was as compromised as Alex had ever seen her, and the shipyards at Tycho were some of the best in the system, not to mention the friendliest." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The final disposition of their prisoner from New Terra was now soundly someone else's problem, and he was off the ship." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Edward Israel, the other half of the New Terran convoy, was burning its way safely sunward. The next six months were nothing but repair work and relaxation. By any rational standard, there should have been less to worry about.\n\n\"So what's bugging you?\" Amos asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alex shrugged, opened the little food refrigeration unit that the suite provided, closed it, shrugged again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Something's sure as shit bugging you.\"\n\n\"I know.\"\n\nThe lights had the yellow-blue clearness that mimicked early morning, but Alex hadn't slept. Or not much. Amos sat at the counter and poured himself a cup of coffee." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We're not doing one of those things where you need me to ask you a bunch of questions so you can get comfortable talking about your feelings, are we?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alex laughed. \"That never works.\"\n\n\"So let's not do it.\"\n\nOn the burn, Holden and Naomi tended to fold in on each other, not that either of them noticed doing it. It was a natural pattern for lovers to take more comfort in one another than in the rest of the crew." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If it had been different, Alex would have been worried about it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But it left him and Amos with mostly one another as company. Alex prided himself on being able to get along with almost anyone on a crew, and Amos was no exception. Amos was a man without subtext. When he said he needed some time alone, it was because he needed some time alone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When Alex asked if he wanted to come watch the newly downloaded neo-noir films out of Earth that he subscribed to, the answer was always and only a response to the question." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was no sense of backbiting, no social punishment or isolation games. It just was what it was, and that was it. Alex wondered sometimes what would have happened if Amos had been the one to die on the Donnager, and he'd spent the last few years with their old medic, Shed Garvey.\n\nIt probably wouldn't have gone as well." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Or maybe Alex would have adjusted. Hard to know." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I've been having dreams that... bother me,\" Alex said.\n\n\"Nightmares, like?\"\n\n\"No. Good dreams. Dreams that are better than the real world. Where I feel bad waking up from them.\"\n\n\"Huh,\" Amos said thoughtfully and drank his coffee." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Have you ever had dreams like that?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Nope.\"\n\n\"The thing is, Tali's in all of them.\"\n\n\"Tali?\"\n\n\"Talissa.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Your ex-wife.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yeah,\" Alex said. \"She's always there and things are always... good. I mean, not like we're together. Sometimes I'm back on Mars. Sometimes she's on the ship. She's just present, and we're good, and then I wake up and she's not here and we aren't. And...\"\n\nAmos' brow lowered and his mouth rose, squeezing his face into something smaller and thoughtful.\n\n\"You want to hook back up with your ex?\"\n\n\"No, I really don't.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You horny?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, they're not sex dreams.\"\n\n\"You're on your own, then. That's all I got.\"\n\n\"It started back there,\" Alex said, meaning on the other side of the rings, orbiting above New Terra. \"She came up in conversation, and ever since then... I failed her.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yup.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She spent years waiting on me, and I just wasn't the man I wanted to be.\"\n\n\"Nope. You want some coffee?\"\n\n\"I really do,\" Alex said.\n\nAmos poured a cup for him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The mechanic didn't add sugar, but knew to leave a third of the cup for cream." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One of the little intimacies of crew life.\n\n\"I don't like how I left things with her,\" Alex said. It was a simple statement, and not revelation, but it had the weight of a confession.\n\n\"Nope,\" Amos agreed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There's a part of me that thinks this is a chance.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This?\"\n\n\"The Roci being in dry dock for so long. I could go to Mars, see her. Apologize.\"\n\n\"And then ditch her again in order to get back before the ship drive goes back online?\"\n\nAlex looked down into his coffee." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Leave things in a better place.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amos' shrug was massive. \"So go.\"\n\nA flood of objections crowded his mind. The four of them hadn't been apart since they'd become a crew, and splitting the group now felt like bad luck. The repair crew on Tycho might need him or want him or make some change to the ship that he wouldn't know about until it became a critical point somewhere down the line." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Or worse, leaving might mean never coming back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If the universe had proved anything in these last few years, it was that nothing was certain.\n\nThe chime of a hand terminal saved him. Amos fished the device out of his pocket, looked at it, tapped the screen, and scowled. \"I'm going to need a little privacy now.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Sure,\" Alex said. \"Not a problem.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Outside their suite, Tycho Station stretched in long gentle curves. It was one of the crown jewels of the Outer Planets Alliance. Ceres was larger, and Medina Station held the weird null-zone between rings, but Tycho Station was what the OPA had taken pride in from the start. The wide sweeping lines, more like a sailing ship than any actual craft that she served, weren't functional." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The station's beauty was a boast." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Here are the minds that spun up Eros and Ceres; here is the shipyard that built the largest vessel in the history of humanity. The men and women who, not so many generations ago, had braved the abyss beyond Mars for the first time were smart and powerful enough to make this.\n\nAlex made his way down a long promenade. The people who passed him were Belters, their bodies longer than Earth standard, their heads wider." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alex himself had grown up in the relatively low Martian gravity, but even he didn't quite match the physiology that a childhood rich in null g gave." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Plants grew in the empty spaces of the wide corridors, vines crawling up against the spin gravity as they would have against the normal pull on Earth. Children scampered through the halls, ditching school the way he had back in Londres Nova. He drank his coffee and tried to cultivate the peace of being on the burn. Tycho Station was just as artificial as the Roci." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The vacuum outside its hull was no more forgiving." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But the calm wouldn't come. Tycho Station wasn't his ship, wasn't his home. These people walking past him as he went to the common area and looked up through the massive and multilayered clear ceramic at the glittering spectacle of the shipyards weren't his family. And he kept wondering what Tali would have thought of all this." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If she could have come to a place that saw the beauty in it the way he hadn't been able to with the life she'd wanted on Mars." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When he hit the bottom of his cup, he turned back. He ambled along with the flow of foot traffic, making way for the electric carts and exchanging the small, civilized courtesies in the polyglot linguistic catastrophe that was the Belter argot. He didn't think too much about where he was going until he got there.\n\nThe Roci lay half-dressed in the vacuum." }, { "from": "human", "value": "With the outer skin cut away and her inner hull shining fresh in the work lights, she looked small." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The scars of their adventures had, for the most part, been borne by the outer hull. Those scars were gone now, and only the deeper injuries remained. He couldn't see them from here, but he knew what they were. He'd been on the Rocinante as long as he'd been on any ship in his career, and he loved her better than any of them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Even than his first." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll be back,\" he said to the ship, and as if in answer, a welding rig lit up at the curve of her drive cone, brighter for a moment than the unshielded sun in a Martian sky.\n\nThe suite Naomi and Holden shared was just down the corridor from the one where he and Amos slept, its door with the same homey fake wood texturing and the number set into the wall just as bright. Alex let himself in, stepping into the conversation already going on.\n\n\"—if you think it's called for,\" Naomi said, her voice coming from the suite's main room." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But I think the evidence is pretty strong that you cleaned the last of that out. I mean, Miller hasn't been back, has he?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No,\" Holden said, nodding to Alex. \"But just the idea that we had some of that goo in the ship for so long and didn't even know it creeps me out. Doesn't it creep you out?\"\n\nAlex held out his coffee cup, and Holden took it and filled it automatically. No sugar, room for cream." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It does,\" Naomi said, coming to the kitchen." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Just not enough to take the whole damned bulkhead out over it. The replacements are never as strong as the originals. You know that.\"\n\nAlex had met Naomi Nagata back on the Canterbury. He could still see the rawboned, angry girl who Captain McDowell had introduced as their new junior engineer. She'd hidden behind her hair for almost a year." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Now, she had the first few threads of white among the black." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She stood taller, more at home in her own skin. Surer of herself and stronger than he would have guessed she could be. And Holden, the swaggering, self-impressed executive officer who swept into civilian work wearing his dishonorable discharge like a boast had become this man handing him the cream and cheerfully admitting the irrationality of his fears. Time had changed all of them, he supposed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Only he wasn't sure how he had been affected." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Too close to the question, he guessed.\n\nExcept Amos. Nothing changed Amos.\n\n\"What about you, Alex?\"\n\nHe grinned and let his Mariner Valley drawl thicken." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well, shoot, I figure it didn't kill us when it was here, it ain't gonna kill us now it's gone.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Fine,\" Holden said with a sigh.\n\n\"It'll save us money,\" Naomi said, \"and we'll be better off.\"\n\n\"I know,\" Holden said. \"But I'm still going to feel weird about it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Where's Amos?\" Naomi asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Is he still catting around?\"\n\n\"No,\" Alex said. \"He hit the brothels hard enough to burn through his petty cash the first few days in port. Since then, we've just been passing the time.\"\n\n\"We'll need to find something to keep him busy while we're on Tycho,\" Holden said. \"Hell, we'll need to find something to keep all of us busy.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We could look for work on the station,\" Naomi said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't know what they're hiring for.\"\n\n\"We've got offers from a half-dozen places for paid debriefings on New Terra,\" Holden said.\n\n\"So does every other person that came back through the Ring,\" Naomi said, laughter in her voice. \"And the feed there and back still works.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You're saying we shouldn't do it?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden said, his tone vaguely hurt.\n\n\"I'm saying I can find a lot of things I'd rather get paid for than talking about myself.\"\n\nHolden deflated, just a little. \"Fair point. But we're stuck here for a long time. We're going to have to do something.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alex took a deep breath." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Here it was. The moment. His resolve wavered. He poured the cream into the cup, the blackness of the coffee resolving into a gentle tan. The lump in his throat felt as big as an egg.\n\n\"So,\" he said. \"I've... ah... I've been thinking about things—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The suite door opened and Amos stepped in." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hey, Cap'n. I'm gonna need some time off.\"\n\nNaomi tilted her head, her brows coming together, but it was Holden who spoke.\n\n\"Time off?\"\n\n\"Yeah, I got to go back to Earth for a little bit.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Naomi sat at the stool by the breakfast bar. \"What's the matter?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't know,\" Amos said. \"Maybe nothing, but I kinda need to go look to find out. Be sure. You know.\"\n\n\"Is anything wrong?\" Holden asked. \"Because if it's a thing, we can wait for the Roci to be fixed up, and we can all go together. I've been looking for an excuse to get Naomi back down to Earth so the family can meet her.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The annoyance that crossed the engineer's face was almost faster than Alex's refresh rate." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Moments like that made him nervous. The way Holden could push Naomi past her comfort zone and not even know he was doing it. But she recovered even before Amos could speak.\n\n\"May have to keep looking for your excuse, Cap. There's a little time pressure on my thing. Lady I used to spend time with died. I just need to go make sure everything there's on the up-and-up.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh, I'm so sorry,\" Naomi said at the same moment Holden said, \"Taking care of her estate?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sure, something like that,\" Amos said. \"Anyway, I booked transport to Ceres and then down the well, but I need to cash out some of my shares for spending money while I'm there.\"\n\nThe room went still for a moment. \"You're coming back, though,\" Naomi said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Plan to,\" Amos said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It struck Alex that the answer was more honest than a yes. Amos planned to, but things happened. In all the time they'd spent in all their runs on the Cant or the Roci, Alex had never heard Amos talk about his life back on Earth except in the most general terms. He wondered if it was because the past wasn't worth mentioning or was too painful to talk about." }, { "from": "human", "value": "With Amos, it could have been both at the same time." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Of course,\" Holden said. \"Just tell me how much you need.\"\n\nThe negotiation was brief, the transfer made on their hand terminals. Amos grinned and slapped Alex on the shoulder." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"All right. You got the place to yourself.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"When are you shipping out?\" Alex asked.\n\n\"'Bout an hour. I should go get in line.\"\n\n\"All right,\" Alex said. \"Take care of yourself, partner.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You bet,\" Amos said and was gone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The three remaining crewmen of the Roci stood silently in the kitchen, Holden looking shocked, Naomi amused. Alex felt like he was about halfway between them.\n\n\"Well that was weird,\" Holden said. \"You think he's going to be okay?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's Amos,\" Naomi said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm more worried about whoever he's going to check on.\"\n\n\"Fair point,\" Holden said, then hitched himself up to sit on the counter and faced Alex. \"Anyway. You were saying you'd been thinking about something?\"\n\nAlex nodded. I was thinking about how hard it is to break up family and about the family I broke up before, and that I need to see my ex-wife again and try to find some sort of resolution to who we were to each other and all the things we did." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Provide four sentences as a continuation." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Golgo table was set for opening throws, the first and second goals untouched and the field still empty. The throbbing bass line from the Blauwe Blome's main room was a vibration in the deck and a murmur that wasn't too loud to talk over. Naomi hefted the steel ball in her hand, feeling the subtle play between mass and weight, different at every gravity. Across from her, Malikah and her teammates from the repair crew waited." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One of them was drinking a Blue Meanie, the bright azure fluid staining his mouth like lipstick." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was three years—no, four?—since Naomi had played a game of Golgo, and these people played every Thursday. Naomi hefted the ball again, sighed, and spun it. Instantly, the opposition balls sprang out to hold her short, matching her spin and trying to co-opt her throw.\n\nIt was the sort of response you played against a beginner." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Naomi was rusty, but she wasn't a beginner." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The table registered, ending the throw, and Naomi's marker appeared, well past the field's half mark. Her team cheered, Malikah's groaned. Everyone smiled. It was a friendly game. Not all of them were." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Next up, next up!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "one of Naomi's new teammates shouted, waving his wide, pale hand. His name was Pere or Paar. Something like that. She retrieved the steel ball and tossed it to him. He grinned at her, his eyes only flickering down her body and back. Poor little shit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Naomi stood back, and Malikah moved to stand with her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You still got it,\" Malikah said. She had a beautiful voice, the accents of Ceres Station mellowing the harsher tones of the deep Belt.\n\n\"Spent a lot of time playing it when I was here last,\" Naomi said. \"You never forget what you did when you were young, right?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Even if you want to.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Malikah laughed, and Naomi laughed with her.\n\nMalikah lived in a set of rooms three levels down and thirty degrees spinward from the club. The last time Naomi had been in it, the walls had been draped with silk patterned in brown and gold and the air had been rich with the artificial sandalwood incense that wouldn't clog the air recyclers. Naomi had slept in a bag on the deck for two nights, falling asleep to recorded harp music and the murmuring voices of Malikah and Sam." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Only Sam was dead now, and Naomi was back together with Jim, and humanity was heir to a thousand suns within a two-year burn." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Being there, laughing with Malikah and the repair crews, Naomi couldn't tell if she was more astounded by how much things had changed or how little.\n\nMalikah touched Naomi's shoulder, her brow furrowed. \"Bist ajá?\"\n\n\"Was thinking,\" Naomi said, falling into the rhythm of Belter slang only roughly. Golgo wasn't the only thing she was rusty with." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Malikah's mouth turned down at the corners even as the Golgo table erupted in shouts of glee and dismay." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For a moment, Sam was there too. Not the actual woman with her red hair and cheerful obscenity and habit of using childish terms—boo-boo, owie—to describe things like meteoroid-breached hulls. Only the space where she had been, and the two women sharing the knowledge that someone was missing.\n\nPaar-or-Pere passed the ball on to the next player—Sakai, the new chief engineer—while the opposing team clapped him mockingly on the back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Naomi moved forward to assess the damage." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Being around Belters—just Belters—was weirdly comforting. She loved her crew, but they were two Earthers and a Martian. There were some conversations that she could never have with them.\n\nShe could tell when Jim arrived without turning around." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The players across the table from her all looked past her as one." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Their eyes went wide, and an air of excitement washed over them. No one said it, but they might as well have—Hey! Look! It's James Holden!\n\nIt was easy to forget that Jim was who he was." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He'd started two wars, and played some role in ending them both." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He'd captained the first human ship through the Ring, or the first one that survived anyway. He'd been on the alien base in the center of the slow zone and come back. He'd survived Eros Station and the death of the Agatha King. He'd been to New Terra, the first human colony on a nonhuman planet, and forged a weird, awkward peace there." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was almost embarrassing, seeing everyone react to that Holden: the one on the screens and in the newsfeeds." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She knew Jim was nothing like that James Holden, but there was no point saying it. Some things stayed secrets even when you told them.\n\n\"Hello my love,\" Jim said, putting his arm around her. In his other hand, he had a grapefruit martini." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"For me?\" she said, taking the cocktail." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hope so. I wouldn't drink it on a dare.\"\n\n\"Hoy, coyo!\" Paar-or-Pere said, holding up the steel ball. \"Want a throw?\"\n\nThe laughter around the table was buoyant. Some of it was delight—James Holden playing Golgo with us!—and some was cruel—Watch the big shot suck." }, { "from": "human", "value": "None of it had anything to do with the actual man." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She wondered if he knew how much he changed the nature of a room just by walking into it. At a guess, he probably didn't.\n\n\"No,\" Jim said with a grin. \"I'm terrible at this. Wouldn't know where to start.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Naomi leaned in toward Malikah." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I should go. Thank you so much for having me.\" It meant I am grateful to you for letting me be here with other Belters like I belong.\n\n\"You are todamas welcome, coya-mis,\" Malikah said. It meant, Sam's death wasn't your fault, and if it was I forgive you." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Naomi took Jim's elbow and let him steer her out to the main bar." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The music rose as they passed through the doorway, light and sound joining in a sensory assault. On the dance floor, people moved together in pairs or in groups. There had been a time, long before she'd met Jim, when the idea of getting very, very drunk and throwing herself into the press of bodies would have been an attractive one. She could remember the girl she used to be with fondness, but it wasn't a youth she cared to recapture." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She stood at the bar and finished her martini." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was too loud to talk, so she amused herself watching people notice Jim, the game of is-it-or-isn't-it in their expressions. Jim, for his part, was amiably bored. The idea that he was the center of attention was foreign to him. It was part of what she loved about him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When her glass was empty, she put her hand on his, and they pressed out to the public corridor outside the club." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Men and women waiting to get in—Belters, almost to a person—watched them leave. It was night on Tycho Station, which didn't mean much. The station was built on three rotating eight-hour shifts: leisure, work, sleep. Who you knew depended on what shift you worked, like three different cities that all occupied the same space." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A world that would always be two-thirds strangers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She put her arm around Jim's waist and pulled him in against her until she could feel his thigh moving against hers.\n\n\"We need to talk,\" she said.\n\nHe tensed a little, but kept his voice light and airy. \"Like man-and-woman talk?\"\n\n\"Worse,\" she said. \"XO and captain.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What's up?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They stepped into a lift, and she pushed the button for their deck. The lift chimed, the doors moving gently closed, as she gathered her thoughts. It wasn't really that she didn't know what needed to be said. He wasn't going to like this any more than she did." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We need to look at hiring on more crew.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She knew enough about Jim's silences to recognize this one. She looked up into his blank expression, his eyes blinking a fraction more quickly than usual.\n\n\"Really?\" he said. \"Seems to me that we're doing just fine.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We are. We have been. The Roci's a military design. Smart. A lot of automation, a lot of redundancy. That's why we've been able to run her at a third of her standard crew for this long.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That and we're the best damned crew in the sky.\"\n\n\"That doesn't hurt. Looking at skills and service, we've got a strong group. But we're brittle.\"\n\nThe lift shifted, the complex forces of station spin and car acceleration making the space feel unsteady. She was sure it was just the movement." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm not sure what you mean by brittle,\" Jim said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We've been on the Rocinante since we salvaged her off the Donnager. We've had no change in staff. No turnover. Name me one other ship you can think of where that's true. There were runs where the Canterbury had a quarter of the staff on their first mission together. And...\"\n\nThe doors slid open. They stepped out, moving aside to let another couple go in. Naomi heard the others murmuring to each other as the lift doors closed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jim was quiet as they walked back toward their suite." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When he finally spoke, his voice was low and thoughtful.\n\n\"You're thinking one of them may not come back? Amos? Alex?\"\n\n\"I'm thinking that a lot of things happen. Take a high burn, and sometimes people stroke out. The juice helps, but it's not a guarantee. People have been known to shoot at us. Or we've been disabled in a decaying orbit. You remember all that happening, right?\"\n\n\"Sure, but—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If we lose someone, we go from running at a third of a standard crew to a quarter. Add to that the loss of nonredundant skills.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden stopped, his hand on the door to their rooms.\n\n\"Wait, wait, wait. If we lose someone?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nHis eyes were wide and shocked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Little wrinkles of distress gathered at the corners." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She reached up to smooth them away, but they didn't go.\n\n\"So you're trying to get me prepared for one of my crew dying?\"\n\n\"Historically speaking, humans are pretty much at a hundred percent on that.\"\n\nJim started to say something, faltered, opened the suite door, and walked in." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She followed, closing the door behind them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She wanted to let it drop, but if she did, she didn't know when they'd pick it back up.\n\n\"If we were running a traditional crew, we'd have two people in every position. If anyone got killed or disabled, someone else would be right there to step in.\"\n\n\"I'm not adding four more people to our ship, much less eight,\" Jim said, walking into the bedroom. Running from the conversation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He wouldn't actually leave." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She waited for the silence and the distress and the worry that he'd made her angry to pull him back. It took about fifteen seconds. \"We don't run this like a regular crew because we're not a regular crew. We got the Roci when everyone in the system was shooting at us. We had stealth ships blowing a battleship out from under us. We lost the Cant and then we lost Shed. You can't go through that and just be normal.\"\n\n\"Meaning what exactly?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"This ship isn't a crew. We don't run it like a crew. We run it like a family.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Right,\" she said. \"And that's a problem.\"\n\nThey looked at each other across the room. Jim's jaw worked, objections and arguments getting stalled at his tongue. He knew she was right, and he wanted her to be wrong." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She saw him realize there was no way out." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Fine,\" he said. \"When the others get back, let's talk about doing some interviews. Taking a couple people on for a mission or two. If they shake down right, we can look at keeping them on permanently.\"\n\n\"That sounds good,\" Naomi said.\n\n\"It's going to change the balance on the ship,\" Holden said.\n\n\"Everything changes,\" she said, putting her arms around him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They ordered food from a fusion Indian restaurant, curry and genetically modified rice and textured fungal protein mostly indistinguishable from beef." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For the rest of the evening, Holden tried to be cheerful, tried to hide his unease from her. It didn't even start to work, but she appreciated the effort.\n\nAfter dinner, they watched the entertainment feeds until the time came in the comfortable rhythm of their day that she turned off the screen and drew him back to the bed. Sex with Holden had started off as a thrilling thing, years ago when they were first seeing exactly how stupid a captain and an XO sleeping together would be." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Now, it was richer and calmer and more playful. And more comforting." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After, lying on the big gel-form mattress with the sheets in ropes at the foot, Naomi's mind wandered. She thought of the Roci and of Sam, of a book of poetry she'd read when she was a girl and a musical group one of the senior engineers had roped her into on the Canterbury. Her recollections had started taking on the surreal confusion of dreams when Jim's voice brought her back almost to wakefulness.\n\n\"I don't like having them gone.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hmm?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Alex and Amos. I don't like having them gone. If they get in trouble, we'll be here. I can't even just fire up the Roci and go get them.\"\n\n\"They'll be fine,\" she said.\n\n\"I know. I sort of know.\" He propped himself up on one elbow." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are you really not worried?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A little maybe.\"\n\n\"I mean, I know they're grown-ups, but if something happened. If they didn't come back...\"\n\n\"It would be hard,\" Naomi said. \"We four have been what we rely on for a lot of years now.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yeah,\" Jim said. And then a moment later, \"Do you know who this lady was Amos went back to check on?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No. I don't.\"\n\n\"You think she was his lover?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" Naomi said. \"I got the feeling it was more of a surrogate mom thing.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hmm. Maybe. I don't know why I was thinking lover.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His voice had started taking on the fuzzy edges of sleep. \"Hey, can I ask an inappropriate question?\"\n\n\"If memory serves.\"\n\n\"Why didn't you and Amos ever get together? I mean back on the Cant.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Naomi laughed, rolled over, put her arm across his chest." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even after shipping with him all this time, she liked the way his skin smelled. \"Are you serious? Have you paid any attention at all to his sexuality?\"\n\n\"I don't think Amos and I are supposed to do that.\"\n\n\"It's not a place you want to be,\" Naomi said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hmm. Okay. I was just thinking, you know. How much he followed you around back on the Cant. And he's never talked about leaving the Roci.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He's not staying on the Roci for me,\" Naomi said. \"He's staying for you.\"\n\n\"Me?\"\n\n\"He's using you as his external, aftermarket conscience.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No, he's not.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's what he does. Finds someone who has a sense of ethics and follows their lead,\" Naomi said. \"It's how he tries not to be a monster.\"\n\n\"Why would he try not to be a monster?\" The sleep-slurred words were like a blanket." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Because he is one,\" Naomi said, her consciousness flickering across the line." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It's why we get along.\n\nThe message came two days later, and without warning. Naomi was in an EVA suit, inspecting the work with Chief Engineer Sakai. He was in the process of explaining why they were looking at a different ceramic alloy for the connections between inner and outer hull when a priority message popped into her HUD." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She felt a rush of fear, the aftermath of her talk with Holden." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Something had happened to Alex. Or Amos.\n\n\"Hold on,\" she said, and Sakai answered with a raised fist.\n\nShe started the message. A flat transmission screen popped on with the split circle of the OPA, and when it flickered away, Marco was there." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The years had thickened his face a degree, softened the curve of his jaw." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His skin had the same richness and depth she remembered, and his hands, folded on the table wherever he'd recorded this, were as delicate. He smiled with the mixture of sorrow and amusement that was like falling backward through time.\n\nThe message halted, cut off by the suit's medical systems. Warnings for increased heart rate, elevated blood pressure." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She chinned the override, and his voice stuttered softly into her ears, smoothing as the feed cohered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm sorry. I know you don't want to hear from me. If it helps, I'd just point out that I haven't done it before this. And I'm not doing it lightly now.\"\n\nShut it off, she thought. Stop the feed. Erase it. It would all be lies anyway." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Lies or only what parts of the truth served him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Forget it ever came. Marco looked away from the camera as if he'd read her mind, or known what she would be thinking.\n\n\"Naomi, I don't agree with your decision to leave, but I've always respected it. Even when you showed up in the news so everyone knew where you were, I didn't reach out. And I'm not coming to you now for myself.\"\n\nThe words were all crisp and warm and careful: the flawless grammar of someone speaking a second language so well it sounded uncanny." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had none of his Belter patois." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So there was another way the years had changed him.\n\n\"Cyn and Karal send their love and respect, but they're the only ones who know I'm reaching out. And why. They're on Ceres Station right now, but they can't stay long. I need you to meet their team there and—No. I'm sorry. That's wrong. I shouldn't have put it that way. It's just that I'm at loose ends. I don't know what to do, and you're the only one I can turn to. It's Filip. He's in trouble.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "The user will write a bit then you need to write around four sentences continuing directly from the user's text. Try to mimic the style of James S. A. Corey.Produce four sentences using the prose and structure of James S. A. Corey every time its your turn using what the user wrote as a seed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His throat ached." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amos swallowed, trying to force the lump away with a mouthful of saliva, but all that got him was a thick new pain like swallowing sand. The Roci's med bay had shot him full of all the booster vaccines and bacterial prophylactics three months ago, right on schedule. He didn't figure he could be sick. But there it was, a spot in the back of his throat that felt like he'd swallowed a golf ball and it got stuck halfway down." }, { "from": "human", "value": "All around him, the citizens and travelers of the Ceres Station Spaceport milled like ants on their hill, their voices making an undifferentiated roar that was just as good as silence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It amused Amos that this metaphor was one that no one on Ceres would actually understand. Himself, he hadn't seen an ant in close on two decades, but the childhood memories of watching them take down a cockroach or clean the carcass of a rat were vivid and sharp. Like the roaches and the rats, ants had learned to live with their human neighbors without much trouble. When the concrete of human cities spread across the globe and half the animals on Earth were on endangered lists, no one had worried about the ants." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were doing fine, thanks, and spilled fast food was just as plentiful and delicious as dead forest animals had once been." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Adapt or die.\n\nIf Amos could be said to have a philosophy, it would be that. The concrete replaces the forest. You get in its way, you get paved over." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If you can find a way to live in the cracks, you can thrive anywhere." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were always cracks.\n\nThe anthill of Ceres bustled around him. There were people at the top of the food chain buying snacks at the kiosks or tickets for the shuttles and long-flight ships leaving the station. The people in the cracks were there too." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A girl no older than ten with long dirty hair and a pink jumpsuit two sizes too small eyed the travelers without staring at them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Waiting for someone to set their luggage or their hand terminal down long enough to be snatched away. She saw Amos looking at her and bolted for a maintenance hatch set low in the wall.\n\nLiving in the cracks, but living. Adapting, not dying.\n\nHe swallowed again, grimacing at the ache." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His hand terminal beeped, and he looked up at the flight board that dominated the station's public space." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bright yellow letters against black, a font designed for legibility over beauty. His long-haul flight to Luna was confirmed for a launch window in three hours. He tapped on his terminal's screen to let the automated system know he'd be on board when it left, and walked off looking for something to kill three hours.\n\nThere was a bar by the gate." }, { "from": "human", "value": "So that was easy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He didn't want to get drunk and miss his flight, so he stuck to beer, drinking slowly and methodically and waving at the bartender as he approached the bottom of one glass so that the next was waiting when he finished. He was aiming for fuzzy and relaxed, and he knew exactly how to get there in the shortest possible time.\n\nThe bar didn't offer much in the way of entertainments or distractions, so he could focus on the glass, the bartender, the next drink. The lump in his throat thickened with each swallow." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He ignored it. The other patrons in the bar were quiet, reading hand terminals or whispering in small groups as they drank." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Everyone on the way to somewhere else. This place wasn't a destination; it was something you bumped into in your travels, accidental and forgettable.\n\nLydia was dead.\n\nHe'd spent twenty years thinking about her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The tattoo of her face over his heart was some of that, of course." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Every look in a mirror without his shirt on was a reminder. But beyond that, every day had choices in it. And every choice he made started with the little voice in his head asking what Lydia would want him to do. When he'd received the message from Erich, he realized he hadn't seen or spoken to her in over two decades." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That meant she was twenty years older than when he'd left." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "How old had she been then? He could remember the gray in her hair, the lines around her eyes and mouth. Older than him. But he'd been fifteen, and \"older than him\" had been a wide space most people fell into.\n\nAnd now she was dead." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Maybe someone twenty years older than the woman he remembered was old enough to die of natural causes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Maybe she'd died in a hospital, or her own bed, warm and comfortable and surrounded by friends. Maybe she'd had a cat sleeping on her feet. Amos hoped that was true. Because if it wasn't—if it was anything other than natural causes—he was going to kill every single person even remotely involved." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He examined the idea in his mind, rotating it this way and that, waiting to see if Lydia stopped him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He took another long swallow of beer and burned his throat. He really hoped he wasn't getting sick.\n\nYou're not sick, Lydia's voice said in his mind, you're sad. Grieving. The lump in your throat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The hollow space behind your sternum." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The empty feeling in your stomach no matter how much beer you put there. That's grief.\n\n\"Huh,\" Amos said out loud.\n\n\"Need something, buddy?\" the bartender asked with professional disinterest.\n\n\"Another,\" Amos said, pointing at the half-full beer he still had." }, { "from": "human", "value": "You don't process grief well, another voice said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden, this time. That was the truth. That's why Amos trusted the captain. When he said something, it was because he believed it. No need to analyze it or figure out what he really meant by it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Even when the captain fucked up, he was acting in good faith." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amos hadn't met many people like that.\n\nThe only really strong emotion Amos had felt in longer than he could remember was anger. That was always there, waiting for him. Processing his grief that way was simple and direct." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He understood it. The man sitting a few stools away at the bar had the rough, rawboned look of a rock jock." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He'd been nursing the same beer for an hour. Every time Amos ordered another, the man shot him a glance that was half annoyance, half envy. Coveting his apparently bottomless credit account. It would be so easy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Say something to him, cutting and loud, put him in a position where backing down embarrassed him in front of everyone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The poor fucker would feel obligated to take the bait, and then Amos would be free to process his grief all over the guy. Some time in stir might even be a nice way to unwind.\n\nThat guy didn't kill Lydia, Holden's voice said. But maybe someone else did, Amos thought." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And I need to find out." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Need to cash out here, amigo,\" Amos said to the bartender, waving his hand terminal at him. He pointed at the rock jock. \"Put that guy's next two on my tab.\"\n\nThe rock jock frowned, looking for the insult, but when he couldn't find it he said, \"Thanks, brother.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Anytime, hermano. You be safe out there.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sa sa,\" the jock said, finishing off his beer and reaching for one of the two Amos had just bought. \"Do the same, sabe dui?\"\n\nAmos missed his bunk on the Roci.\n\nThe long-haul transport was named the Lazy Songbird, but its birdlike qualities began and ended at the white letters painted on its side." }, { "from": "human", "value": "From the outside, it looked like a giant garbage can with a drive cone on one end and a tiny ops deck on the other." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "From the inside, it looked like the inside of a giant garbage can except that it was divided into twelve decks, fifty people to a deck.\n\nThe only privacy to be had was thin curtains in the shower stalls, and people only ever seemed to use the head when uniformed crew members were around.\n\nAh, Amos thought, Prison rules.\n\nHe selected a bunk, just a crash couch with a little storage under it and a tiny entertainment screen on the bulkhead next to it, as far from the head and the commissary as possible." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He tried to stay out of high traffic areas." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The people sharing his space were a family of three on one side, and an ancient crone on the other.\n\nThe crone spent the entire flight high on little white pills, staring at the ceiling all day and tossing and sweating through fever dreams all night. Amos introduced himself to her. She offered him some pills." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He declined. This ended their association." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The family on the other side was much nicer. Two men in their early thirties and their daughter of about seven. One of the men was a structural engineer named Rico. The other a stay-at-home dad called Jianguo." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The girl's name was Wendy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They eyed Amos with some suspicion when he first claimed the bunk, but he smiled and shook their hands and bought Wendy an ice cream bar from a commissary vending machine and then didn't follow up by being creepy. He knew what men who had too much interest in little kids were like, and so he knew how not to ever be mistaken for one of them.\n\nRico was traveling to Luna to take one of the new job openings at the Bush orbital shipyards. \"Lots of coyos heading downwell. Beaucoup jobs now, everybody trying to grab a ring for themselves. New colonies. New worlds.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That'll dry up when the rush dies down,\" Amos said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was lying back on his couch, half listening to Rico rattle on, half watching a video feed on his wall screen with the sound off.\n\nRico gave a Belter shrug of the hands and tilted his head toward his daughter, sleeping in her bunk. \"For her, sabe? Later is for later. For now I put some yuan aside. School, ring trip, whatever she needs.\"\n\n\"I hear that. Later is later.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh, hey, they're cleaning the head. Gonna grab a shower.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What's with that, man?\" Amos asked. \"What's the rumpus?\"\n\nRico cocked his head, like Amos had asked why space was a vacuum. In fairness, Amos knew the answer, but it was interesting to see whether Rico did too." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Long-haul gangs, coyo. Price of flying on the cheap. Sucks to be poor.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The crew watches for that shit, right? Anyone gets in a tussle, they gas us all, tie up the perps. No fuss, no muss.\"\n\n\"Don't watch the showers. No cameras. If you don't pay when the shakedown comes, that's where they get you. Better to go when crew is around.\"\n\n\"No shit,\" Amos said, pretending surprise. \"Haven't seen the shakedown yet.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You will, hombre. Watch Jian and Wendy while I'm out, yeah?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Both eyes, brother.\"\n\nRico was right. After the first rush of the flight, when the initial bustle of people finding bunks, deciding they hated their neighbor, then finding a new one was over, people were mostly settled in. The Belters bunking on Belter decks. The inners on decks split between Earth and Mars." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Amos was on a Belter deck, but he seemed to be the only one mixing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Prison rules for sure.\n\nOn the sixth day, a small group of toughs from a deck up came down the lift together and fanned out through the compartment. With fifty people on the deck, it took them a while to hit everyone. Amos pretended to sleep in his crash couch and watched them out of the corner of his eye." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was a basic scam." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A tough walked up to a passenger, explained about in-flight insurance policies, then took a credit transfer with a cheap disposable terminal. All the threats were implied. Everyone paid. It was a stupid racket, but simple enough that it worked anyway.\n\nOne of the extortionists who looked like he wasn't a day over fourteen headed their direction." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Rico started to pull out his hand terminal, but Amos sat up in bed and waved him off." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To the junior extortionist he said, \"We're all good over here. No one in this corner pays.\"\n\nThe thug stared at him without speaking. Amos smiled back. He didn't particularly want to be gassed and tied up, but if that's how it had to happen, he'd live with it.\n\n\"Dead man,\" the thug said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He put as much macho as he could into it, and Amos respected the commitment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But much scarier people than a skinny pubescent Belter had tried intimidating him. Amos nodded as if considering the threat.\n\n\"So there was this one time I got caught in a reactor crawlspace when a coolant pipe blew,\" he said.\n\n\"What?\" the kid asked, baffled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Even Rico and Jianguo were looking at Amos like he'd lost his mind." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amos shifted, and the couch's gimbals squeaked as they reoriented.\n\n\"See, the coolant is radioactive as fuck. Hits the open air and it vaporizes. Getting it on your skin ain't good for you, but you can survive that. Washes off, mostly. You don't want to breathe it in though. Get a bunch of radioactive particles down in the lungs where you can't get 'em out? Yeah, you pretty much melt from the inside.\"\n\nThe kid glanced over his shoulder, looking for support dealing with the crazy ranting guy. The rest of team extortion was still busy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So,\" Amos continued, leaning forward, \"I had to get into a maintenance airlock, open an emergency locker, and get a rebreather strapped to my face without breathing any of that shit in.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So what? You still—\"\n\n\"The point of this little tale of woe is that I learned some facts about myself.\"\n\n\"Yeah?\" The situation had gotten weird enough that the kid actually seemed interested in finding out.\n\n\"I learned that I can hold my breath for almost two minutes while engaging in stressful physical activity.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So you need to ask yourself, how much damage can I do to you in two minutes before the knockout gas gets me. Because I'm betting it's a lot.\"\n\nThe kid didn't respond. Rico and Jianguo seemed to be holding their breath. Wendy was staring at Amos with a wide-eyed grin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There a problem?\" One of the junior thug's buddies had finally come over to check on him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yeah, he—\"\n\n\"No problem,\" Amos said. \"Just explaining to your associate here that this corner of the room doesn't pay for insurance.\"\n\n\"Says you?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yeah. Says me.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The senior thug looked Amos over, sizing him up. They were about the same height, but Amos outweighed him by a solid twenty-five kilos. Amos stood up and spread himself out a little, making the point.\n\n\"What crew you run with?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "senior thug asked, mistaking him for a rival banger." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Rocinante,\" Amos replied.\n\n\"Never heard of 'em.\"\n\n\"Yeah, you have, but context is everything, ain't it?\"\n\n\"Might be you fucked up, coyo,\" the thug said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Amos gave an expansive Belter shrug of the hands." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I guess we'll find out sooner or later.\"\n\n\"Sooner or later,\" the thug agreed, then grabbed his junior partner and headed off to the rest of his crew. When they took the lift to the next deck, they left junior behind. He openly stared at Amos from across the room, not trying to hide anything." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Amos sighed and grabbed his towel out of his duffel." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Gonna go take a shower.\"\n\n\"You crazy,\" Jianguo said. \"No crew in there. They'll jump you.\"\n\n\"Yep.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then why?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Because,\" Amos said, standing up and throwing the towel over his shoulder, \"I hate waiting.\"\n\nAs soon as Amos walked toward the head with his prominently displayed towel, junior started talking on his hand terminal. Calling the troops.\n\nThe head was five flimsy sheet plastic shower stalls against one bulkhead, and ten vacuum flush toilets against the other. Sinks lined the bulkhead directly across from the door." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The open space in the middle had benches for sitting while you waited your turn in the shower or dressed afterward." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not the best space for hand-to-hand. Lots of hard projections to get mashed into, and the benches were a tripping hazard.\n\nAmos tossed his towel onto a sink and leaned against it, arms crossed. He didn't have to wait long." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A few minutes after junior had made the call he and five of the thugs from team extortion filed into the room." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Only six? I'm a little insulted.\"\n\n\"You not a little anything,\" the oldest one said. The leader then, speaking first. \"But big dies too.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"True that. So how does this go? I'm on your turf, so I'll respect the house rules.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The leader laughed. \"You funny, man. Dead soon, but funny.\" He turned to junior thug and said, \"Your beef, coyo.\"\n\nJunior pulled a shiv out of his pocket. No weapons made it into the passenger compartment through security, but this was a jagged piece of metal torn off of something in the ship then sharpened down. Prison rules, again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm not going to disrespect you,\" Amos said to him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I killed my first guy at about your age. Well, a few guys really, but that's not the issue. I know to take you and that knife seriously.\"\n\n\"Good.\"\n\n\"No,\" Amos said sadly, \"it really isn't.\"\n\nBefore anyone could move, Amos crossed the space between them and grabbed junior's knife arm." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The ship was only at about a third of a g thrust, so Amos yanked the kid off the floor and spun, hitting the edge of a shower stall with the kid's arm." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His body kept traveling and Amos didn't let go, so the arm folded around the impact point. The sound of tendons in his elbow snapping was like hitting wet plywood with a hammer. The knife drifted to the floor from nerveless fingers, and Amos let go of the arm.\n\nThere was a long second where the five thugs stared at the knife on the floor at Amos' feet, and he stared back at them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The emptiness in his belly was gone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The hollow space behind his sternum, gone. His throat had stopped hurting.\n\n\"Who's next?\" he said, flexing his hands, his face in a grin he didn't know he had.\n\nThey came in a rush." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Amos spread his arms and welcomed them like long-lost lovers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You okay?\" Rico asked. He was dabbing at a small cut on Amos' head with an alcohol swab.\n\n\"Mostly.\"\n\n\"They okay?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Less so,\" Amos said, \"but still mostly. Everyone will walk out of there when they wake up.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your next one should be approximately two sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You didn't have to do that for me. I would have paid.\"\n\n\"Didn't,\" Amos said. At Rico's puzzled look he added, \"Didn't do it for you. And Rico? That money goes into the Wendy fund, or I come looking for you too.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Mode:\nCo-writing\n\nLength:\n4 sentences\n\nStyle:\nJames S. A. Corey" }, { "from": "human", "value": "One of Holden's grandfathers had spent his youth riding in rodeos." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All of the pictures they had of him were of a tall, muscular, robust-looking man with a big belt buckle and a cowboy hat. But the man Holden had known when he was a child was thin, pale, and hunched over. As if the years had stripped away everything extraneous and rendered the younger man down into the skeletal older man he became.\n\nIt struck him that Fred Johnson had been rendered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was still a tall man, but the heavy muscles he'd once had were mostly gone, leaving loose skin at the backs of his arms and on his neck." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His hair had gone from mostly black to mostly gray to mostly not there at all. That he could still project an air of absolute authority meant that very little of it had come from his physicality in the first place.\n\nFred had two glasses and a bottle of something dark on the desk when Holden sat. He offered a drink with a small tilt of his head, and Holden accepted with a nod." }, { "from": "human", "value": "While Fred poured, Holden leaned back in his chair with a long sigh, then said, \"Thank you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fred shrugged. \"I was looking for an excuse.\"\n\n\"Not the drink, but thanks for that too. Thank you for helping with the Roci. The money from Avasarala came, but we have damage we didn't know about when I wrote the bill. Without our favored client discount, we'd been in trouble.\"\n\n\"Who says you're getting a discount?\" Fred said as he handed Holden the drink, but he smiled as he said it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He sank into his own chair with a grunt." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden hadn't realized coming in how much he was dreading the conversation. Even if he knew it was just good business negotiation, it felt like asking for a handout. That the answer had been yes was good. That Fred hadn't made him squirm about it was even better." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Made him feel more like he was sitting with a friend." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You look old, Fred.\"\n\n\"I feel old. But it's better than the alternative.\"\n\nHolden raised his glass. \"Those who aren't with us.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Those who aren't with us,\" Fred repeated, and they both drank." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That list is getting longer every time I see you.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry about Bull, but I think he may have saved the solar system. From what I knew of him, he'd think that was pretty kick-ass.\"\n\n\"Bull,\" Fred said, raising his glass again.\n\n\"And Sam,\" Holden added, raising his own." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm leaving soon, so I wanted to check in with you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Wait. Leaving? Like leaving leaving, or like Bull and Sam leaving?\"\n\n\"You're not rid of me yet. I need to get back out to Medina Station,\" Fred said. He poured himself a little more bourbon, frowning down at the glass like it was a delicate operation. \"That's where all the action is.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Really? I thought I heard something about the UN secretary-general and the Martian prime minister having a sit-down. I thought you'd be heading to that.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They can talk all they want. The real power's in the geography. Medina's in the hub where all the rings connect. That's where the power is going to be for a good long time.\"\n\n\"How long do you think the UN and Mars keep letting you run that show? You have a head start, but they have a bunch of really dangerous ships to throw at you if they decide they want your stuff.\"\n\n\"Avasarala and I are back channeling a lot of this. We'll keep it from getting out of hand.\" Fred paused to take a long drink." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But we have two big problems.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden put down the glass. He was starting to get the sense that him asking for—and getting—the discount on repairs might not actually have been the end of the negotiation after all.\n\n\"Mars,\" Holden said.\n\n\"Yes, Mars is dying,\" Fred agreed with a nod." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No stopping that. But we also have a bunch of OPA extremists making noise. The Callisto attack last year was their work. The water riot on Pallas Station. And there have been other things. Piracy's up, and more of those ships have a split circle painted on them than I'd like.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'd think any problems they had would be solved by everyone getting their own free planet.\"\n\nFred took another pull of his drink before he answered. \"Their position is that the Belter culture is one adapted to space. The prospect of new colonies with air and gravity reduces the economic base that Belters depend on. Forcing everyone to go down a gravity well is the moral equivalent of genocide.\"\n\nHolden blinked. \"Free planets are genocide?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They argue that being adapted to low g isn't a disability, it's who they are. They don't want to go live on a planet, so we're killing them off.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Okay, I can see not wanting to spend six months pumped full of steroids and bone growth stimulators. But how are we killing them?\"\n\n\"For one thing, not all of them can tolerate that. But that's not really the point. It's that this,\" Fred said, waving at the space station around them, \"is pretty much over once everyone has a planet. For generations, at the minimum. Maybe forever. No reason to dump resources into the outer planets or mining the Belt when we can find the same stuff down a well and get free air and water to boot.\"\n\n\"So once they don't have anything anyone wants, they'll just starve to death out here?\"\n\n\"That's how they see it,\" Fred said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He and Holden shared a quiet moment while they drank." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yeah,\" Holden finally said. \"Well, they've got a point. But I don't know what they can do about it.\"\n\n\"There are people trying to figure that out. But it's ramping up.\"\n\n\"Callisto and Pallas.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And more recently they ran an attack on Earth with an old mothballed heavy freighter.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden laughed. \"I haven't read that Earth got bombed, so that must not have worked.\"\n\n\"Well, it was a suicide attack, and the suicide half worked. The UN fleet in high orbit patrol reduced the freighter to gas a tenth of an AU from the planet. No damage, not much press. But it's possible those were all preliminary. That they're planning some big showy statement about how the Belt can't be ignored. The thing that scares the shit out of me is that no one can figure out what it will be.\"\n\nThe gently sloping main corridor of the Tycho Station habitation ring was filled with workers. Holden didn't pay much attention to the station schedules, but he assumed the crowds passing him meant it was shift change." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Either that, or an orderly evacuation with no alarms sounding." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yo! Holden,\" someone said as they passed.\n\n\"Hey,\" Holden said, not sure who he was saying it to.\n\nCelebrity was not something he'd figured out how to handle, yet. People would point, stare, whisper to each other when he walked by." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He knew it generally wasn't intended as insult." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Just the surprise people felt when someone they'd only seen on video screens before suddenly appeared in the real world. Most of the murmured conversations, when he could overhear them, consisted of Is that James Holden? I think that's James Holden.\n\n\"Holden,\" a woman walking toward him down the corridor said, \"what's up?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "There were fifteen thousand people on Tycho, working in three different shifts." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was like a small city in space. He couldn't remember if the woman speaking to him was someone he should know or not, so he just smiled and said, \"Hey, how's it going?\"\n\n\"Same same,\" she said as they passed.\n\nWhen he reached the door to his apartment it was a relief that the only person inside was Naomi." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She sat at the dining table, a steaming mug of tea in front of her, a distant look in her eyes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden couldn't tell if she was melancholy or solving a complex engineering problem in her head. Those looks were confusingly similar.\n\nHe pulled himself a cup of water out of the kitchen tap, then sat across from her waiting for her to speak first. She looked up through her hair at him and gave him a sad smile." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Melancholy, then, not engineering." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hey,\" she said.\n\n\"Hey.\"\n\n\"So I have a thing.\"\n\n\"Is it a thing I can fix?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden asked. \"Point me at the thing.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Naomi sipped at her tea, buying time. Not a good sign, because it meant this was something she wasn't sure how to talk about. Holden felt his stomach muscles tightening.\n\n\"That's kind of the problem, actually,\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I need to go do something, and I can't have you involved in it. At all. Because if you are, you'll try to fix it and you can't do that.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't understand,\" Holden said.\n\n\"When I come back, I promise full and complete disclosure.\"\n\n\"Wait. Come back? Where are you going?\"\n\n\"Ceres, to start,\" Naomi said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But it may be more than that. I'm not sure how long I'll be gone.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Naomi,\" Holden said, reaching across the table to take her hand. \"You're scaring the shit out of me right now. There's no way you can jet off to Ceres without me. Especially if it's something bad, and I'm getting the feeling it's something really bad.\"\n\nNaomi put down her tea, and gripped his hand in both of hers. The fingers that had been holding the mug were warm, the others cool." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Except that is what's happening. There's no negotiation on this. So, either I go because you understand and will give me the space to handle this on my own, or I go because we've broken up and you no longer get any vote in what I do.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Wait, what?\"\n\n\"Have we broken up?\" Naomi asked. She squeezed his hand.\n\n\"No, of course not.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then thank you for trusting me enough to let me handle this on my own.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Is that what I just said?\" Holden asked.\n\n\"Yeah, pretty much.\" Naomi stood up. She had a packed duffel on the floor next to her chair that Holden hadn't seen. \"I'll be in touch when I can, but if I can't, don't read anything into it. Okay?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Okay,\" Holden replied. The whole scene had taken on a vaguely dreamlike feel." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Naomi, standing at the end of the table holding her olive-green duffel bag, seemed very far away. The room felt bigger than it was, or else Holden had shrunk. He stood up too, and vertigo made him dizzy.\n\nNaomi dropped the duffel on the table and wrapped both arms around him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her chin was against his forehead when she whispered, \"I'll be back. I promise.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Okay,\" he said again. His brain had lost the ability to form any other words.\n\nAfter one last tight squeeze, she picked up her bag and walked to the door.\n\n\"Wait!\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She looked back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I love you.\"\n\n\"I love you too,\" she said, and then was gone.\n\nHolden sat back down, because it was that or sink to the floor. He finally pulled himself out of the chair a minute or an hour later; it was hard to tell." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had almost called Amos to join him for a drink when he remembered Amos and Alex were gone too." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Everyone was.\n\nIt was strange how nothing could change while everything did. He still got up every morning, brushed his teeth, put on a fresh set of clothes, and ate breakfast. He arrived at the repair docks by nine a.m. local time, put on a vacuum suit, and joined the crew working on the Rocinante." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For eight hours he'd climb through the skeletal ribs of the ship, attaching conduit, installing replacement maneuvering thrusters, patching holes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He didn't know how to do everything that needed to be done, but he wanted to, so he shadowed the technicians doing the really complicated work.\n\nIt all felt very normal, very routine, almost like still having his old life.\n\nBut then he'd return to his apartment eight hours later and no one would be there. He was truly alone for the first time in years." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Amos wouldn't come by asking him to hit a bar." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alex wouldn't watch the video streams sitting on his couch and making sarcastic comments to the screen. Naomi wouldn't be there to ask about his day and compare notes on how the repairs were coming. The rooms even smelled empty.\n\nIt wasn't something about himself he'd ever had to face before, but Holden was coming to realize how much he needed family." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He'd grown up with eight parents, and a seemingly endless supply of grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When he'd left Earth for the Navy, he'd spent four years at the academy with roommates and classmates and girlfriends. Even after his dishonorable discharge, he'd gone straight to work for Pur'N'Kleen on the Canterbury and a whole new loose-knit family of coworkers and friends. Or if not family, at least people.\n\nThe only two people he'd been close with on Tycho were Fred, so busy with his political machinations he barely had time to breathe, and Sam, who'd died in the slow zone years ago." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The new Sam—Sakai—was a competent engineer and seemed to take fixing his ship seriously, but had expressed no interest in any association outside of that." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So Holden spent a lot of time in bars.\n\nThe Blauwe Blome was too noisy and too filled with people who knew Naomi but not him. The places close to the docks were full of boisterous workers coming off shift and picking a fight with a famous guy seemed like a great way to blow off steam. Anyplace else with more than four people in it at a time turned into line up to have your picture taken with James Holden then ask him personal questions for an hour." }, { "from": "human", "value": "So, he found a small restaurant nestled in a side corridor between a residential section and a strip of commercial shopping outlets." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It specialized in what the Belters were calling Italian food and had a small bar in a back room that everyone seemed to ignore.\n\nHolden could sit at a tiny table skimming the latest news on his hand terminal, reading messages, and finally check out all the books he'd downloaded over the last six years. The bar served the same food as the restaurant out front, and while it was not something anyone from Earth would have mistaken for Italian, it was edible. The cocktails were mediocre and cheap." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It might almost have been tolerable if Naomi hadn't seemingly fallen out of the universe." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alex sent regular updates about where he was and what he was up to. Amos had his terminal automatically send a message letting Holden know his flight had landed on Luna, and then New York. From Naomi, nothing. She still existed, or at least her hand terminal did. The messages he sent arrived somewhere." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He never got a failed connection from the network." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But the successfully received message was his only reply.\n\nAfter a couple weeks of his new bad Italian food and cheap cocktails routine, his terminal finally rang with an incoming voice request. He knew it couldn't be from Naomi. The light lag made a live connection unworkable for any two people not living on the same station." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But he still pulled the terminal out of his pocket so fast that he fumbled it across the room." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The bartender—Chip—said, \"Had a few too many of my margaritas?\"\n\n\"The first one was too many,\" Holden replied, then climbed under the booth looking for the terminal. \"And calling that a margarita should be illegal.\"\n\n\"It's as margarita as it gets with rice wine and lime flavor concentrate,\" Chip said, sounding vaguely hurt." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hello?\" Holden yelled at the terminal, mashing the touch screen to open the connection. \"Hello?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hi, Jim?\" a female voice said. It didn't sound anything like Naomi.\n\n\"Who is this?\" he asked, then cracked his head on the edge of the table climbing back out and added, \"Dammit!\"\n\n\"Monica,\" the voice on the other end said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Monica Stuart? Did I catch you at a bad time?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sort of busy right now, Monica,\" Holden said. Chip rolled his eyes. Holden flipped him off, and the bartender started mixing him another drink. Probably as punishment for the insult." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I understand,\" Monica said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But I have something I'd love to run past you. Is there any chance we can get together? Dinner, a drink, anything?\"\n\n\"I'm afraid I'm on Tycho Station for the foreseeable future, Monica. The Roci is getting a full refit right now. So—\"\n\n\"Oh, I know. I'm on Tycho too. That's why I called.\"\n\n\"Right,\" Holden said. \"Of course you are.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Is tonight good?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Chip put the drink on a tray, and a waiter from the restaurant out front popped in to carry it away. Chip saw him looking at it and mouthed Want another? at him. The prospect of another night of what the restaurant laughably called lasagna and enough of Chip's \"margaritas\" to kill the aftertaste felt like slow death.\n\nThe truth was, he was bored and lonely." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Monica Stuart was a journalist and had serious problems about only showing up when she wanted something." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She always had an ulterior motive. But finding out what she wanted and then saying no would kill an evening in a way that wasn't exactly like every other evening since Naomi left. \"Yeah, okay Monica, dinner sounds great. Not Italian.\"\n\nThey ate salmon sushi from fish grown in tanks on the station." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was outrageously expensive, but being paid for by Monica's expense account." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden indulged himself until his clothes stopped fitting.\n\nMonica ate sparingly, with small precise movements of her chopsticks, almost picking up the rice one kernel at a time. She ignored the wasabi altogether. She'd aged some too, since Holden had last seen her in person." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Unlike Fred, the extra years looked good on her, adding a sense of experience and gravitas to her video-star looks." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They'd started the evening talking about little things: how the ship repairs were going, what had happened to the team she'd taken on the Rocinante back when the Ring was a new thing, where Alex and Amos and Naomi had gone. He'd found himself talking more than he meant to. He didn't dislike Monica, but she wasn't someone he particularly trusted either. But she knew him, and they'd traveled together, and even more than good food, he was hungry to talk to someone he actually sort of knew." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So there's this weird thing,\" she said, then dabbed at the corners of her mouth with a napkin." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Weirder than eating raw fish on a space station with one of the solar system's most famous reporters?\"\n\n\"You're flattering me.\"\n\n\"It's habit. I don't mean anything by it.\"\n\nMonica rooted around in the satchel she'd brought and pulled out a flimsy roll-out video screen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She pushed plates out of the way and flattened the screen out on the table." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When it came on, it showed the image of a heavy freighter, blocky and thick, heading toward one of the rings inside the slow zone. \"Watch this.\"\n\nThe picture sprang into motion, the freighter burning toward a ring gate at low thrust. He assumed it was the one that led from the solar system to the slow zone and Medina Station, but it could have been any of the others. They all looked pretty much the same." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When the ship passed through the gate, the image flickered and danced as the recording equipment was bombarded with high-energy particles and magnetic flux." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The image stabilized, and the ship was no longer visible. That didn't mean much. Light passing through the gates had always behaved oddly, bending the images like refraction in water. The video ended.\n\n\"I've seen that one before,\" Holden said." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "The user will write a bit then you need to write around four sentences continuing directly from the user's text. Try to mimic the style of James S. A. Corey.Produce four sentences using the prose and structure of James S. A. Corey every time its your turn using what the user wrote as a seed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hey, Bobbie,\" Alex said to his hand terminal's camera." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm gonna be downstairs in Mariner for a week or two, stayin' with a cousin. I was wondering if you wanted to get lunch while I'm in town.\"\n\nHe ended the message and sent it, put his hand terminal back in his pocket, fidgeted, took it out again. He started paging back through his contacts, looking for another distraction. With every minute, he came closer to the thin exosphere of home." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were already inside the orbit of Phobos and the now invisibly thin scatter of gravel that people called the Deimos Ring." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The drop ship didn't have screens, but from here he'd have been able to see the massive steel of Hecate Base spilling up the side of Olympus Mons. He'd been a boot there after he joined the Navy.\n\nMariner Valley had been one of the first large-scale settlements on Mars. Five linked neighborhoods that burrowed into the sides of the vast canyons, huddling under the stone and regolith." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The network of bridges and tubes that linked them were called Haizhe because the westernmost bridge structures and the trailing tubes made a figure like a cartoon jellyfish." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The later high-speed line to Londres Nova was a spear in the jellyfish's crown.\n\nThree waves of Chinese and Indian colonists dug deep into the dry soil there, eking out a thin, perilous existence, pushing the limits of human habitation and ability. His family had been one of them. He'd been an only child to older parents." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had no nieces or nephews, but the variety of Kamal cousins in the Valley were enough that he could go from one guest room to another for months without wearing out his welcome at any one of them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The drop ship shuddered, the atmosphere outside thick enough now to cause turbulence. The acceleration alarm chimed pleasantly and a recorded voice instructed him and the other passengers to check the straps on their gel couches and put any objects more than two kilos into the lockers set into the wall at their sides. The braking burn would commence in thirty seconds, and reach a maximum burn of three gs. The automated concern made that sound like a lot, but he supposed some folks would be impressed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He put his hand terminal in the locker, cycled it closed, and waited for the braking rockets to push him back into his couch." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In one of the other compartments, a baby was crying. The countdown tones began, a music of converging intervals distinguishable in any language. When the tones resolved into a gentle and reassuring chord, the burn kicked in, pressing him into the gel. He dozed as the ship rattled and shook." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The atmosphere of Mars wasn't thick enough to use it for aerobraking on their steep descent path, but it could still generate a lot of heat." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Half-awake, he ran through the math of landing, the numbers growing more and more surreal as the light sleep washed over him. If something had gone wrong—a change in the burn, an impact shudder passing through the ship, a shift in the couch's gimbals—he'd have been awake and alert in an instant. But nothing happened, so nothing happened. As homecomings went, it wasn't bad." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The port proper was at the base of the valley." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Six and a half kilometers of stone rose up from the pads, the strip of sky above them hardly more than thirty degrees from rim to rim. The processing station was one of the oldest buildings in Mariner, its massive clear dome built with the dual purposes of blocking radiation and providing a view that would impress with its scale. The canyons ran to the east, rugged and craggy and beautiful. Lights glittered from the canyon's sides where the neighborhoods impinged out from the rock, the homes of the insanely wealthy trading the safety of deep stone for the status of an actual exterior window." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A transport flier passed, hugging low to the ground where the relatively thick air gave its gossamer wings a little more purchase." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Once upon a time, the data said, Mars had been the home of its own biosphere. Rain had fallen here. Rivers had flowed. Not, perhaps, in the geologic eyeblink of human history, but once. And would, the terraformers promised, again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Not in their lifetimes or their children's, but one day." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alex waited in the customs queue, looking up. The pull of the planet, only about one-third g, felt strange. No matter what the math said, thrust gravity felt different than being down a well. Between the magnificence of the canyons and the eeriness of his weight, Alex felt the anxiety growing in his chest." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was here. He was home." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The man processing the arriving travelers wore a thick mustache, white with a tinge of red. His eyes were bloodshot and his expression glum.\n\n\"Business or pleasure?\"\n\n\"Neither one,\" Alex drawled, \"I'm here to see the ex-wife.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The man gave a quick smile." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That going to be a business meeting, or pleasure?\"\n\n\"Let's call it not-business,\" Alex said.\n\nThe processor stroked the screen of his terminal, nodded toward the camera. As the system confirmed that he was who he claimed to be, Alex wondered why he'd said that." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He hadn't said that Tali was a shrew, he hadn't insulted her, but he'd leaned on the assumption for a quick joke." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He felt like she deserved better from him. Probably she did.\n\n\"'Joy your stay,\" the processing man said, and Alex was free to enter the world he'd left.\n\nHis cousin Min stood in the waiting area. She was ten years younger than him, the last vestiges of youth falling from her and the first comfortable heft of middle age creeping in." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her smile belonged to a little girl he'd known once." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hey there, podner,\" she said, the Mariner drawl probably half a degree thicker than it normally was. \"What brings you round these parts?\"\n\n\"More sentiment than sense,\" Alex said, opening his arms. They embraced for a moment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You got any luggage?\" Min asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Traveling light.\"\n\n\"Fair enough. I've got a cart down at the front.\"\n\nAlex hoisted an eyebrow. \"You didn't need to do that.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They're cheaper than they used to be. The kids aren't back from lower U for another four hours. You got anything you want to do before we've got them underfoot?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The only two things I've been looking forward to were seeing people and a bowl of Hassan's noodles.\"\n\nThe look of embarrassment passed over Min's face and vanished again in an eyeblink. \"There's a great noodle shop over on the south face. Garlic sauce that'll knock you sideways. But Hassan packed it in about four years ago.\"\n\n\"Ah. No, it's all right. The thing about Hassan's wasn't that they were good.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well, now that's truth.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's just that they were his.\"\n\nThe cart was a common electric, wider and tougher than the ones they used on stations. The tires were clear polymer that wouldn't streak the floors of the corridors. Alex slid into the passenger's seat, Min taking the controls." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They talked about small, domestic things—who in the family was getting married, who was getting divorced, who was moving and where." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A surprising number of Min's siblings were on ships headed for the Ring, and though she didn't say it outright, he had the sense that she was more interested in hearing about what he'd seen on the other side of it than in him.\n\nThey passed down a long access tunnel and then across one of the linking bridges to Bunker Hill. It was the neighborhood where Alex had grown up. His father's ashes were in the crypt at the synagogue, his mother's had been scattered over the Ophir Chasmata." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The first girl he'd ever kissed had lived in rooms two corridors down from the place Min's family was in now." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His best friend growing up had been an ethnic Chinese boy named Johnny Zhou who'd lived with an older brother and sister on the other side of the canyon.\n\nDriving along the corridors now, the memories flooded him. The curve of the corridor where the Lone Star Sharabaghar had held weekend dance and drinking contests. The time when he was nine that he'd been caught stealing gum from the bodega at the corner of Dallas corridor and Nu Ren Jie." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Getting violently sick in the bathrooms at the Alamo Mall Toll Plaza." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A thousand things like them probably happened every day. The only thing that made Alex's experiences different at all was that they were his.\n\nHe didn't recognize for a while what was making him uncomfortable. Like the difference between thrust and planetary gravity, the emptiness of the corridors was almost too subtle to notice at first." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Even as Min drove deeper into the neighborhood, it was the lights he noticed, and then the locks." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All along the corridors, scattered like a handful of thrown sand, rooms and businesses were closed, the windows dark. That in itself didn't mean much, but Alex noticed first one, then a few, then—like flowers in a meadow—a sudden spread of the clunky external locks that landlords and security put on doors when the units weren't in use. He kept up his end of the banter with his cousin, but he started counting as they drove. In the next hundred doors—homes, businesses, maintenance closets, schools—twenty-one weren't in use." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As Min pulled the cart to a halt at her own doorway, he mentioned it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yup,\" she said with a lightness that seemed forced. \"Ghost world.\"\n\nSomewhere in the years he'd been gone, Talissa had moved. The old rooms they'd had together were in Ballard, tucked in between the naval station and the old water processing plant. According to the local directories, she was in Galveston Shallow now." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It wasn't the neighborhood he'd imagined for her, but things changed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Maybe she'd come into money. He hoped so. Anything that had made her life better, he was in favor of.\n\nThe corridors of Galveston Shallow were wide. Half the light came down shafts from the surface, the actual light of the sun strung through a series of transparent shielding to keep the radiation to a minimum." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The wide, sloping ceilings gave the place a sense of being natural, almost organic, and the smell of the mechanical air recyclers was nearly hidden by the rich, loamy scents of growing plants." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Wide swaths of greenery filled the common areas with devil's ivy and snake plant. The sorts of things that cranked out a lot of oxygen. The moisture in the air was strange and soothing. This, Alex realized, was the dream of Mars made real, if small." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The terraforming project would make the whole planet like this someday, if it worked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Flora and fauna and air and water. Someday, centuries after he was gone, people might walk on the surface of Mars, surrounded by plants like these. Might feel the real sun against their skins.\n\nHe was distracting himself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He checked his position on his hand terminal against Tali's new address." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His heart was going faster than usual and he wasn't sure what to do with his hands. He wondered what she'd say, how she'd look at him. Anger or joy would both be justified. Still, he hoped for joy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His plan—find the place, gather himself, and ring the bell—failed because as soon as he turned the last curve to her rooms, he saw her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was kneeling in among the plants in the common space, a trowel in one hand. She wore thick canvas work pants smeared with soil and a pale brown shirt with a wealth of pockets and loops for gardener's tools, most of them empty. Her hair was a rich brown, so free of gray it had to be dyed. Her face was wider, thicker at the cheeks." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Time had been kind to her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She wasn't beautiful. Maybe she'd never been beautiful, but she was handsome and she was Talissa.\n\nAlex felt a smile twitch at his lips, born more from anxiety than pleasure. He pushed his hands into his pockets and ambled over, trying to seem casual. Tali looked up from her work, then down." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her shoulders tensed and she looked up again, staring in his direction." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He lifted a hand, palm out.\n\n\"Alex?\" she said as he reached the edge of the garden space.\n\n\"Hey, Tali,\" he said.\n\nWhen she spoke, the only thing in her voice was a flat disbelief." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What are you doing here?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I had some downtime while my ship's getting fixed up. Thought I'd come back to the old stompin' ground. Touch base with folks. You know.\"\n\nTalissa nodded, her mouth taking the uneven curl that meant she was thinking hard. Maybe he should have reached out with a message before he came. Only it had seemed to him this was a meeting that should be face-to-face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well,\" she said. \"All right.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't want to interrupt. But, maybe when you're done, I could buy you a cup of tea?\"\n\nTali rolled back onto her heels and tilted her head. \"Alex, stop it. What are you doing here?\"\n\n\"Nothing,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No. Something. You're here for something.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Really, I'm not. I just—\"\n\n\"Don't,\" she said, conversationally. \"Don't bullshit me. No one just shows up at their ex-wife's house out of the blue because they thought a cup of tea sounded nice.\"\n\n\"Well, all right,\" Alex said. \"But I thought...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tali shook her head and turned back to digging through the black soil." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Thought what? That we'd get a drink together, talk about old times, get a little maudlin? Maybe fall into bed for nostalgia's sake?\"\n\n\"What? No. I'm not—\"\n\n\"Please don't make me be the bad guy here. I have a rich, full, complex life that you chose not to be a part of. I have a lot on my plate just now that I don't actually want to share with you, and comforting the guy who walked out on me umpteen years ago because he's... I don't know, having his midlife crisis? It's not my priority, and it's not something that's fair to expect of me.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" Alex said. His belly felt like he'd swallowed a tungsten slug." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His face felt flushed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She sighed, looking up at him. Her expression wasn't cruel. Wasn't even unkind. Tired, maybe.\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We're a couple people who used to know each other. At this point, we're maybe even a little less than that.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I understand. I'm sorry.\"\n\n\"I didn't put you in this position. You put me in it. I was just working with my plants.\"\n\n\"I know. I didn't mean to discomfort you. Not now, and not before.\"\n\n\"Not before? Before, when you walked out on me?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It wasn't what I meant to have happen, and it wasn't about you or—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She shook her head sharply, grimacing as she did.\n\n\"No. Not going to do this. Alex? We're talking about the past. That's the conversation I just said I don't want to have. All right?\"\n\n\"All right.\"\n\n\"Okay.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Sorry if things are... rough.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll be fine,\" she said.\n\nHe lifted his hand again, the same gesture he'd made walking up to her, but with a different meaning now. He turned. He walked away. The humiliation was like a weight on his chest." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The urge to turn back, to have one last look in case maybe she was looking at him was almost too much to resist." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He resisted it.\n\nShe was right. It was why he'd appeared on her doorstep without warning. Because he'd known that if she said no, he had to respect that, and somewhere in the back of his mind, he'd thought that if they were there, breathing the same air, it would be harder for her to turn him away. And maybe it had been." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Maybe what he'd done was actually make it worse for her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The first bar he came to was named Los Compadres, and the air inside it smelled of hops and overheated cheese. The man behind the bar looked barely old enough to drink, his sallow skin set off by ruddy hair and a mustache that could generously be called aspirational. Alex took a high stool and ordered a whiskey.\n\n\"Little early in the day for celebration,\" the barkeep said as he poured. \"What's the occasion?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It turns out,\" Alex said, exaggerating his Mariner Valley drawl just a little for the effect, \"that sometimes I'm an asshole.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hard truth.\"\n\n\"It is.\"\n\n\"You expect drinking alone to improve that?\"\n\n\"Nope. Just observing the traditions of alienated masculine pain.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Fair enough,\" the barkeep said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Want some food with it?\"\n\n\"I'd look at a menu.\"\n\nHalf an hour later, he was only halfway through the drink. The bar was starting to fill up, which meant maybe twenty people in a space that would have taken seventy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Ranchero music played from hidden speakers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The thought of going back to his cousin's and pretending to be cheerful was only a half a degree worse than continuing to sit in the bar, waiting for his self-pity to fade. He kept trying to think about what he could have said or done differently that would have made any difference. So far the best he'd come up with was Don't walk out on your wife, which was about the same as saying Be someone else.\n\nHis hand terminal buzzed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He pulled it up." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A written message tagged from Bobbie Draper.\n\nHEY, ALEX. SORRY IT TOOK SO LONG TO GET BACK TO YOU. THINGS ARE WEIRDLY BUSY. YES, IF YOU'RE IN TOWN, I'D LIKE TO MEET WITH YOU." }, { "from": "human", "value": "MAY HAVE A FAVOR TO ASK, IF YOU'RE UP FOR IT. SWING BY ANYTIME." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her address was in Londres Nova. Alex tapped it, and the screen shifted to a map. He wasn't far from the express tube. He could be out there by supper." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He touched the bar top with his hand terminal, paid for the drink, and stretched." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Now write approximately five sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the corridor, a cart had broken down, and half a dozen maintenance workers were clumped around it. A woman with skin the color of milk walking past did a subtle double take when Alex nodded. Wondering, he guessed, whether he was the pilot for James Holden. He walked on before she could ask the question.\n\nYeah. It would be good to see Bobbie." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "The user will write a bit then you need to write around four sentences continuing directly from the user's text. Try to mimic the style of James S. A. Corey.Produce four sentences using the prose and structure of James S. A. Corey every time its your turn using what the user wrote as a seed." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The spaceport had been built a kilometer outside Lovell City a century before. Now, it was the geographical heart of Luna's largest metropolis, though you wouldn't have been able to tell that from space. Luna boasted very few actual domes. The constant rain of micro-meteors turned a dome into a randomly firing atmosphere ejection port." }, { "from": "human", "value": "So as the shuttle descended, the only visible signs of the city were the occasional surface access points and the spaceport itself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The docks weren't the originals, but they were still damned old. The decking had all been white once. Gray pathways marked where years of boots and carts had worn down tracks. The union office looked down over the long hall through pockmarked windows, and the air had the gunpowder stink of lunar dust." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The extortion boys showed up at the disembarking area in force to stare Amos down as he left the ship." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He smiled and waved and kept Rico, Jianguo, and Wendy close to him until they were out of the long flight terminal.\n\n\"Hermano,\" Rico said, shaking hands with Amos. \"Where you headed to now?\"\n\n\"Down the well,\" Amos said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You fellas take care of that little girl, right? And good luck with the new jobs.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jianguo hugged Wendy close. \"We will. Xie xie usted ha hecho.\"\n\nRico and Jianguo stared at him like they expected something else, but Amos had nothing left to say so he turned and walked away toward the terminal for planetary drops. The waiting area was housed in a large false dome designed to impress the tourists." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The whole thing was underground, but the massive chamber was covered floor to ceiling with ultra-high-definition video screens showing the outside view." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The hills and craters of the lunar surface stretched off in all directions, but it was the blue-and-green half-circle hanging in the sky that drew the most attention. It was beautiful at this distance. The cities nothing but firefly twinkles on the dark side. Where the sun struck the Earth, almost nothing man had made was visible from the lunar orbit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The planet looked clean, unspoiled." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was a pretty lie.\n\nSeemed like a fact of the universe that the closer you got to anything, the worse it looked. Take the most beautiful person in the solar system, zoom in on them at the right magnification and they were an apocalyptic cratered landscape crawling with horrors. That's what the Earth was." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A shining jewel from space, up close a blasted landscape covered with mites living by devouring the dying." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"One ticket to New York,\" he said to the automated kiosk.\n\nThe drop to Earth was short enough that no one tried to run an extortion racket on him, so that was nice. The flight itself was bumpy and nauseating, so that was less nice. One thing about space: it might be a big radiation-filled vacuum that'd kill you in a heartbeat if you weren't paying attention, but at least it never had turbulence." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There weren't any windows on the shuttle, but the front of the cabin had a big viewscreen showing the descent through the forward external cameras." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "New York grew from a gray smudge to a visible cityscape. The spaceport on the artificial land mass south of Staten Island went from a silver postage stamp to a vast network of landing pads and launching rails surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean just past the entrance to Lower New York Bay. Tiny toy ships of suitable size for bobbing in a child's bath grew into the vast solar-powered cargo ships that crawled back and forth across the oceans. Everything visible on the descent was clean and technologically sleek." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That was a lie too." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "By the time the shuttle landed he was ready to get into the grunge of the city if only to see something that was honest about itself. When he stood up in the full gravity of Earth to walk off the shuttle, he wanted it to feel wrong, oppressive after all his years away. But the truth was that something deep in him, maybe down at the genetic level, rejoiced. His ancestors had spent a few billion years building all their internal structures around the constant of one g downward pull, and his organism breathed a sigh of relief at the amazing rightness of it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Thank you for flying with us,\" a pleasantly nondescript face said from the video screen next to the exit." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The voice was carefully crafted to have no specific regional dialect or obvious gender markers. \"We hope to see you again soon.\"\n\n\"Go fuck yourself,\" Amos said to the screen with a smile.\n\n\"Thank you, sir,\" the face replied, actually seeming to look him in the eye." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"TransWorld Interplanetary takes your comments and suggestions seriously.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A short tube ride from the landing pad to the spaceport visitors center later and he was in the customs line to enter New York City and officially walk on Earth soil for the first time in twenty-some years. The visitor center stank of too many bodies pressed too tightly together. But under it there was a faint, not-unpleasant odor of rotting seaweed and salt. The ocean, just outside, seeped into everything." }, { "from": "human", "value": "An olfactory reminder to everyone passing through the Ellis Island of the space age that Earth was absolutely unique to the human race." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The birthplace of everything. The salt water flowing in everyone's veins first pulled from the same oceans right outside the building. The seas had been around longer than humans, had helped create them, and then when they were all dead, it'd take their water back without a thought.\n\nThat, at least, wasn't a lie." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Citizenship, guild, or union docs,\" the bored-looking man at the customs kiosk said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It appeared to be the only job left in the building not done by a robot. Computers, it seemed, could be programmed to do almost anything but sense when someone was up to no good. Amos had no doubt a full body scanner was looking him over, measuring his heart rate, his skin moisture levels, his respiration. But all of those things could be faked with drugs or training." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The human behind the counter would be looking to see if he just seemed wrong." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amos smiled at him. \"Sure,\" he said, then pulled up his UN citizenship records on his hand terminal and the customs officer's computer grabbed them and compared them to the database. The officer read his screen, his face betraying nothing. Amos hadn't been home in almost three decades." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He waited to be directed off to the additional security line for a more thorough search." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It wouldn't be the first unfamiliar finger up his ass.\n\n\"Okay,\" the customs officer said. \"Have a good one.\"\n\n\"You do the same,\" Amos replied, not able to fully keep the surprise off his face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The customs guy waved an impatient hand at him, telling him to move along." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The person waiting behind him in line cleared their throat loudly.\n\nAmos shrugged and moved across the yellow line that legally separated Earth from the rest of the universe.\n\n\"Amos Burton?\" someone said. An older woman in an inexpensive gray suit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was the sort of thing mid-level bureaucrats and cops wore, so he wasn't surprised when the next thing she said was, \"You need to come with us now.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amos smiled at her and considered his options. Half a dozen other cops were converging on him in the tactical body armor high-risk entry teams wore. Three of them had tasers out, the other three semiautomatic handguns. Well, at least they were taking him seriously." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That was sort of flattering." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amos raised his hands over his head. \"You got me, Sheriff. What are the charges?\"\n\nThe plainclothes officer didn't respond, and two members of the tactical team pulled his hands behind his back and cuffed him.\n\n\"I'm wondering,\" Amos said, \"because I just got here. Any crimes I'm going to commit are theoretical at this point.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Shush now,\" the woman said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're not under arrest. We're going to take a ride.\"\n\n\"And if I don't want to?\"\n\n\"Then you'll be under arrest.\"\n\nThe port authority police station was pretty much exactly like every other police station Amos had ever spent time in." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sometimes the walls were industrial taupe; sometimes they were government green." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But the concrete walls and glass-fronted offices looking out over a crowded bull pen of desks would have been just as comfortable on Ceres as it was on Earth. Even the burnt-coffee smell was the same.\n\nThe plainclothes cop took him past the desk sergeant with a nod and deposited him in a small room that didn't look like the interrogation rooms he was used to. Other than a table and four chairs, the only other furnishing was a massive video screen covering most of one wall." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Plainclothes sat him in a chair across from it, then left the room, closing the door behind her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Huh,\" Amos said, wondering if this was some new interrogation technique in the cop playbook. He leaned back in the chair to get comfortable, maybe try to catch some shut-eye after the nauseating shuttle ride.\n\n\"What is this? Nap time? Someone wake him the fuck up,\" a familiar voice said.\n\nChrisjen Avasarala was on the screen, looking down on him, her face four times its real size on the giant monitor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Either I'm not in any trouble, or I'm in all of it,\" Amos said with a grin." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How you doin', Chrissie?\"\n\n\"Good to see you too. Call me that again and I'll have an officer beat you gently with a cattle prod,\" Avasarala replied, though Amos thought he caught a hint of a smile on her face.\n\n\"Sure thing, Madam Uber Secretary. This a social call, or...?\"\n\n\"Why,\" Avasarala said, all traces of humor gone, \"are you on Earth?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Came to pay respects to a friend who died. Did I forget to file a form or something?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Who? Who died?\"\n\n\"None of your fucking business,\" Amos said with a false amiability.\n\n\"Holden didn't send you?\"\n\n\"Nope,\" Amos replied, feeling the anger start to warm his belly like a slug of good scotch." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He tested the restraints, calculating his odds of getting out of them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Of fighting his way past a room full of cops. It made him smile without realizing it.\n\n\"If you're here for Murtry, he isn't on Earth right now,\" Avasarala said. \"He claims you beat him half to death in the Rocinante's airlock during the flight back. Do you mean to finish the job?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Murtry swung first, so technically, that was self-defense. And if I'd wanted him dead, don't you think he'd be dead? It's not like I quit hitting him because I was tired.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So what, then? If you have a message for me from Holden just spit it out. If Holden is sending messages to someone else, tell me who and what they are right now.\"\n\n\"Holden didn't send me to do shit,\" Amos said. \"Am I repeating myself? I feel like I'm repeating myself.\"\n\n\"He—\" Avasarala started, but Amos cut her off." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He's the captain of the ship I sail on, he ain't the boss of my fucking life. I've got personal shit to do, and I came here to do it. Now either book me for something or let me go.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amos hadn't realized Avasarala was leaning forward in her chair until she relaxed back into it. She let out a long breath that turned into a sigh. \"You're fucking serious, aren't you?\"\n\n\"Not known for my comic stylings.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"All right. But you understand my concern.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That Holden is up to something? Have you met that guy? He's never done anything secretly in his life.\"\n\nAvasarala laughed at that. \"True. But if he's sending his hired killer to Earth, we—\"\n\n\"Wait, what?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If Holden was—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Forget Holden. You called me his hired killer. Is that how you guys think of me? The killer on Holden's payroll?\"\n\nAvasarala frowned. \"You're not?\"\n\n\"Well, mostly I'm a mechanic. But the idea that the UN has a file on me somewhere that lists me as the Rocinante's killer? That's kind of awesome.\"\n\n\"You say that kind of thing, it doesn't make me think we're wrong, you know.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So,\" Amos said, shrugging with his shoulders like an Earther, his hands still behind his back, \"we done here?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Mostly,\" Avasarala said. \"How was everyone when you left? Good?\"\n\n\"Roci got beat to shit during the Ilus thing. But crew's good. Alex is trying to reconnect with an ex. Captain and Naomi are still rubbing uglies pretty regular. Same same, mostly.\"\n\n\"Alex is on Mars?\"\n\n\"Well, his ex is. I assume he'd head over there, but he was still on Tycho last I saw him.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's interesting,\" Avasarala said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not the part where he's reconnecting with his ex-wife, though. No one ever tries that without seeming like an asshole.\"\n\n\"Right?\"\n\n\"Well,\" Avasarala said, then looked up at someone offscreen. She smiled and accepted a steaming cup from a disembodied hand, then took a long sip and sighed with pleasure." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Thank you for meeting with me, Mr. Burton.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, it was my pleasure.\"\n\n\"Please keep in mind that my name is pretty closely connected with the Rocinante, Captain Holden, and his crew at this point.\"\n\n\"So?\" Amos said with another shrug.\n\n\"So,\" Avasarala said, then put her steaming cup down and leaned forward again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If you're about to do something I'll need to cover up later, I'd appreciate a call first.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You got it, Chrissie.\"\n\n\"Honestly. Fucking stop that,\" she said with a smile.\n\nThe screen went black, and the woman who'd stopped him at the port came in. Amos pointed to the screen with his chin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I think she likes me.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The street level view of New York wasn't all that different from the Baltimore streets he'd grown up on. Lots of tall buildings, lots of automated street traffic, lots of people stratified into two distinct groups: those who had someplace to be, and those who didn't. The employed scuttled from public transit to office buildings and back again at shift change. They bought things from street vendors, the simple fact of having currency a mark of status." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Those on basic drifted and bartered, living on the excess created by the productive, and adding to it where they could with under-the-table industry too small for the government to notice." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Drifting among them like ghosts, invisible to anyone not from their world, was a third group. The ones who lived in the cracks. Thieves looking for an easy score. Pushers and con artists and prostitutes of every age group, every point on the spectrum of gender and sexual orientation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The kind of people Amos had once been." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A corner pusher saw him looking and frowned back, seeing Amos for what he was without recognizing him. It didn't matter. He wouldn't be in town long enough for it to get to anyone who'd come demanding to know where he fit in their ecosystem.\n\nAfter walking for a couple hours, getting used to the feel of the gravity and concrete beneath his feet, Amos stopped at a hotel he picked at random and checked in. One thing about him had changed, and that was money." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Shipping with the Rocinante, for all its dangers and drama, had turned out to be a profitable gig." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With the shares he'd cashed out, Amos didn't have to worry about how much the hotel would cost; he just asked for a room and told his terminal to pay for anything the hotel charged him.\n\nIn his room, he took a long shower. Lydia's face stared back at him from the bathroom mirror as he brushed his teeth and shaved off the short stubble growing on his head. Getting clean had the feeling of ritual." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Like preparations made by a holy man before performing some sacred rite." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When he was done, he sat down nude in the middle of the room's large bed and looked up Lydia's obituary.\n\nLYDIA MAALOUF ALLEN, PASSED AWAY WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14TH AT...\n\nAllen. Amos didn't know that name. As an alias it wasn't a very good one, since Lydia Maalouf was the name he'd always known her by." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Not an alias then. A married name?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That was interesting.\n\nSHE IS SURVIVED BY HER HUSBAND OF ELEVEN YEARS, CHARLES JACOB ALLEN...\n\nOver a decade after he'd left, Lydia had married a man named Charles. Amos probed at that idea, like poking a finger into a wound to see if it was infected." }, { "from": "human", "value": "To see if it hurt." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The only reaction he found was curiosity.\n\nSHE PASSED QUIETLY IN HER PHILADELPHIA HOME, WITH CHARLES AT HER SIDE...\n\nCharles was the last one to see her alive, so he was the first one Amos needed to find. After reading the rest of the obituary several times, he logged on to the public mass transit site and booked a ticket for that night on the high-speed rail to Philadelphia." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then he lay back on the bed and closed his eyes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was oddly excited by the idea of meeting Lydia's husband. As if her family was his, and Charles was a person he should always have known, but was only now getting to meet. Sleep eluded him, but the soft bed relaxed the muscles tightening in his back, and the last of the nausea from the shuttle ride faded. The path ahead was clear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If Lydia had, indeed, died quietly in her own bed with a loving husband at her side, then he would meet this man." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "See the home she'd lived in. Put flowers on her grave and say his last goodbye. If not, he'd kill some people. Neither possibility excited him more than the other." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Either one was fine." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He slept." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Mode:\nCo-writing\n\nLength:\n4 sentences\n\nStyle:\nJames S. A. Corey" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden ran the video back and watched it again. The ship, an ugly box of metal with additional storage containers strapped to its flanks, made him think of the supply-laden covered wagons in old westerns. It wasn't far from the truth. The Rabia Balkhi, registered to Captain Eric Khan out of Pallas, was still just goods and people heading into the frontier to stake a claim." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fewer horses, maybe, but more fusion reactors." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Again, the ship passed through the gate, the image wiggled and jumped, the Balkhi was gone.\n\n\"So?\" Monica asked, her voice rich with anticipation. \"What do you think?\"\n\nHe scratched his arm, deciding what the answer was." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There are a million reasons an old rust bucket like that might disappear out there,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Loss of core containment, loss of atmospheric pressure, run into debris. Hell, the radio might have just gone out and they're living comfortably on a new planet and hoping someone will drop by to check on them.\"\n\n\"Maybe,\" Monica said with a nod. \"If there was only one. But four hundred thirty-seven ships have passed through the rings into new solar systems over the last year. And of them, thirteen have just vanished. Poof.\" She spread her fingers out like a tiny explosion." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden did the math in his head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That was something like a three percent rate of loss. Back when he'd been in the Navy, the budgets had assumed about half of a percent loss to mechanical failure, asteroid impacts, sabotage, and enemy action. This was six times that.\n\n\"Huh,\" he said. \"That seems pretty high for ships that were able to fly the year and a half to get to the Ring.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Agreed. Way too high. If ships blew up without explanation that regularly, no one would ever fly.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So,\" Holden said, then paused to order another drink from the table menu. He had a feeling he'd need it. \"Why isn't anyone talking about it? Who's keeping track of them?\"\n\n\"No one!\" Monica said triumphantly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's the whole thing. No one is tracking them. We have thousands of ships leaving the inner system and streaming toward the gates. They belong to citizens of three different governments, and some who don't think of themselves as citizens of any government. Most of these people never even filed a flight plan, they just threw their suitcases in a rock hopper and blasted off for the new worlds.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Real estate grabs are like that, I guess.\"\n\n\"So here they are, heading off alone or in handfuls, and all of them with the incentive to get wherever it is first. Only something's stopping them. Disappearing them. Or, some of them anyway.\"\n\n\"Clearly,\" Holden said, \"you have a theory.\"\n\n\"I think it's the protomolecule.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden sighed and rubbed his face with both hands." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His drink arrived, and he sipped at it for a minute. The cold of the ice and the bite of the gin filled his mouth. Monica stared at him, practically bouncing with impatience. He said, \"No, it's not. The protomolecule is gone. It's dead. I fired the last processing node into a star.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How do you know that? Even if it was the last of the ring-building weapon, we know whoever made all this did it with protomolecule tools. And what else can it be? I've read the reports. All those robots and things that woke up on Ilus? The protomolecule attacks us for taking its stuff.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, it doesn't,\" Holden said. \"That's not what happened. Without knowing it, I'd brought a node of the original infection with me that was still trying to connect with whatever sent it out in the first place. It woke a lot of stuff up in the process. We shut it down, and, you know, shot it into a star to avoid that happening again.\"\n\n\"How can you be sure?\"\n\nAt the sushi bar, one of the chefs barked out an announcement, and half a dozen people around him applauded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden took a deep breath, letting it out slowly through his teeth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I guess I can't be. How do you prove a negative?\"\n\n\"I know a way that maybe you can,\" Monica said. The look on her face made Holden think whatever she was about to say next was the entire reason for their conversation. It felt a little like watching a hunting cat track a steak." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Fred Johnson still has what may be the only remaining sample of the protomolecule. The one you took off the secret Mao-Kwikowski ship.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The one I... Hey, how do you know that?\" Holden said. \"And how many other people know that?\"\n\n\"I don't disclose sources, but I think we should get it and see if we can wake it up. Get your ghost Miller to come back and find out if the protomolecule is using the gates to destroy our ships.\"\n\nHalf a dozen responses crashed together in Holden's mind, ranging from That is the worst idea I've ever heard to Are you even listening to what you're saying?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "It took a few seconds for one to win out." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You want me to do a séance?\"\n\n\"I wouldn't call it a—\"\n\n\"No,\" Holden said. \"Just no.\"\n\n\"I can't just let this drop. If you won't help—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I didn't say I wouldn't help. I said I'm not going to go commune with a bit of killer alien goo in hopes that it starts telling me its old cop stories. We don't want to poke that stuff. We should leave it alone.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Monica's expression was open and interested. He wouldn't have been able to see her annoyance and disappointment if he hadn't known to look.\n\n\"What then?\" she asked.\n\n\"You know the old joke about hearing hoofbeats, right?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I guess I don't.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Long story, but the point is that if you hear hoofbeats in the distance, your first guess is that they're horses, not zebras. And you're hearing hoofbeats and jumping straight to unicorns.\"\n\n\"So what are you saying?\"\n\n\"I'm saying let's go see if we can find some horses or zebras before we start a unicorn hunt.\"\n\nAn intriguing new mystery didn't mean Holden no longer had a day job, but it did give him something to think about other than missing Naomi." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And Amos. And Alex. But mostly Naomi." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As he crawled along the exposed ribs of the Rocinante's flank with a plasma torch in his hand and looked for cracks, he pondered where ships could go when they disappeared. Monica was right; the number was too high to be just random system failures. There were a lot of other possibilities, even discounting her protomolecule unicorn theory. But Holden had stopped believing in coincidence about when he'd first started spending time with Detective Miller." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And the other big thing going on was that radical OPA factions were launching attacks on inner planet holdings like Callisto. And even Earth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A violent faction of the OPA was dead set against colonization. And, now, colony ships loaded with supplies were vanishing without a trace. Also, Medina Station—nee Behemoth nee Nauvoo and the hub of all the ring gates—was solidly in the control of the OPA. It made a compelling narrative, even if he didn't have any actual evidence that it was true." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In that scenario, the ships would be boarded by OPA pirate crews, the supplies taken, and the colonists... spaced?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A gruesome idea if it were true, and still not the most horrific thing humans had ever done to each other. But that left the ships. They'd keep the ships, and then they'd have to make them disappear. That meant changing the transponder codes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The fact that the Rocinante was no longer the Tachi was proof that the OPA had that ability." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sakai,\" Holden said, chinning the radio frequency to the private channel he and the chief engineer shared. \"Yo, you around?\"\n\n\"Problem?\" he replied in a tone of voice that sounded like he was daring Holden to have a problem. Holden had learned not to be offended by it. Impatience was Sakai's default state." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"More of a riddle.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I hate riddles,\" Sakai said.\n\n\"Let's say you're trying to figure out if someone has stolen a bunch of ships and changed the transponder codes. How would you find those ships, if you had to?\"\n\nThe engineer huffed thoughtfully for a moment.\n\n\"Don't look for the missing ships,\" Sakai replied." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Look for the new ones that show up out of nowhere.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, good. That,\" Holden said, \"is exactly right. Thanks.\"\n\nHe stopped at a cracked weld between the inner hull and one of the ship's ribs and started touching it up with the torch. His faceplate darkened, turning the world into a black place with one bright blue light in it. While he worked, he thought through how you'd track the magically appearing new ships down." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The public ship registry was a good place to start, but you'd drown in data trying to do it manually." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If Naomi were here, he had no doubt she'd have been able to build a program to find what he wanted in ten minutes on her hand terminal. He, sadly, didn't have her programming skills, but Fred had software engineers on the payroll, and if he—\n\n\"Why?\" Sakai said. It had been so long since the engineer had spoken that it took Holden a moment to remember the context for the question." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why what? Why do I want to know how to find lost ships?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yeah.\"\n\n\"So I have this reporter friend who's looking into some missing ships. I said I'd give her a hand. Just trying to think of ways to actually do that.\"\n\n\"Stuart,\" Sakai said. It was half statement, half question. \"I heard she was on the station.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yeah, my old buddy Monica. Truth is, I think she's snipe hunting, but I said I'd help. And I need something to do that isn't feeling lonely and sorry for myself.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yeah,\" Sakai said, then after a long moment added, \"So shit hasn't gone weird enough for you to believe in snipes?\"\n\nThere was a video message light blinking on his home console. Holden tried his hardest not to hope it was from Naomi and still felt a crushing disappointment when Alex's round face appeared on the screen. \"Hi boss,\" the pilot said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So the thing where I meet up with my ex-wife and we have a tearful reconciliation? Yeah, that was a failure. Probably shoulda thought that one through a little better. But I'm plannin' on stopping by to see Bobbie before I leave, so there's a bright spot. How's my girl? You guys gettin' her all polished up and pretty for my return? I'll check in again when I can. Kamal out.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden almost started his reply off by asking for a report on the ex-wife situation, but the little Naomi voice that now lived in his head said Don't be nosey, so instead he replied, \"Thanks for checking in. Give Bobbie my best. The Roci's still months from ready, so take your time.\"\n\nHe sat for a minute trying to think of something else to say, then just cut the dead air off the end of the message and sent it. It was strange how a person could be so vitally important in your life, and yet you had nothing to say to them when they weren't sharing the same air. Normally, he and Alex would talk about the ship, about the other two crew members, about jobs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "With them all split up and the Roci in dry dock, there wasn't much left to say that wasn't a personal invasion." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Thinking about that looked like the beginning of a long dark road to bitter loneliness, so he decided to go investigating instead.\n\nHe kind of wished he had a hat.\n\n\"Back so soon?\" Fred said when Holden was ushered into his office by one of the OPA leader's minions. \"I know my coffee is good, but...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden grabbed a chair and stretched out while Fred puttered with the coffee maker." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So Monica Stuart is on Tycho.\"\n\n\"Yeah. You think someone like that lands on this station without me knowing about it?\"\n\n\"No,\" Holden admitted. \"But do you know why she's here?\"\n\nThe coffee maker started hissing to itself, and the office was filled with a rich, bitter smell." }, { "from": "human", "value": "While the coffee brewed, Fred leaned over his desk tapping on the terminal." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Something with missing ships, right? That's what our intel team says.\"\n\n\"Have your people looked into it at all?\"\n\n\"Honestly? No. I'd heard rumblings about it, but we're buried here. Every ship with a functioning Epstein is heading through for the gates. We've got our hands full keeping them from running into each other going through the rings. Most of them are going into unexplored systems with no other ships or stations. We don't hear back from a few, sort of seems like the obvious thing happening.\"\n\nHolden accepted a steaming mug from Fred with a grateful nod and took a sip." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The old man's coffee didn't disappoint." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I get that,\" Holden said after another drink. \"And I think her theory on it is pretty far-fetched, but it's the kind of thing that will get public traction if we don't find a better answer first.\"\n\n\"She has a theory already?\"\n\n\"She thinks it's the protomolecule. The robots and tech waking up on Ilus is her one datapoint.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You told me that was a onetime thing,\" Fred said, frowning over his coffee mug." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When he spoke again his words blew steam in front of them, like a whisp of dragon breath. \"Is Miller back?\"\n\n\"No, he's not back. As far as I know, there isn't an active protomolecule culture in existence in the universe. But—\"\n\n\"But I've got the inactive stuff you gave me.\"\n\n\"Right, and Monica knows about it somehow,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fred's frown only deepened at that." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I've got a leak somewhere.\"\n\n\"Yeah, you totally do, but that isn't the part that worries me.\"\n\nFred's eyebrows went up in a nonverbal question.\n\n\"Monica,\" Holden continued, \"has decided that we should take out the goo and use it like some sort of Ouija board to summon the ghost of Miller.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But that's stupid,\" Fred said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Right? So I think we should exhaust all other possibilities before we leap right to tinkering with alien viruses.\"\n\n\"First time for everything, I guess,\" Fred said, only lightly coating the words in sarcasm. \"You have alternate theories?\"\n\n\"I do,\" Holden said, \"but you won't like it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I also still have bourbon if we need anesthetic for this operation.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It may get there,\" Holden replied, then drank off the rest of his coffee to give himself time. No matter how much Fred had aged over the last half decade, Holden found himself still intimidated by the man. It was hard to broach topics Fred might take offense to.\n\n\"More?\" Fred asked, pointing at his empty cup." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden declined with a shake of his head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So there's that radical extremist faction of the OPA that you were telling me about,\" Holden said.\n\n\"I don't think—\"\n\n\"They've had at least two public attacks. One on Martian interests, and one on Earth itself.\"\n\n\"Both of which failed.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Maybe,\" Holden said. \"But we're assuming we know what their goals were, and that seems like a bad assumption to make. Maybe blowing up a big chunk of a Martian shipyard and forcing the UN home fleet to fire a bunch of missiles at an ancient freighter are wins to them.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Okay,\" Fred said with a grudging nod. \"Fair enough.\"\n\n\"But there's a third leg to this. Sure, the radicals think Earth and Mars will abandon them once the new worlds are colonized, but that means the colonists themselves are part of the problem.\"\n\n\"Agreed.\"\n\n\"So, what if this radical OPA wing decides that in addition to blowing up some of the inner planets' shit, they can send a message by taking out some colony ships?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well,\" Fred said, speaking slowly as though he were working out the answer as he said it, \"the big problem with that is the location of the attacks.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Because they happen on the other side of the gates.\"\n\n\"Exactly,\" Fred continued. \"If ships were getting nuked as they passed through the Belt, that would be one thing. But on the other side of the gates? Who has access there? Unless you're thinking the ships were sabotaged in some way. A bomb with a really long fuse?\"\n\n\"There's another alternative,\" Holden said.\n\n\"No, there isn't,\" Fred replied, anticipating his next argument." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Fred, look, I know you don't want to think you've got people working against your interests on Medina. Doctoring records, maybe. Shutting off sensors when there're things they don't want people to see. And I get why that's hard to swallow.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Medina is central to our long-term plans,\" Fred said, his words hard as iron. \"I've placed all of my very best and most loyal people on that station. If the radicals have a fifth column there, then it means that I can't trust anyone in my organization. I might as well pack it up and retire.\"\n\n\"There are thousands of people on Medina, I doubt you can vouch for every one of them personally.\"\n\n\"No, but the people running the station are my people. The most loyal I have. There's no way something like this could be going on without their knowledge and cooperation.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's a scary thought.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It means I don't own Medina Station,\" Fred said. \"It means that the most violent, hard-line, extremist faction of our group controls the choke point of the entire galaxy.\"\n\n\"So,\" Holden said, \"how would one go about finding that out?\"\n\nFred leaned back in his chair with a sigh and gave Holden a sad smile." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You know what I think? I think you're bored, and lonely, and looking for a distraction. Don't dismantle the organization I spent a lifetime building to give yourself something to do.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But ships are missing. Even if it isn't Medina taking them, something is. I don't know that we can just ignore that and hope it goes away.\"\n\n\"Fix your own ship, Jim. Fix your ship and get your crew back together. This thing with the missing ships isn't your job.\"\n\n\"Thanks for the coffee,\" Holden said, standing up to leave.\n\n\"You're not going to drop it, are you?\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Mode:\nCo-writing\n\nLength:\n4 sentences\n\nStyle:\nJames S. A. Corey" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Once upon a time there had been a Belter girl named Naomi Nagata, and now there was a woman." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even though the difference between the two had been created a day, an hour, a minute at a time, the Venn diagram of the two almost didn't overlap. What could be cut away, she'd cut years ago. What remained did so in spite of her efforts. For the most part, she could work around them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Enjoy your stay on Ceres,\" the customs agent said, his eyes already flicking to the man standing behind her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She nodded, smiling politely through the spill of her hair, and walked out into the wide corridors of the spaceport. Another face among the millions.\n\nCeres Station was the biggest city in the Belt. Six million people, more or less, in a hollowed asteroid hundreds of kilometers in diameter." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She'd heard that the port traffic alone could add as many as a million transient bodies on a given day." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For most of her life, it had been the symbol of inner planetary colonialism. The tower of the enemy on native Belter ground.\n\nOutside the spaceport proper, the corridors were warm bordering on hot, the entropic load of the city trapped by the thermos-bottle vacuum of space. Moisture thickened the air, and the smell of bodies and dried piss was like seeing an old friend's smile." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Three-meter-high screens shouted advertisements for machine rigs one second and high fashion the next, their clamor only a thread in the constant, roaring symphony of voices and carts and machinery." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A public newsfeed was showing images of fighting somewhere on Earth. Another little insurgent cult or traditional ethnic conflict calling for its due in blood again, important only because it was on Earth. Even for Belters who'd called the float their home for generations, Earth carried a symbolic load. The mother of humanity with her boot firmly on Belter necks." }, { "from": "human", "value": "On the screen, a pale-skinned man with blood sheeting down from a scalp wound held up a book." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Probably a holy book. He was shouting, his mouth squared by rage. Kill as many people in the Belt, and it wouldn't have been news. Even now.\n\nShe turned spinward, looking for a food kiosk serving something appealing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There were the usual corporate products, the same at any station." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now that the OPA ran Ceres, there were also other options. Dhejet and egg curry, cow-style noodle bowl, red kibble. The foods of her childhood. Belter foods. The kitchen on the Rocinante had been designed by someone in the Martian Navy, and the food stocks it accepted were always nourishing, usually good, and sometimes excellent." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But they weren't her food." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She opted for red kibble from a scarred kiosk with adhesive from generations of nightclub flyers caking its sides. It came in a brown pressed-shred container that fit in her left palm with a plastic spatula like a flattened spoon to eat with. The first bite filled her mouth with cumin and her mind with dust-covered memory. For a moment, she was in her bunk on Tio Kriztec's ship, huddled over the white ceramic bowl she had loved then and forgotten for years, eating quietly while the others sang in the galley." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She couldn't have been more than six at the time, but the memory was fresh and bright." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She took another bite, savoring it. As she did, she saw the man following her.\n\nHe was thin, even for a native. His hair, a dirty gray that flowed back from his head like the folded wings of a bird." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He stood maybe fifteen meters away, watching the newsfeed with an air of mild boredom." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She couldn't have said what drew her attention to him and left her certain that he was there because of her. Something about the casual way he didn't look toward her, maybe, or the angle of his stance.\n\nNaomi turned spinward again, moving quickly without running, forcing him to keep up. As she walked, she scanned the crowd around her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If she was right, there might be others working in a team." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She slid easily through the gaps in the press of bodies, finding the places that opened for a moment as people crossed her path and each other's. She had spent six months on Ceres when she was thirteen and between ships, but the station was still a long way from home territory for her. She did her best, making for a side corridor that she was almost certain ran between the wider pathways.\n\nAnd maybe she was wrong." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Maybe the man, whoever he was, had just happened to be there when she was feeling particularly anxious." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She didn't look back until her side corridor rejoined the larger flow of foot traffic from the next gate over. She took the ground in at a glance, and found the place she needed. A currency-changing booth four meters away with opaque privacy walls made a little space in the flow of people like a stone in a river. Without pausing, she walked to the dead space at its far side and leaned against it, her shoulder blades taking in the cool of the metal." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The air was thick enough that she was sweating a little, a dampness at her collarbone and the fringes of her hair." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She made herself small and unobtrusive, and counted slowly backward from a hundred.\n\nAt thirty-two, Wings hurried past her, his chin high, scanning the crowd before him. The bright metallic taste of fear filled her mouth, and she turned back into the booth, and then past it the other way, down the corridor she'd just left. As she retraced her steps, her mind raced through possibilities." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Marco had finally decided to end their standoff, and the threat to Filip had been bait for the trap." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Or the security forces had been waiting all this time, and she was about to get caught at last. Or someone who'd watched the newsfeeds from Ilus too much had decided to stalk her. Or Marco was just sending his men to check up on her. The last wasn't least likely." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Back in the main corridor, she flagged down a cart and paid for a trip up three levels to an open park." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The woman driving the cart didn't look at her twice, which was a relief. Naomi sat back against the hard formed plastic and finished her kibble. The tires hissed against the decking as they took the ramp up, closer to the center of spin and farther from the port.\n\n\"Go du-es someplace precise?\" the driver asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't know where I'm going,\" Naomi said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Know when I'm there.\"\n\nShe'd met Marco when she was sixteen and finishing her distributed classwork equivalency on Hygeia Station. On Luna, her work would have gotten her engineering placements at any of the big shipyards. Since it was just an equivalency, she'd known she had another three, maybe four terms before she could get the jobs, even if she already knew how to do the work." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Marco had been part of a salvage and mining crew that based its repairs at Hygeia Station, then looped out into the Belt proper, scraping out rare metals and taking care, sometimes, of the wrecks of old ships that crossed their paths." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And maybe, the rumor was, some wrecks that were very, very new. His captain had been an old man named Rokku who'd hated the Inner Planets as much as anyone in the Belt. The crew was the deepest flavor of OPA there was, not a military cell because no one had asked them yet. Naomi had been living with Tia Margolis, another of her adopted aunts, and trading out unlicensed work at the refining station for air, water, food, network access, and a place to sleep." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At the time, Marco and his cohort had seemed like a bastion of stability." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A crew that had been working the same ship together for seven missions was as good as family to her.\n\nAnd Marco himself had been amazing. Dark eyes, dark soft hair, a Cupid's bow mouth, and a beard that felt against her palm the way she imagined it would to stroke a wild animal. He'd haunted the corridors outside the station bar, too young still to buy, but more than charming enough to get older people to buy for him on the few occasions he couldn't convince the merchants to bend the rules directly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The others on Rokku's crew—Big Dave, Cyn, Mikkam, Karal—had all outranked Marco on the ship and followed his lead on shore." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There hadn't been a particular moment when she'd become part of their crew. She'd just fallen into orbit with the others, been at the same places, laughed at the same jokes, and then at some point she was expected. When they cracked the seal on a storage gate and made it into a temporary invitation-only club, she was invited. And then before long she was helping to crack the seal." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hygeia Station hadn't been at its best in those days." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Earth-Mars alliance had looked solid as stone back then. The taxes and tariffs on basic supplies hovered just below too expensive to sustain life. And sometimes above it. The ships that ran there ran on air so lean they courted anoxia, and the black market in usable hydroponics was a live and active one." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hygeia Station, while nominally the property of an Earth-based business conglomerate, was in practice a ragged autonomous zone held together by habit, desperation, and the bone-deep Belter respect for infrastructure." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When Marco was there, even the old, cracked ceramic decking seemed a little less crappy. He was the kind of person who changed what everything around him meant. There had been a Belter girl named Naomi who would have sworn she'd follow him anywhere. She was a woman now, and she'd have said that wasn't true." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But here she was." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bistro Rzhavchina was high up toward the center of spin. Doors of rusted steel painted in sealant blocked the way in, and a bouncer half a head taller than her and twice as wide across the shoulders glowered as she passed through them. He didn't stop her. Up this far, more of the station's spin felt like lateral pull." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Water poured on the slant." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It wasn't only the cheapness of the real estate that made these corridors thicker with Belters. The Coriolis here started to have an effect just north of subliminal, and that wasn't a thing that Earthers and Martians ever became really comfortable with. Living in spin was a source of Belter pride, a mark of who they were and how they were different.\n\nDark music filled the place, the rhythm like a constant, low-level assault." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The floor was sticky where it wasn't covered with peanut shells, and the smell of salt and cheap beer filled the air." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Naomi went to the back, taking a seat sheltered from as many lines of sight as she could manage. Somewhere between fifteen and twenty people sat or stood around the place. She could still feel their gazes on her. Her jaw slid forward a degree, her mouth taking on a scowl that was protective coloration as much as actual displeasure." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The wall she rested against vibrated with the bass." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She ordered a drink from the table's system and paid with a preloaded chit. Before the thin-faced boy behind the bar could deliver it, the metal doors to the corridor opened again and Wings came in. His movements were tight and anxious, his expression closed and angry. He hadn't followed her here." }, { "from": "human", "value": "This was where he headed back to after he failed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Naomi faded back another centimeter.\n\nWings sat at the bar, stood up, sat again. A door hidden by shadows at the back of the club opened. The man who came out was huge." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The muscles of his neck and torso were so large and defined, she could have used him as an anatomy lesson." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His steel-gray hair was cut close to the scalp, white lines of scar crossing behind his left ear like the map of a river delta. A massive tattoo of the OPA's split circle logo decorated the side of his neck. He went to the bar where Wings was waiting. Wings' hands were already out in apology." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Naomi couldn't hear what he said, but the gist was clear enough." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He'd seen her. He'd lost her. He was sorry. Please don't rip his kneecaps off. She let herself smile a little.\n\nThe big man tilted his head, nodded, said something that seemed to relieve Wings enough that he managed a smile." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The big man turned slowly, squinting into the gloom of the club." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When his gaze reached her, it stopped. The boy at the bar started forward, her drink on a tray. The big man put a hand on the boy's chest, pushing him back. Naomi sat up a little straighter, looking up into the big man's eyes as he reached the table." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were as pale as she remembered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Knuckles,\" he said.\n\n\"Cyn,\" Naomi replied, and then his massive arms were around her lifting her up. She returned the embrace. The smell and heat of his skin was like hugging a bear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"God, you haven't changed at all, have you?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Only got better, uhkti. Bigger and brighter.\"\n\nHe put her down with a thump. His smile drew lines all across his face like ripples in a pool. She patted his shoulder and his grin grew wider." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At the bar, Wings' eyes were big as saucers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Naomi waved at him. The man sent to follow her hesitated, then waved back.\n\n\"So what did I miss?\" Naomi asked as Cyn led her to the door at the back of the club." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Only all of it, sa sa?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Cyn rumbled. \"How much did Marco say?\"\n\n\"Very damned little.\"\n\n\"Always the way. Always the way.\"\n\nPast the thin door, a corridor snaked back into the raw stone of the asteroid." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The sealant was old, gray, and flaking, and cold radiated out from the stone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Three men leaned against the wall, guns in their hands. The oldest was Karal. The younger two she didn't know. She kissed Karal's cheek as she passed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The others looked at her with a mix of distrust and awe." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The hidden hallway ended at a steel door.\n\n\"Why so secret?\" she asked. \"You know the OPA runs Ceres now.\"\n\n\"There's OPA and there's OPA,\" Cyn said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And you're that other one,\" she said, but with warmth in her voice that covered her unease." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Always,\" Cyn agreed.\n\nThe door slid open, and Cyn ducked to pass through. It was impossible to see around his bulk. Naomi followed.\n\n\"Got here and no further,\" Cyn said over his shoulder." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And best we don't float too long. Plan had us back with Marco a month ago.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Marco's not here?\"\n\n\"Nobody here but us chickens.\" There was a smile in the words.\n\nThe chamber they stepped into was wide and cold." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A portable scrubber moved stale air and left the smell of rubber." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Formed plastic shelves held rations and water. A thin laminate table had five stools around it, and an old network repeater hung from a hook by its wires. A set of bunks leaned against the wall four high. There were bodies curled under the blankets, but if they were sleeping, Cyn didn't take notice of them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His voice carried at the same volume." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Thing is, better we don't be where anyone can reach us when it all comes down, sa sa?\"\n\n\"When what comes down?\" Naomi said.\n\nCyn sat at the table, reached out a long arm, and pulled an unlabeled bottle from the shelves. He pulled the cork from its neck with his teeth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Ay, Knuckles,\" he said with a laugh, \"you said he didn't tell you much, you weren't singing low, were you?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Naomi sat on one of the stools as Cyn poured amber liquid into two glasses. The fumes smelled of alcohol and butter and burned sugar. Naomi felt her mouth responding to the scent. The taste was like coming home." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Nothing like Tia Margolis' brandy,\" Cyn said with a sigh." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Nothing, ever,\" Naomi said. \"So, now that I'm here, why don't you fill me in?\"\n\n\"Well,\" Cyn said. \"It's these pinché ring gates. You know better than anyone. Another thousand inner planets, and a whole new set of reasons they may as well fuck the Belt, que si? And half the Belt sucking the Butcher's cock and making themselves out noble and official and political. So we, and by we I mean Marco, yeah? We decide about two, three years ago—\"\n\n\"We don't talk about it,\" a young man's voice said sharply." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Cyn looked at the door." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Thick with dread, Naomi turned too. The boy looked terribly old and terribly young at the same time. His skin was darker than Marco's, and his hair had more curl. The eyes were the same, though." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And the mouth. Something huge—larger than oceans—moved in her chest." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Emotions she'd buried rose up, and the rip threatened to pull her away. She tried to hide it, but she had to put a hand flat on the table to steady herself.\n\nHe stepped into the room. The sand-colored shirt was large on him, but she could see that his body was in the place between the coltish growth of adolescence and the thickening muscle of a man." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One of the figures on the bunk stirred and turned, but didn't otherwise react." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We don't talk about it until we're safely back. Not even in here. Not at all. Sabez?\"\n\n\"Savvy mé,\" Cyn said. \"Just thought since—\"\n\n\"I know what you thought. It passes, but we don't talk about it.\"\n\nFor the first time, the young man's eyes turned to hers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her own struggle was mirrored in his eyes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She wondered what she looked like to him. What was in his mind and heart where hers was joy and guilt and a venomous regret. This was the moment she hadn't allowed herself to want. She'd known it was coming since the message from Marco arrived on Tycho." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Mode:\nCo-writing\n\nLength:\n4 sentences\n\nStyle:\nJames S. A. Corey" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The high-speed rail station in Philadelphia was near the center of a middle-income commercial area. Wage earners wandered the streets between strip malls, buying the semi-fashionable clothes and petty luxuries only available to those with currency. Only not too much currency. High-end shopping would be somewhere else, protected by security designed to keep people like these out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Even on Earth, there were people with money, and then there were people with money." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was weird for Amos to think that he might have enough in his account to pass for the latter. It amused him to imagine wandering over to some highbrow shopping center in his unstylish Belt-made clothes just to give the sales staff a fit when he dropped a couple grand on something useless. Maybe a nice solid platinum drink shaker. For that once or twice a year when he felt like drinking a martini." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Maybe later. After." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He headed out of the mall and toward the residential district that his hand terminal's map said Lydia's old house was in. At the short, tunnel-like exit he was accosted by a boy of eleven or twelve wearing a cheap paper jumpsuit, the kind that basic kiosks dispensed for free with a thumbprint. The boy offered him a variety of sexual services at rock-bottom prices. Amos grabbed the boy by the chin and tilted his face up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There were the fading yellow marks of a not-too-recent beating on his cheek, and the telltale pink around the eyelids of a pixie dust habit." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Who's your walker?\" Amos said.\n\nThe boy yanked back away from his hand. \"Don't touch for free, man.\"\n\n\"No troubles. I'm not a grabber. Just who's walking you? He around?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't know what you mean.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The boy started looking around for an escape route.\n\n\"Yeah, okay. Get lost.\" Amos watched the boy run off and felt something pressing at his stomach like the onset of a cramp. He couldn't help out every street kid he came across." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There were too many of them, and he had other work to do." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Frustrating, that. Maybe the kid would find his pimp and tell him about the big scary guy who grabbed his face. Then the pimp would come looking for him, to teach him a lesson about not fucking with the merchandise.\n\nThe thought put a smile back on Amos' face and made the knot in his stomach go away.\n\nLydia's house was thirty-seven blocks from the train station in a low-income neighborhood, but not in a government housing block." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Someone was paying actual money for the place, which was interesting." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amos didn't think Lydia could have cleaned up her records enough to qualify for job training. Maybe the husband was a citizen with the skills and clean background to get a straight job. That was interesting too. What kind of guy living an honest citizen's life marries an aging gangster like Lydia?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Amos walked at a leisurely pace, still sort of hoping the pimp would track him down and make an appearance." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "An hour and a half later his hand terminal told him he'd reached his destination. The house didn't look like much. Just a small one-level that from the street was an almost exact copy of every other small single-story house in the neighborhood. A tiny garden filled the narrow space between the house and the sidewalk." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It looked lovingly tended, though Amos couldn't remember Lydia ever owning a plant." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He walked up the narrow path through the garden to the front door and rang the bell. A small, elderly man with a fringe of white hair opened a moment later. \"Can I help you, son?\"\n\nAmos smiled, and something in his expression made the man take a nervous half step back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hi, I'm an old friend of Lydia Maalouf. I just found out she'd passed, and I was hoping to pay my respects.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He worked his face for a minute, trying to find a version of his smile that didn't scare little old men.\n\nThe old man—Charles, the obituary had said—shrugged after a minute and gestured for Amos to come into the house. On the inside it was recognizably Lydia's space. The plush furnishings and brightly colored wall hangings and curtains reminded Amos of the apartment she'd had back in Baltimore." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Pictures lined the shelves and tabletops." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Snapshots of the life she'd had after Amos left. Two dogs in a field of grass, grinning and lolling their tongues at the camera. Charles, more hair on his head, but still silvery white, digging in the garden. Lydia and Charles together in a restaurant, candles on the table, smiling over their wineglasses." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It looked like a good life, and Amos felt something in his belly relax when he saw them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He wasn't sure what that meant, but it was probably a good thing.\n\n\"You got a name?\" Charles said. \"Want some tea? Was making some when you rang.\"\n\n\"Sure, I'd take some tea,\" Amos said, ignoring the first question." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He stayed in the cozy living room while Charles banged around in the kitchen." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's been a couple months since the funeral,\" Charles said. \"Were you up the well?\"\n\n\"Yeah, working in the Belt most recently. Sorry it took a while to make it back down.\"\n\nCharles came back out of the kitchen and handed him a steaming mug." }, { "from": "human", "value": "From the flavor, it was green tea, unsweetened." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Timothy, right?\" Charles said, as if he were asking about the weather. Amos felt his jaw clench. Adrenaline dumped into his bloodstream.\n\n\"Not for a long time now,\" he replied." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She talked about your mom, some,\" Charles said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He seemed relaxed. Like he knew whatever was going to happen was inevitable.\n\n\"My mom?\"\n\n\"Lydia took care of you after your mom died, right?\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" Amos said. \"She did.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So,\" Charles said, then took another sip of his tea." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How does this go?\"\n\n\"Either I ask if I can take some of those roses out front to lay on her grave...\"\n\n\"Or?\"\n\n\"Or I just take them because no one lives here anymore.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't want any trouble.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I need to know how it happened.\"\n\nCharles looked down, took a deep breath, and nodded. \"She had what they called an ascending aortic aneurysm. Went to sleep one night, never woke up. I called the EMTs the next day but they said she'd been dead for hours by then.\"\n\nAmos nodded. \"Were you good to her, Charles?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I loved her, boy,\" he replied, a hint of steel in his voice." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You can do what you want here, I can't stop you. But I won't have you questioning that. I loved her from the moment we met to our last kiss goodnight. I still do.\"\n\nThe old man's voice didn't quaver a bit, but his eyes were watery and his hands trembled.\n\n\"Can I sit?\" Amos asked.\n\n\"Suit yourself. Let me know if you want more tea. Pot's full.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Thank you, sir. I'm sorry about rousting you like that. But when I heard, I worried—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I know who Lydia was before we met,\" Charles said, sitting down on a small couch facing him. \"We were always honest with each other. But no one ever bothered us here. She just had a leaky artery and it gave out one night while she was sleeping. Nothing else.\"\n\nAmos rubbed his scalp for a moment, waiting to see if he believed the old guy. Seemed like he did." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Thanks. And, again, I'm sorry if I came on strong,\" Amos said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So, can I take a few of those roses?\"\n\n\"Sure,\" Charles said with a sigh. \"Ain't my garden much longer anyway. Take what you want.\"\n\n\"You moving?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well, the guy who was doling Lydia stopped when she died. We had a little set aside, but not much. I'll be going on basic pretty soon, so that means the government block.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Who was floating her?\" Amos asked, already knowing the answer.\n\n\"Kid named Erich. Runs a crew in Lydia's old hometown. Somebody you used to know, I guess.\"\n\n\"Used to,\" Amos agreed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Does he know about you? That Lydia was married?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sure. He kept in touch. Checked up on us.\"\n\n\"And he cut you off after she died.\"\n\nIt wasn't a question, and Charles didn't answer, just sipped at his tea.\n\n\"So,\" Amos said, standing up, \"got a thing I need to go do. Don't start moving out yet. One way or another, I'll make sure you've got the money to keep this place.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You don't have to do that.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sort of do.\"\n\n\"For her,\" Charles said.\n\n\"For her.\"\n\nThe high-speed to Baltimore took less time than the walk to the station had." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The city itself hadn't changed at all in the two decades Amos had been away." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The same cluster of commercial high-rises, the same sprawl of basic and minimal-income housing stretching out until it hit the orderly blocks of middle-class houses on the outskirts. The same rotting seaweed smell of the drowned eastern shore, with the decaying shells of old buildings sticking out of the murky water like the ribs of some long-dead sea monster.\n\nAs much as the realization bothered him, Amos had to admit it looked like home.\n\nHe took an automated electric cab from the train station to his old neighborhood." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Even at the street level, the city looked the same, more or less." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The streetlights had been swapped out for a different, boxy design. Some of the streets had changed from pedestrian-exclusive to mixed use. The thugs and dealers and sex workers were different faces now, but they were all on pretty much the same corners and stoops their predecessors had worked. New weeds growing in all the city's cracks, but they were the same cracks." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had the cab let him out at a corner coffee stand that was licensed to accept basic ration cards." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was in the exact same location as the last place he'd ever eaten in Baltimore before he left. The cart and the franchise brand were different, but the assortment of rolls and muffins looked identical.\n\n\"Tall cup and a corn muffin,\" he said to the girl working the cart. She looked so surprised when his terminal transferred actual money instead of basic ration credits that she almost dropped his food." }, { "from": "human", "value": "By the time his Ceres New Yuan routed through the network and into UN dollars, with every exchange and transfer tacking on fees, he wound up paying triple for his snack." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The muffin tasted like it had been recycled from old, previously eaten corn muffins. And the coffee could have passed for a petroleum product, but he leaned against a wall beside the stand and took his time finishing both. He tossed what was left into recycling and thanked the girl. She didn't reply. His space money and foreign clothes left her staring at him like some sort of alien creature." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Which, he supposed, he sort of was." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had no idea where to start looking for Erich. But he didn't have to walk far before a teenage girl with machine-quality braids and expensive cotton pants drifted out of a shadowy doorway.\n\n\"Hey,\" he said. \"You got a minute?\"\n\n\"For you, Mongo?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Name's not Mongo,\" Amos said with a smile." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He could see fear in her eyes, but it was well hidden. She was used to dangerous strangers, but part of that was she knew they were dangerous.\n\n\"Should be, brute like you.\"\n\n\"You're local. Help a guy out.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You need herbage? Dust? I got neuros, that's your thing. Make you fly outta this shithole.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't need your stuff to fly, little bird. Just a question.\"\n\nShe laughed and gave him her middle finger. He wasn't a customer, so he wasn't anything. She was already turning back to her dim doorway." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Amos grabbed her upper arm, firmly but gently." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was a spark of real fear in her eyes.\n\n\"Gonna ask, little bird. You answer. Then I let you fly.\"\n\n\"Fuck you, Mongo.\" She spat at him and tried to pull her arm out of his grip.\n\n\"Stop that. Just gonna hurt yourself. All I want to know is, who runs your crew? Looking to talk to a guy called Erich. Messed-up arm? If your crew ain't with him, just point me at someone who is, sabe?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Sabe?\" She stopped struggling. \"Speak English, asshole.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Erich. Looking for Erich. Just point me and I'm gone.\"\n\n\"Or maybe I bleed you out,\" a new voice said. Someone big came out of the same doorway his little bird used. A mountain of a man with scars around his eyes and his right hand inside the pocket of his baggy sweatshirt. \"Let her go.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Sure,\" Amos said, and turned little bird loose." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She bolted for the steps up to her doorway. The walking mountain gave him a nasty grin. Taking Amos' compliance for fear.\n\n\"Now get gone.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Naw,\" Amos said, smiling back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Need to find Erich. Big boss now from what I hear. He running your crew? Or can you point me at a crew working for him?\"\n\n\"I fucking told you to—\" Whatever else the mountain was about to say turned into a gurgle after Amos punched him in the throat. While the mountain was trying to remember how to breathe, Amos yanked up the bruiser's sweatshirt and plucked out the pistol he had tucked in his belt. He stomped on the back of the mountain's leg to drop him to his knees." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He didn't point the pistol at him, just held it casually in his right hand." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So, this is how it goes,\" Amos said in a voice low enough the mountain would hear him but no one else would. Embarrassment was the number one reason people fought. Reduce how embarrassed the mountain was, reduce the likelihood he'd continue fighting. \"I need to find Erich, and either you're my friend on that, or you're not. Do you want to be my friend?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The mountain nodded, but he wasn't talking yet." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"See, I like making new friends,\" Amos said and patted the thug on his beefy shoulder. \"Can you help your new pal find his other friend, Erich?\"\n\nThe mountain nodded again and managed to rasp out, \"Come with me.\"\n\n\"Thanks!\" Amos said, and let him up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The mountain shot a look at the dim doorway, probably signaling little bird to call ahead to someone—hopefully Erich's crew—with a warning." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That was all right. He wanted Erich to feel safe when they met. If he had a lot of guys with guns with him, he'd be more likely to relax and listen to reason.\n\nThe mountain led him through his old neighborhood and down toward the docks and the crumbling stone monolith of the failed arcology project there." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was limping a little, like his knee was bothering him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A couple of guys with baggy coats that only sort of hid the heavy weapons underneath nodded at them as they went in, and then fell in step behind them.\n\n\"An escort and everything,\" Amos said to one of them.\n\n\"Don't do nothing stupid,\" came the reply.\n\n\"Fairly sure I'm a few decades late on that one, but I take your point.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Gun,\" the other guard said, holding out his hand." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amos dropped the pistol he'd liberated from the mountain into it without a word.\n\nFrom the outside, the old arcology structure was falling apart. But once inside, the look changed dramatically. Someone had replaced the water-damaged flooring with new tile." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The walls were painted and clean." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The rotting wood doors off the main corridor had been replaced with composites and glass that could take the damp air. It looked like nothing so much as a high-end corporate office building.\n\nWhatever Erich was up to, he was doing well for himself.\n\nThey stopped at an elevator, and the mountain said, \"He's up on the top floor. I'm gonna bail, okay?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "His voice still rasped, but it sounded a lot better." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Thanks a lot for the help,\" Amos said without sarcasm. \"Take care of that throat. Ice it up when you get back and try not to talk too much. If it's still bugging you in three days, steroid spray'll do it.\"\n\n\"Thanks,\" the mountain croaked and left.\n\nThe elevator dinged and opened, and one of his two remaining guards pointed inside. \"After you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Gracias,\" Amos said and leaned against the back wall of the car." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The guards followed, one of them sliding a metal card into the elevator controls and hitting the top button.\n\nOn the way up, Amos entertained himself by figuring out how he'd get the gun away from the guard closest to him and kill the other. He had a pretty workable strategy in mind when the elevator dinged again and the doors slid open.\n\n\"This way,\" one guard said, and pointed down a hallway." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The club level,\" Amos replied. \"Fancy.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The top floor had been redesigned with plush furnishings and a maroon velvet carpet. At the end of the hall the guards opened a door that looked like wood but seemed heavy enough that it was probably steel core. Still fancy, but not at the cost of security.\n\nAfter the luxury of the hallway, the office on the other side of the door was almost utilitarian." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A metal desk dominated by screens for a variety of network decks and terminals, a wall screen with an ocean view pretending to be a window, and a big rubber ball instead of an office chair." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Erich always had been twitchy sitting still too long.\n\n\"Timmy,\" Erich said, standing behind the desk like it was a barricade. The two guards moved off to flank the door.\n\n\"People call me Amos now.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Erich laughed. \"Guess I knew that, right?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Guess you did,\" Amos said. Erich looked good. Healthy in a way he'd never looked as a kid. He even had a middle-aged man's spare tire around the gut. He still had the small, shriveled left arm." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And from the way he was standing, he looked like he'd still walk with a limp." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But now, surrounded by his success and his well-fed chubbiness, they looked like trophies of a past life instead of disabilities in the current one.\n\n\"So,\" Erich said, \"kind of wondering what you're doing in town.\"\n\n\"He beat up Troy,\" one of the guards said. \"And Laci says he manhandled her some too.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Today you will be acting as a writing assistant, your partner will send something and you will write the next 4 sentences." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Three days after he'd seen Talissa—for what he had to think now was the last time—and gone afterward to eat with Bobbie Draper, Alex knew it was time to go home." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He'd had dinners with family and a couple old friends; he'd seen the ways his old hometown had changed and the ways it hadn't. And he'd determined once again that sometimes a broken thing couldn't be fixed. That was the closest he was going to get to having it be okay.\n\nBut before he left, there was one more person he was going to disappoint." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The express tube to Londres Nova hummed to itself, the advertisements above the seats promising to make the lives of the riders better in a hundred different ways: technical certifications, improved undergarments, tooth whitening." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The facial-recognition software didn't seem to know what to make of him. None of the ads spoke to him. The closest was a thin lawyer in an olive-green suit offering to help people find passages to the new systems beyond the Ring. Start a new life in the off-world colonies! We can help!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Across from him, a boy of about seventeen was staring quietly into space, his eyes half-open at the edge of boredom and sleep." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When Alex had been about the boy's age, he'd been deciding whether to go into the Navy or apply for upper university. He'd been dating Kerry Trautwine even though Mr. Trautwine was a religious zealot who hated him for not belonging to the right sect. He'd spent his nights playing battle simulations with Amal Shah and Korol Nadkarni.\n\nThis boy across from him was traveling the same corridors that Alex had, eating at some of the same restaurants, thinking about sex in likely more or less the same terms, but he also lived in a different universe." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alex tried to imagine what it would have been like to include travel to an alien planet in among his options at seventeen." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Would he have still enlisted? Would he have met Talissa?\n\nA gentle, mechanical voice announced their arrival at the Aterpol terminal. The boy's eyes opened, roused back to full consciousness, and he shot a distrustful look at Alex." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The deceleration pushed Alex's back, feeling almost like a long attitude burn." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Almost but not quite.\n\nAterpol was the downtown of Londres Nova, the only station with connections to all of the neighborhoods that made up the city. The vaulted ceilings curved over the common areas, the access doors along the walls double-sealed to keep air from leaking into the evacuated tubes. The terminal itself opened into a wide public park with real trees rising from the soil into the artificial twilight." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Benches made to look like wood and iron stood scattered along the winding paths, and a pond filled the air with the smells of algae and moisture." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The reassuring breeze-murmur of the air recyclers passed under everything like a constant and eternal prayer. Windows rose up along the walls, light streaming out of them or not. The rooms that looked out over Alex as he walked were businesses and apartments, restaurants and maintenance halls.\n\nAlex crossed the park to the farther gates, where the local tubes ran to the other neighborhoods." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Innis Shallow, where Bobbie lived, didn't have the best reputation." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The worst that Mars had to offer wasn't as bad as an iffy sector on Ceres Station, though, and regardless anyone who took on Bobbie was either suicidal or had an army behind them.\n\nAt the Innis Shallow station, Alex shrugged into his jacket and went on foot. There were carts for rent and a girl of no more than fourteen with a scavenged rickshaw calling on the corner. It was a short walk, though, and Alex was dreading the conversation at the end of it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He'd walked the same path three days before, still smarting from his abortive meeting with Tali, following his hand terminal's directions to Bobbie's rooms." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He hadn't seen the former marine since Luna the night that the Ring had lifted itself off the ruins of Venus and flown out toward the far edge of the system, and he'd been looking forward to anything that would distract him from the day he'd been having until then.\n\nBobbie was living in a very pleasant side corridor with its own greenway in the center and lights that had been fashioned to look like wrought-iron lamps from someone's imagined 1800s London. He'd only had to stand at her door for a few seconds before it opened.\n\nBobbie Draper was a big woman, and while years of civilian life had lost her a little of her muscle definition, she radiated competence and strength the way a fire did heat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Every time he saw her, he remembered a story from ancient history about the native Samoans armed with rocks and spears driving the gun-toting Spanish conquistadors into the sea." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bobbie was a woman who made that shit seem plausible.\n\n\"Alex! Come in. I'm sorry the place is a mess.\"\n\n\"Ain't worse than my cabin at the end of a long run.\"\n\nThe main room was wider than the ops deck back on the Roci, and done in shades of terra-cotta and gray that shouldn't have worked together, but did." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The dining table didn't seat more than four, and there were only two chairs beside it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Through an archway across from the front door, a wall monitor was set to a slowly shifting spray of colors, like Monet's water lilies animated. Where most places would have had a couch, a resistance-training machine dominated the space, a rack of chrome free weights beside it. A spiral staircase led up and down in the den's corner, bamboo laminate steps glowing warmly in the light.\n\n\"Fancy digs,\" Alex had said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bobbie's glance at her own rooms seemed almost apologetic." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's more than I need. A lot more than I need. But I thought I'd like the space. Room to stretch out.\"\n\n\"You thought you would?\"\n\nShe shrugged. \"It's more than I need.\"\n\nShe put on a brown leather jacket that looked professional and minimized the breadth of her shoulders, then led him to a fish shack with shredded trout in black sauce that had been some of the best he'd ever had." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The beer was a local brew, served cold." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Over the course of two hours, the sting of Talissa's voice and his feeling of self-loathing lost their edges, if they didn't quite vanish. Bobbie told stories about working veterans' outreach. A woman who'd come in to get psychiatric help for her son who wouldn't stop playing console games since he'd finished his deployment. Bobbie had made contact with the boy's first drill sergeant, and now the kid had a job at the shipyards." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Or the time a man came in claiming that the sex toy lodged in his colon was service related." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When Bobbie laughed, Alex laughed with her.\n\nSlowly, he'd started taking his turn too. What it had been like on the far side of the Ring. Watching Ilus or New Terra or whatever the hell they wound up calling it as it went through its paroxysms." }, { "from": "human", "value": "What it had been like shipping back with a prisoner, which led into the first time they'd shipped a prisoner—Clarissa Mao, daughter of Jules-Pierre and sister to the protomolecule's patient zero, that one had been—and how Holden and Amos and Naomi were all doing these days." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That had been when the ache hit. The homesickness for his crew and their ship. He enjoyed Bobbie's wit and the easy physicality of her company, but what he'd really wanted—then and in the days since—was to be back on the Rocinante. Which was why the end of their conversation had been so awkward for him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So, Alex,\" Bobbie said, her attempt to make the words as casual and friendly as everything that had gone before flagging them at once, \"are you still in touch with anyone over at the naval yard?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I know a few guys still serving at Hecate, sure.\"\n\n\"So I was wondering if I could get you to do a little favor for me.\"\n\n\"Sure, of course,\" Alex said. And then a fraction of a second later, \"What is it?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I've got a kind of hobby thing going on,\" she said, looking pained. \"It's... unofficial.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Is it for Avasarala?\"\n\n\"Sort of. The last time she was through, we had dinner, and some of the things she said got me thinking. With the new worlds opening up, there's a lot of change going on. Strategies shifting. Like that. And one of the big resources Mars has—one of the things that there's going to be a market for—is the Navy.\"\n\n\"I don't understand,\" Alex said, leaning back in his chair. \"You mean like mercenary work?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I mean like things going missing. Black market. We've been through a couple pretty major wars in the last few years. A lot of ships got scrapped. Some of them it seems like we just lost track of. And the Navy's stretched pretty thin. I don't know how much energy they're putting into tracking things right now. You know there was an attack on the Callisto shipyards?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Saw something about that, yeah.\"\n\n\"So that's an example, right? Here's a big incident, and the first response is all about identifying who was behind it and rebuilding the defenses.\"\n\n\"Sure,\" Alex said. \"You'd want to do that, right?\"\n\n\"So figuring out exactly what was lost in the attack is on someone's to-do list, but it's not the top. And with all the shit going on, it may never get to the top. And everyone kind of knows that, even if they aren't saying it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alex drank, put down the bottle, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So if there's a profiteer on the base, they could take the opportunity to lift some equipment that survived, sell it on the black market, and call it lost.\"\n\n\"Exactly. I mean to some degree, that's always happening, but right now, with things a little chaotic and getting weirder all the time?\"\n\n\"And with Mars losing a lot of its people to colony ships.\"\n\n\"Yeah, that too,\" Bobbie said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her expression was hard." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alex sat forward, his elbows on the table. The smell of trout and black sauce still hung in the air, though the plates were gone by then. On the screen at the front of the restaurant, a young woman in a parody of business wear danced to a computer-generated pop tune. Alex hadn't been able to make out the language; at a certain speed every language sounded equally meaningless." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You're telling me that you're investigating the sources of black market military equipment flowing off Mars.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Weapons,\" Bobbie said. \"Medical supplies. Ammunition. Power suits. Even ships.\"\n\n\"And you're doing it on your own, for fun, because of something Chrisjen Avasarala said to you.\"\n\n\"I'm kind of working for her.\"\n\nAlex laughed. \"I'm almost afraid to point this out, but you started off saying you needed a favor. You haven't told me what the favor is.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"A lot of the guys on Hecate won't talk to me. I'm a marine, they're Navy. There's that whole thing. But you know them, and even if you don't, you're one of them in a way I'm not going to manage this lifetime. I was wondering, as a favor, if you could help me dig a little.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alex had nodded at the time, but what he'd said was \"Let me think about it.\"\n\nAnd now, because it was Bobbie and because he needed something in his life to actually have a moment of real closure, he was going to see her one last time to tell her the answer was no. He had a ship to get back to. If there was something he could do for her from there, he'd be pleased to lend a hand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His first priority now was getting off Mars and not coming back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He reached the end of her corridor. The iron lanterns were glowing, creating the illusion of a street back on Earth centuries before. The echo of a place that neither he nor Bobbie had ever been, and still it was pleasant and comforting. He walked slowly, listening to the almost-silent chucking of the recyclers as if, just behind them, he could catch the murmur of the flowing Thames." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Somewhere nearby a man shouted once and briefly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was Innis Shallow after all. Alex walked a little faster. At Bobbie's door, he paused.\n\nIt was closed, but not solidly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A black smudge, perfectly round and dented into the flesh of the panel, marked it just where the latch met the frame." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A thin line of light at the door's edge showed where the frame had bent, the ceramic shattering. The man's voice came again, a low mutter rising to a final, powerful snap. It was coming from inside Bobbie's rooms.\n\nAlex's heart beat triple time as he pulled out his hand terminal and tapped quickly, quietly to the local system's emergency services link." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He thumbed in an alert request and a confirmation, but didn't fill in the details screen." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There wasn't time for it. He stood before the door, his hands in fists, wishing as hard as he'd ever wished anything that Amos was there too.\n\nHe pushed the door open and rushed in.\n\nBobbie was at the table, sitting in one of the two chairs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her arms were behind her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her legs were splayed out before her, too long for the chair to accommodate. There was blood on her mouth and down the side of her neck. A man in gray coveralls was pointing a gun at the back of her head.\n\nTwo other men, dressed in the same gray, turned toward Alex." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Both of them had automatic pistols in their fists." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A fourth man, this one in a causal suit the color of ash and a bright blue shirt, turned to Alex, his expression equal parts surprise and annoyance. When he saw Alex, his eyes went wide.\n\n\"Fuck!\" the man in the suit said, the syllable almost lost in the noise of cracking wood. Bobbie moved faster than Alex could follow, shrugging the chair she was bound to into splinters and grabbing the gunman behind her by the wrist." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He screamed and something wet happened to his arm." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One of the pistol men fired wildly, the stuttering report assaulting Alex's ears. He rushed forward shouting and barreled into the man in the suit. Together, they staggered back. The other man's knee rammed into Alex's groin, and the world dissolved into blinding pain." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alex slid to his knees, trying to hold the man by his suit jacket." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The guns continued their barrage and the stink of spent powder filled the air.\n\nThe man in the suit dug for a shoulder holster, and Alex grabbed his arm. The man's wrist was like holding concrete. There was a gun in his fist." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Someone shouted, and the roar of gunfire became the roar of something else, deeper and more animal." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alex pulled himself forward, the pain in his testicles fading to merely excruciating. He bit the solid wrist, sinking teeth into the raw silk sleeve and digging until his incisors met. The man in the suit didn't even cry out, just brought his other hand down hard on Alex's temple.\n\nEverything got a little quieter, a little more distant." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alex felt his grip slip off the man's arm, felt himself falling back, landing hard on his tailbone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The pain was there, but foggy. The man in the suit lifted his pistol to point at Alex. The barrel looked wide as a cave.\n\nOh, Alex thought, I die like this." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The man's head twitched forward in a curt nod and he crumpled." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then it was Bobbie standing before him, a six-kilo free weight curled in one hand. The chrome had blood on it and what looked like hair. No one was shooting guns anymore.\n\n\"Hey,\" Alex said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You all right?\" Bobbie asked, sitting next to him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One of the gunmen staggered past her, cradling his forearm, and bolted out the door. She didn't go after him.\n\n\"Little achy,\" Alex said, then rolled to his side and retched.\n\n\"It's okay,\" Bobbie said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You did really well.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Been a long time since hand-to-hand. I probably could have done better if I'd had some practice.\"\n\n\"Yeah, well. There were four of them with guns and two of us without. All things considered, we did okay.\"\n\nShe blew out a long breath, her head sinking low. Alex tried to sit up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You all right?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Got shot a couple times,\" she said. \"Smarts.\"\n\n\"Shit. You're hurt?\"\n\n\"Yeah. I'm going to get over to the console there in a minute. Call emergency services before blood loss makes me woozy.\"\n\n\"I already did that,\" Alex said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Before I came in.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Good planning.\"\n\n\"Not sure planning had much to do with it,\" Alex said. And then, \"Bobbie? Stay with me here.\"\n\n\"I'm here,\" she said, her voice sleepy. \"I'm all right.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the distance, Alex heard the rising tritone of sirens." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Breath by breath, they grew closer. For a long moment, he thought the deck was being shaken, then realized it was just his body, trembling. At the side of the room, one of the gunmen lay slumped against the wall. His neck was at a strange angle, and blood was drying on his chest." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He wasn't bleeding though." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dead, then. The man in the suit coughed and gagged, choking. The sirens got louder. There were voices now too. A woman identifying herself as police and warning them that people were coming in." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I was coming to tell you,\" Alex said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll stay. I'll help.\"\n\n\"Thanks.\"\n\n\"This was about the black market stuff, wasn't it?\" Alex said. \"I guess you've been asking the right questions.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "expand on the story like James S. A. Corey would" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Want some coke?\" Erich asked. \"Not synth. Real stuff that came from a plant.\"\n\n\"Nope. But I'd take a drink if one is handy,\" Amos replied. The pleasantries were just ritual, but ritual was important." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In Amos' experience the more dangerous any two people were, the more carefully polite their social interactions tended to be." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The loud, blustering ones were trying to get the other guy to back down. They wanted to stay out of a fight. The quiet ones were figuring out how to win it.\n\n\"Tatu, bring the El Charros,\" Erich said, and one of the two guards slipped out the door." }, { "from": "human", "value": "To Amos he added, \"Been on a tequila kick lately.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I haven't,\" Amos said. \"Earth is still the only place you can get good tequila. The Belter stuff is undrinkable.\"\n\n\"Not a lot of blue agave up there, I guess.\"\n\nAmos shrugged and waited." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tatu returned with a tall skinny bottle and two narrow shot glasses." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Erich filled both then lifted one in salute.\n\n\"To old friends.\"\n\n\"Old friends,\" Amos repeated and tossed back his shot.\n\n\"Another?\" Erich asked, pointing at the bottle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Sure.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Seen much of the neighborhood?\"\n\n\"Just what was between here and the train station.\"\n\n\"Hasn't changed much,\" Erich said, then paused while they both drank off their shots. He refilled their glasses." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Faces change, but the corners stay the same.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Funny, I was just thinking that same thing on my way in. Things have changed for you though.\"\n\n\"Not the important ones,\" Erich said with a grin and wiggled his small, withered left arm.\n\nAmos gestured at the room, the guards, the renovated building around them. \"When I left, you were running for your life. So, at least one thing's different.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You guys can go,\" Erich said to Tatu and his partner." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They slipped out quietly and shut the door behind them. That seemed like a good sign. Either it meant that Erich was sure Amos wasn't there to kill him, or Erich had a way of protecting himself that didn't require other people. It wouldn't be a gun under the desk." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That was too direct for Erich." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amos started casually scanning for wires or suspicious lumps on his chair or the floor beneath it.\n\nErich poured two more shots of tequila then said, \"I learned something important from you, when you left.\"\n\n\"Do tell.\"\n\n\"I'll never be the toughest guy in any room, unless I'm by myself,\" Erich said, waving his small arm again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But I'm usually the smartest. Executing a plan can be subcontracted out. Making the plan in the first place, not as much.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"True enough,\" Amos agreed. \"It's why I'll never be the captain of a ship.\"\n\nErich reacted to that. He didn't change his expression or flinch, but Amos could see the words getting taken in and filed as important." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But always useful, you,\" Erich said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You were always useful. You on a crew now?\"\n\n\"You haven't seen me in the news?\"\n\n\"I have. You look different. Shaved your head, got your nose broke a few more times. But I'll never forget a name.\"\n\n\"Well, not this one anyway,\" Amos said, and then tossed his shot back in a toast to Erich." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Gracias for that, by the way.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So, you still with that crew?\" Erich said.\n\n\"I am. Why?\"\n\n\"Because you're sitting in my office right now drinking my tequila. Still playing that out in my head. Useful guy like you can always get work. If that's what you want, I've got it. But if you're not here looking for work, what are you looking for?\"\n\nAmos grabbed the bottle and poured himself another drink." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Erich tried very hard not to look nervous." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He'd had a lot of practice, because he almost pulled it off. Time can change a lot. Erich had gone from twitchy little hacker with a price on his head to the boss of a respectable chunk of Baltimore's harbor-front property. But some things don't change." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Some tells never go away." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "While Erich sat very still and looked him in the eye without blinking, the tiny hand on his deformed left arm opened and closed like a baby grabbing at a toy just out of reach.\n\n\"Went to Lydia's house,\" Amos said, sipping slowly at the tequila.\n\n\"Not Lydia's house anymore. She's dead,\" Erich said. \"That what this is about? I treated her like you would have after you left.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yeah?\" Amos asked, eyebrows going up." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well,\" Erich admitted with an embarrassed look to the side. \"Not exactly like you would have.\"\n\n\"Thank you for that too,\" Amos said.\n\n\"You didn't kill me once when you had every reason to, and after that, you couldn't have stayed,\" Erich said, leaning forward." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His left hand had stopped clenching." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Walking away from her was part of the favor you did for me. I never forgot that. And she helped me, at first. Helped me build what I have now. Taught me to use brains to beat brawn. She never lacked for a thing it was in my power to give.\"\n\n\"And I appreciate that,\" Amos repeated. Erich's eyes narrowed and his right hand came up from under the desk with a short-barreled automatic in it. Amos found himself surprised and a little proud of his friend." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Erich rested his hand on the desk, the gun pointed away from Amos, more a warning than a threat." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If you've got some beef you came here to settle,\" Erich said, \"you won't be the first guy to leave this office in a bag.\"\n\nAmos raised his hands a little in mock surrender. \"Not even armed, chief. I came here to talk.\"\n\n\"So talk.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What you did for Lydia was real nice,\" Amos said, putting his hands back down slowly but keeping his eye on the gun." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But you're wrong. She's not all dead. Some of her's left.\"\n\nErich cocked his head to the side, frowning. \"Gonna need to walk me through that one.\"\n\n\"There's an old man loved her and lived with her and kissed her goodnight before she died. A house with a little rose garden they worked together. Maybe some dogs. I saw a picture, but not sure if they're still around.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I still don't get it,\" Erich said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amos rubbed his thumb against his knuckle, trying to find the words. It wasn't a thought he'd said out loud before, and if he screwed it up and Erich misunderstood, there was a chance they'd wind up trying to kill each other. So it was worth thinking about some.\n\n\"It's like this. The old man keeps the house until he dies. He's the only thing she left behind. He's the last bit of her. He keeps the house.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Erich put the little gun flat on the desk and poured himself another drink." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He leaned back, holding the glass with his right hand. He couldn't pick the weapon back up without dropping the drink and he couldn't do that faster than Amos could reach him. It was a signal, and Amos felt the tension leave the muscles in his neck and shoulders.\n\n\"That's more sentimental than I would have guessed,\" Erich said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm not sentimental about much,\" Amos agreed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But when I am, I'm pretty passionate.\"\n\n\"So I've heard the request. What's the payoff for me? I had something of a debt to Lydia, but I don't owe the old man shit. What does this win me, I keep him on the dole?\"\n\nAmos sighed, and gave his oldest friend a sad smile. \"Really?\"\n\n\"Really.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't kill you, kill those two guys outside. I don't dismantle this organization from the top down and rebuild it with someone who'll owe me a favor.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ah,\" Erich said. \"There he is.\"\n\nAmos had to admit, Erich had grown some stones. He didn't even look down at the gun on the desk as he was being threatened. Just gave Amos his own version of the tragic smile." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There who is?\" Amos asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Timmy.\"\n\n\"Yeah, I guess. It wouldn't be my first choice, though. So how's this go?\"\n\n\"Costs me almost nothing to keep the old man's house,\" Erich said, then shook his head as if disagreeing with himself. \"But even if it did, I'd still do it. Just to keep Timmy off my streets.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Again, thanks.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Erich shooed the gratitude away with a wave of his good hand, then stood up and walked to the office's large screen pretending to be a window. The gun still lay on the desk, ignored now. Amos considered it briefly, then leaned farther back in his chair and put his hands behind his head, elbows spread out wide.\n\n\"Funny, right?\" Erich said, pointing out the window at something Amos couldn't see." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"All those new faces and old corners. Shit changes and doesn't. I did, you didn't.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I live on a spaceship and fight alien monsters sometimes,\" Amos said with a shrug of his elbows. \"So that's different.\"\n\n\"Anything out there scarier than a hype with no money when you're holding his fix? Scarier than a street boss thinks you skimmed?\" Erich laughed and turned around, putting his back to the window. \"Fuck that. Anything out there scarier than a life on basic?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No,\" Amos admitted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So you got what you wanted,\" Erich said, his voice going flat and dead. \"Get the fuck out of my city or it's open season.\"\n\nAmos stood. He was closer to the gun than Erich now. Could feel it pull at him like gravity." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He could pick it up, kill Erich, kill the two guards waiting outside." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "By the end of the day he'd own a chunk of Erich's old territory and have the muscle and credibility to take the rest. In a flash, the whole scenario played out in his mind.\n\nInstead, he hooked his thumbs in his pants pockets and backed toward the door. \"Thanks for the drink,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I forgot how good tequila was.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll have Tatu give you a couple bottles on the way out. To take with you,\" Erich said.\n\n\"Shit, I won't turn that down.\"\n\n\"It was good to see you,\" Erich said, then paused a moment. \"The gun was empty.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yeah?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Fléchette turret hidden in the light,\" Erich said, with a flick of his eyes at the inset LED housing above them. \"Poisoned darts. I say a word, it kills everyone in the room isn't me.\"\n\n\"Nice. Thanks for not saying it.\"\n\n\"Thanks for still being my friend.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "It felt like goodbye, so Amos gave Erich one last smile, and left the room." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tatu was waiting in the corridor with a box full of tequila bottles. The guards must have been monitoring the whole thing.\n\n\"Need help on your way out?\" the guard asked.\n\n\"Naw,\" Amos replied and hoisted the box over one shoulder." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm good at leaving.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amos let his hand terminal take him to the nearest flophouse and got a room. He dumped his booze and bag on the bed and then hit the streets. A short walk took him to a food cart where he bought what the sign optimistically called a Belgian sausage. Unless the Belgians were famous for their flavored bean curd products, the optimism seemed misplaced." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Not that it mattered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amos realized that while he knew the orbital period of every Jovian moon by heart, he had no idea where Belgium was. He didn't think it was a North American territory, but that was about the best he could do. He was hardly in a position to criticize assertions about their cuisine.\n\nHe walked toward the old rotting docks he played on as a child, not for any reason more profound than needing a destination and knowing which direction the water was." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He finished the last of his sausage and then, not seeing a convenient recycling bin, he chewed up and swallowed the wrapper too." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was made of spun corn starch and tasted like stale breakfast cereal.\n\nA small knot of teens passed him, then paused and turned to follow. They were in that awkward age between being a victim on legs and capable of real adult crimes. The right age for petty theft and running for the dealers mixed with the occasional mugging when opportunity presented itself without too much risk." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Amos ignored them and climbed down onto the rusting steel of an old bayfront jetty." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The teens hung back, arguing in quiet but tense voices. Probably deciding if the reward of a solitary mark with an outsider's credit balance—it being an article of faith that anyone from outside the docks of Baltimore had more money than anyone in them—was worth the risk of taking on a man of his size. He knew the calculus of that equation well. He'd been in on that very argument himself, once upon a time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He continued to ignore them and listened instead to the gentle lap of the water against the pilings of his jetty." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the distance, the sky lit up with a line of fire like a lightning bolt drawn with a ruler. A sonic boom rolled across the bay a few moments later, and Amos had a sudden and intense memory of sitting on those very docks with Erich, watching the rail-gun supply lifts fired into orbit, and discussing the possibility of leaving the planet.\n\nTo everyone outside the gravity well, Amos was from Earth. But that wasn't true." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Not in any way that mattered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amos was from Baltimore. What he knew about the planet outside of a few dozen blocks of the poor district would fit on a napkin. The first steps he'd ever taken outside the city were when he'd climbed off a high-speed rail line in Bogotá and onto the shuttle that had flown him to Luna.\n\nHe heard quiet footsteps on the jetty behind him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The discussion was over." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The yeas outweighing the nays. Amos turned around and faced the approaching teens. A few of them held improvised clubs. One had a knife." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Not worth it,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He didn't flex or raise his fists. He just shook his head. \"Wait for the next one.\" There was a tense moment as they stared at him and he stared back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then, moving as though they'd reached some sort of telepathic consensus, they drifted away in a group." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Erich was wrong about him being the same. The man he'd once been wasn't a collection of personality traits. He was the things he knew, the desires of his heart, the skills he had. The person he'd been before he left knew where the good basement booze was brewed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Which dealers had a consistent supply of quality black market marijuana and tobacco." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The brothels that serviced the locals, and the ones that were there only to rob thrill-seeking poverty tourists. That person knew where to rent a gun for cheap, and that the price tripled if you used it. Knew it was cheaper to rent time in a machine shop and make your own. Like the shotgun he'd used the first time he killed a man." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But the person he was now knew how to keep a fusion reactor running." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "How to tune the magnetic coils to impart maximum energy to ionized exhaust particles, and how to fix a hull breach. That guy didn't care about these streets or the pleasures and risks they offered. Baltimore could look exactly the same, and be as foreign to him as the mythical land of Belgium.\n\nAnd in that moment, he knew it was his last time on Earth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was never coming back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He woke up in his rented flop the next morning with half a bottle of tequila on his nightstand and the first hangover he'd had in years. For a moment he thought he'd been so drunk he wet the bed, but realized that in the stifling heat of the room he'd sweated out about a liter. His throat felt dry and his tongue swollen.\n\nHe rinsed off the night's sweat and drank steaming-hot water out of the shower, tilting his head back to let it fill his mouth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "After decades of filtered and sterilized ship and space station water, he marveled at all the flavors in it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He hoped not too many of them were microbes or heavy metals.\n\nHe pulled the remaining tequila bottles out of their box and stuffed them into his duffel bag, wrapping his clothes around them to protect them. Then he picked up his hand terminal and started looking for a hop back to Luna, then a connecting long flight to Tycho. He'd said goodbye to Lydia, or the pieces of her that she'd left behind anyway." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He'd said a goodbye of sorts to Erich." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was no one left on the entire planet he gave half a shit about.\n\nWell, no. That wasn't true. Maybe half.\n\nHe called the number Avasarala had used, and a sculpted young man with a perfect haircut, pale skin, and gigantic teeth appeared. He looked like an expensive store mannequin. \"Secretary Avasarala's office.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Gimme Chrissie, kid, and make it snappy.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The mannequin was stunned into silence for two long breaths. \"I'm sorry, but the secretary can't—\"\n\n\"Kid,\" Amos said with a smirk, \"I just called on her private line, right? My name is Amos Burton.\" A lie, but one he'd told often enough it had become a sort of truth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I work for James Holden. I bet if you don't tell her I'm on the line right now that you're applying for basic by the end of the day.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"One moment please,\" the mannequin said and then the screen displayed the blue-and-white logo of the UN.\n\n\"Burton,\" Chrisjen Avasarala said, appearing on the screen less than thirty seconds later. \"Why the fuck are you still on my planet?\"\n\n\"Getting ready to leave, chief, but figured I got one more person to check in on before I go.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Was it me? Because I don't like you enough to consider that charming. I have a flight to Luna waiting on the pad for me so I can go do fucking party arrangements before the Martian prime minister arrives.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They make you do that?\"\n\n\"I do everything, and every second I talk to you costs ten thousand dollars.\"\n\n\"Really?\"\n\n\"No, I just made that number up. But I fucking hate flying to Luna so I've been putting it off to finish other work anyway. Do you need a ride? If it gets you off my planet, I can give you a ride. What? Did I say something funny?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Naw, just reminded me of somebody,\" Amos said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Anyway, I get the feeling this is the only trip down the well I'm ever going to take.\"\n\n\"I'm crushed,\" she said.\n\n\"Since I'm here, I figured anything I might want to do, better do it now. Anyone I wanted to see, you know,\" Amos continued. \"Where did you guys wind up locking Peaches away?\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "I'll be your writing partner today. I will set the scene, and you will continue the story with four sentences, channeling the voice and techniques of James S. A. Corey.i'll kick things off by writing a bit, then you'll take over and write the next four sentences in the distinctive voice of James S. A. Corey.Ive got a bit of writers block, im gonna send you something then keep it going four sentences at a time, also im going for a James S. A. Corey sorta thing." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The systems that the gate network had opened up were scattered across what everyone was pretty sure was the Milky Way galaxy. Cartography was still working out their relative locations, but even the initial findings put some of the new systems tens of thousands of light-years from Earth and with some distinct weirdness about time and location. Confronted by such unimaginably vast distances, it was easy to forget how much space was in just one solar system. Until you tried to find something in it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Legally, any spaceship on the move had to register a flight plan and run an active transponder." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That made ships traveling from place to place relatively easy to track. And with a transponder pinging away so you knew where to point your telescope, an active drive was visible from across the solar system. But ships would power down for repairs in dock, so transponders disappeared off the grid all the time. Ships were decommissioned, so a transponder might go black and never return for entirely legitimate reasons." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Newly commissioned ships showed up with brand-new names and ships that were sold registered name changes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Some were cobbled together from scrap, some were built in shipyards, some were salvaged. And all of it was happening scattered across roughly one hundred quintillion square kilometers of space, give or take a few quadrillion. And that was only if you ignored that space had a third dimension.\n\nSo, seventeen ships had vanished going through ring gates, and if Holden was right, they were probably back in the home system with new names." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In theory, there was a path to the information he wanted, but unless he was interested in spending several hundred lifetimes sifting through the raw data, he'd need help." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Specifically, he needed a computer plowing through a number of different massive databases on new ships, decommissioned ships, sold ships, repaired ships, and lost ships, looking for anything that didn't add up. Even with a good computer and very smart data sorting software, it was what a programmer would call a nontrivial task.\n\nAnd, unfortunately, the best software engineer that Holden knew had flown off to parts unknown and wasn't answering his messages. He didn't have the skills to do it himself, the time to learn them, or a crew to do it for him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "What he had, was money." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After his shift working with Sakai's people on the Roci refit, Holden called up Fred yet again. \"Fred, hey, I have a software problem. Can I hire some of your programming wonks for a short-term gig?\"\n\n\"Your ship need an update?\" Fred asked. \"Or is this something that will piss me off?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Something that'll piss you off. So, who's available for custom script writing?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Paula Gutierrez had the elongated body and slightly oversized head of a low-g childhood. Her smile was sharp and professional. She was a freelance software engineer who'd taken a six-month consulting job on Tycho five years before and then just stayed on the station picking up the odd bit of piecework. On Holden's hand terminal, her wide face filled the screen with dark bushy eyebrows and blindingly white teeth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So, that's what I'm looking for, and I need it as fast as possible,\" Holden said after laying out his requirements. \"Doable?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Very,\" Paula said. \"Tycho keeps all the traffic databases mirrored local, so don't even have to sweat the lag. Gonna cost you for speed, though.\"\n\n\"Cost me what?\"\n\n\"Fifteen hundred an hour, ten hours minimum. Know up front I don't argue about billing and I don't give discounts.\"\n\n\"That,\" Holden said, \"sounds like a lot.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's because I've got you over a barrel and I'm gouging the shit out of you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Okay, how soon will I start seeing output?\"\n\nPaula shrugged with her eyebrows, then looked down at something off camera. \"Call it twenty hours from now before you start getting data sent to you. Want me to collate or stream it as it comes in?\"\n\n\"Send it straight to me, please. Going to ask me why I want it?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Paula laughed. \"I never do.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Monica was renting a small suite of rooms on the visitors' level of Tycho. They were expensive, and to Holden's surprise, not any nicer than the company quarters Fred had set aside for his crew. Not many companies treated their own as well as they treated guests. But courtesy dictated that he act like the rooms were something special to make Monica feel good about the investment, so he made impressed noises at the open spaces and quality of the furnishings." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So what did Fred say?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Monica asked once he took a seat at her dining table and sipped at the tea she'd made.\n\n\"He doesn't think there's much to go on, honestly.\"\n\n\"I mean about using the protomolecule sample to try and get in touch with Detective Miller.\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" Holden replied, putting the tea back on the table and pushing it away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The first sip had left his tongue feeling scalded and rough." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I mentioned that but only so he'd know he had a leak somewhere. That was always a nonstarter as an investigation tool. No one's letting that shit out of its bottle anytime soon.\"\n\n\"Then I'm wasting my time here, is what you're saying.\"\n\n\"No,\" Holden said. \"Not at all. I think the missing ship thing is legitimate. I just don't think it's an alien conspiracy. It's much more likely to be associated with this hard-line OPA wing. I'm looking into it, if that's a story you want to pursue.\"\n\nMonica spun her hand terminal around on the tabletop, already impatient with him for changing the subject." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I made my name with the story on the Behemoth. Aliens and wormhole gates and a protomolecule ghost that only talked to the most famous person in the solar system. I don't think my follow-up to that can be Humans Still Shitty to Each Other. Lacks panache.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So, is this about finding those missing ships? Or is it about finding another batch of alien weirdness to make you more famous?\"\n\n\"That sounded awfully judgmental for a guy who's managed to shoehorn himself into every major news piece for the last six years.\"\n\n\"Ouch,\" Holden said, then let the uncomfortable silence stretch a while. Monica kept spinning her hand terminal but not looking him in the eye." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Sorry,\" she finally said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's okay. Look, I'm going through this weird empty-nest thing, and it's left me kind of restless. And because I'm looking to latch onto something, I'm going to go find those missing ships. Probably won't be an alien conspiracy, but I'm going to do it anyway. Want to help?\"\n\n\"Not sure what that looks like, to be honest. I was hoping to just ask the omniscient aliens. Do you know how big space is?\"\n\n\"I've given it some thought,\" Holden said. \"I have this plan. I talked to Fred about the OPA angle, but he doesn't like that idea so he's rejecting it out of hand. Still, that got me thinking. The OPA isn't going to throw a bunch of ships away. Belters just don't think that way. They recycle everything.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So how do you find pirated ships? Chief Engineer Sakai suggested looking for the new ships that turn up rather than hunting the missing ones.\"\n\n\"Sakai suggested...\"\n\n\"He's a guy I work with on the Roci refits. But anyway, I thought that sounded like a great idea so I hired a local data wonk to write a database mining script to track all the new ship names that show up on the registries and try to find an origin point.\"\n\n\"A data wonk.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Freelance coder. Whatever the name is for that kind of work, yeah, and anytime now I'll start getting a stream of data that includes all the mysteriously appearing ships. Our missing seventeen should be a subset of that. At least it'll be a smaller number of ships than, you know, all of them.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Monica stood up and walked away several steps, not speaking. Holden blew on his tea and waited. When she finally turned back around, the look on her face was carefully controlled incredulity. \"You've involved Fred Johnson, some engineer here on Tycho, and a fucking hacker in this? Are you that stupid?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden sighed and stood up." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I first heard about this from you, so I'll do you the courtesy of letting you know where the investigation goes—\"\n\n\"And now you're leaving?\" The incredulous look on Monica's face only deepened.\n\n\"Well, funny thing. I don't have to put up with being called stupid by someone I'm trying to help.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Monica lifted her palms in a placating gesture that he suspected she didn't really mean." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sorry,\" she said, \"but you just involved three new people, one of whom is the highest-profile member of the OPA, in my... our investigation. What on earth made you think that was a good idea?\"\n\n\"You know me, right?\" Holden said, not sitting again but not heading straight for the door either. \"I'm not a guy who hides things. I don't think Fred is the bad guy, but if he is then his reaction to our searching will tell us something. Secrecy is the potting soil in which all this conspiracy shit grows. Trust me. The roaches don't like it when you start shining a light on them.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And what if they decide to get rid of the guy with the light?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well,\" Holden said with a grin, \"that'll be interesting too. They won't be the first ones to try, and I'm still here.\"\n\nThe following day the data from Paula's program began trickling in. He authorized his terminal to transfer the remaining payment for her services and began going through the list.\n\nLots of new ships were showing up around Mars and Earth, but that was to be expected." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The shipyards were cranking out new and refurbished vessels as fast as the mechanics and engineers could make them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Everyone with two yuan to rub together was making a play for the ring gates and the worlds beyond them, and the biggest group of people who like living on planets and were already physiologically adapted to it came from the two inner worlds. Only a tiny fraction of those ships had gaps in their records that Paula's program would flag, but even a brief search led Holden to believe that the flagged ships were mostly paperwork errors, not piracy.\n\nThere were also a scattering of suspicious new ships in the Belt. Those were more interesting." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If the OPA was stealing ships, then the logical place to hide them was in a region of space thick with ships and other metallic bodies." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden began going through the Belt list one ship at a time.\n\nThe Gozerian appeared out of nowhere in the docks at the Pallas refinery in the right date range. The records listed it as a probate transfer, but were vague on who'd died and what relation the new owner had to the old. Holden guessed the answer to those two questions was person who used to own the ship and person who killed them and took it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The transfer of ownership was sketchy enough that it almost certainly was the result of piracy, but the Gozerian was listed as a non-Epstein light-hulled mining ship." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A rock hopper. The records from Pallas backed that up, and a search of the list of seventeen missing ships didn't turn up anything matching its description. No one was going to make a run for the edge of the solar system and then all the way in to a new world in something that didn't have an Epstein drive. There were much more comfortable places to die of old age.\n\nHolden checked the Gozerian off his list and moved to the next." }, { "from": "human", "value": "By the time he'd gone through the entire initial list from Paula it was three a.m., Tycho time, and his shift on the Roci started at eight, so he caught a couple hours of rack time and spent a miserable morning trying to trace maneuvering thruster cables through a fog of sleep deprivation." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "By the time his shift was over all he could think about was a little dinner and a lot of sleep, but the data stream from Paula was waiting for him with nearly fifty new ships. So he picked up a carton of noodles on his way home and spent the rest of the evening going through the list.\n\nThe Mouse Pie was a gas freighter and didn't match his missing list. The Vento first appeared before the date range he was interested in, and a query to the last dock it had visited confirmed the dates were correct." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Blasphemous Jester was listed as Epstein equipped, but a search of the service records showed that the drive had been out of commission for years." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Someone had been using it as a short-hop shuttle in teakettle mode ever since.\n\nOn and on and on through the names it went. At one point his terminal beeped with an incoming message. Amos checking in with a cryptic \"Visited my friend's grave. Went okay, but still got some shit to do. Back later.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden slurped up another mouthful of noodles that had long since gone cold and now had the consistency of earthworms." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "How had Miller done shit like this for a living, he wondered. It was shocking to realize how much of investigation was just brute-force solutions. Going through endless lists looking for one thing that doesn't fit. Talking to every single potential witness over and over." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Pounding the pavement, as the gumshoes in Alex's neo-noir movies might say." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was thinking about Alex that twigged his memory, and he went back through the list until he found a ship designated the Pau Kant. The last location was marked as 434 Hungaria. A high albedo rock in the Hungaria group, an asteroid group relatively close to the orbit of Mars but with a high inclination. Mars control had caught a ping from the Pau Kant and then lost it shortly after." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They'd marked the ship as missing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But prior to that single and short-lived appearance, the Pau Kant didn't seem to exist in any other records. He couldn't find any description of her hull type or drive. Nor were there any owner records he could track down. He'd moved it to his list of ships to look into later, but something about Mars and inner Belt asteroids was making his brain itch." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Hungaria group wasn't a terrible place to hide things." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "434 Hungaria was about twenty kilometers across. Plenty of mass to mask ships from radar, and the high albedo of the group would clutter up the results of anyone looking for ships with a telescope. The location was intriguing too. If the OPA radicals were collecting ships to pirate colony transports, the inner Belt was not a bad staging area." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They'd also launched an attack on Earth in the recent past." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That it had failed didn't mean they weren't planning more. A bunch of stolen ships hiding in the inner ring was exactly the sort of first step another attempt might take.\n\nThe Hungaria asteroids were a long way from Tycho's current location, and Holden didn't have a ship. But they were pretty close to Mars, and Alex was there." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If he had access to a ship, it wouldn't be too long a trip to go take a peek." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "See if the Pau Kant was still out there, tethered to the rock and staying dark. And if it matched any of Monica's missing ships? Well, that would be interesting to take back to Fred.\n\nHolden put his terminal on the table, angled up to record his face, and said, \"Alex. Hey, hope things are going well out there, and that Bobbie is good. So, I've been looking into this thing with missing ships? And there's a suspicious hit out at 434 Hungaria. Any chance you have access to a ship? If you need to rent one, feel free to pull the funds from my account. I'd like you to go see if a ship named the Pau Kant is sitting out there parked and dark. Specs on the transponder code attached to this message.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He put all the information he had on the Pau and its most recent location from the Mars control records into a file." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It wasn't much to go on, and it felt like a long shot, but Alex would enjoy the flight and Holden was willing to foot the bill so he didn't feel too bad about asking.\n\nHe was pretty sure the burst of energy that came from having made progress would be short-lived, but he wanted to share his success and felt wide-awake, so he called Monica. He got her voice mail. He left her a message to call him back, slurped down the last of his cold and nasty noodles, and immediately fell asleep on his couch." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The next morning he wasn't on the duty roster to work on the Roci, and Monica hadn't called him back, so he called again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No answer. On his way to breakfast he dropped by her apartment, but she wasn't there either. She'd been a little miffed at him, but he didn't think she'd bail on the whole missing ship story without saying anything. He made another call.\n\n\"Tycho security,\" a young male voice said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hey, this is Jim Holden. I'm checking on a visiting journalist, Monica Stuart. Has she left the station?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"One sec. No. Records list her as still on board. Her apartment is—\"\n\n\"Yeah, actually? I'm at her apartment right now and she's not answering here or on her hand terminal.\"\n\n\"My records show that her terminal hasn't connected to Tychonet since early yesterday.\"\n\n\"Huh,\" Holden said, frowning at her door." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The quiet on the other side had taken on an ominous feel." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What if they decide to get rid of the guy with the light? He wasn't the only one who fit that description. \"So she hasn't so much as paid for a sandwich in over a day. That strikes me as not good.\"\n\n\"Want me to send a team?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Please do that.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "By the time the security team arrived and opened the door to Monica's apartment, Holden was expecting the worst. He wasn't disappointed. The rooms had been methodically searched. Monica's clothes and personal effects were scattered across the floor. The hand terminal she used for interviews had been crushed under someone's heel, but the screen still flickered when Holden touched it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The team found no traces of blood, which was about the only positive sign." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden called Fred while the team finished their forensic sweep. \"It's me,\" he said as soon as the OPA chief answered. \"You've got a bigger problem than radicals on Medina.\"\n\n\"Really?\" Fred said, his voice weary." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And what is that?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You've got them on Tycho.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Today you will be acting as a writing assistant, your partner will send something and you will write the next 4 sentences." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Terryon Lock was supposed to be a new kind of place in the emptiness of the Jovian system." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A Belter home world, they figured. Modular, so it could grow or contract at need. Outside the control of Earth or Mars or anybody. A free city in space, with its own governance, its own environmental controls." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Naomi had seen the plans when they first spilled out over the networks." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rokku had them printed on thin plastics and stuck to the walls of the ship. Terryon Lock was the new Jerusalem until the security forces at Ganymede shut it down. No colonies without permission. No homes. No safe havens, not even if they built it themselves." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She hadn't even been pregnant when it happened." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She didn't know that it would define her.\n\nFilip was eight months old when the Augustín Gamarra died. The Gamarra had left Ceres Station, burning for a Coalition Navy research station on Oshima with a payload of organics and hydroponic equipment. Ten hours out, burning at a leisurely one-quarter g, the ship's magnetic bottle lost containment, spilling the fusion core into the ship." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For a fraction of a second, the Gamarra had been as bright as the sun and two hundred thirty-four people died." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No wreckage survived, and the official investigation into the event had never been closed because no conclusion could be reached. Accident or sabotage. Mischance or murder.\n\nThey had gone from the hidden cell at the back of the club to a private apartment up even nearer the center of spin. The air had the too-clean ozone smell of a recently replaced recycling filter." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Filip sat at the small table, his hands folded." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She sat on the edge of the tiny foam-and-gel sofa. She looked at the boy's dark eyes and tried to connect them in her mind with the ones she remembered. His lips with the toothless, delighted smile. She couldn't tell if the resemblance was really there, or if it was only her imagination." }, { "from": "human", "value": "How much did someone change between not-quite-a-toddler and not-quite-an-adult?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Could it really be the same boy? It wasn't anyone else.\n\nThe hole wasn't abandoned. There were clothes in the locker, food and beer in the little refrigerator." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The pale walls showed chips at the corners where the damage of minor accidents had built up over the course of years." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He didn't tell her who the apartment belonged to, and she didn't ask.\n\n\"Why didn't you bring the Rocinante?\" Filip asked. There was a tentative quality to his voice. Like the question was only a stand-in for other ones he wanted to ask." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That she wanted to be able to answer." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Why did you go? Didn't you love us?\n\n\"It's in dock for repairs. Will be for months.\"\n\nFilip nodded once, sharply." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She could see Marco in the movement." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's going to complicate things.\"\n\n\"Marco didn't tell me you wanted the ship,\" Naomi said, hating the implicit apology in the words. \"All he said was that you were in trouble. That you were avoiding the law, and that I could... that I could help.\"\n\n\"We'll have to come up with something,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The hospitals at Ceres Station were some of the best in the Belt when Naomi had been coming near to term." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Neither of them had the money to travel to Europa or Ganymede for the duration of a pregnancy. Ceres had been closer to Rokku's claims than Tycho Station. Childbirth was a greater danger for Belters than for someone who'd lived under constant gravity, and Naomi's pregnancy had already had two scares. She and Marco had lived in a cheap rental near the hospital, one of dozens that catered to Belters who came for the medical care." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The terms of the agreement were open-ended, letting them stay until they didn't need the doctors, nurses, expert systems, and pharmaceuticals that the medical complex boasted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Naomi could still remember the shape of the bed there, the cheap plastic curtains with a printed starscape that Marco hung across the doorway. The smell of it made her sick, but he'd been so pleased with himself she'd tolerated it. And even that late in the process, almost everything made her sick. She'd spent her days sleeping and feeling the baby shifting inside her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Filip had been restless as a fetus." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She hadn't felt like a child having a child. She'd felt like a woman in control of her fate.\n\n\"How many do you need to get out?\" Naomi asked.\n\n\"Fifteen, all told.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Including you?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sixteen.\"\n\nShe nodded. \"Any cargo?\"\n\n\"No,\" he said, and then seemed about to go on. After a moment, he looked away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Ceres had still been under Earth control back then." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Most of the people living on the base were Belters who'd taken contract with one of the Martian or Earther corporations. Earth security by Belters. Earth traffic control by Belters. Martian bioresearch by Belters." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Marco had laughed at it all, but the laughter had an edge." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He'd called Ceres humanity's largest shrine to Stockholm syndrome.\n\nEveryone flying with Rokku had paid part of their share into the OPA, Naomi included. And the OPA looked after them in the last days of her pregnancy, local women bringing food to the hole, local men taking Marco out to the bars so that he had someone besides her to talk to. Naomi didn't think anything of it apart from being grateful." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Those nights when Marco was out drinking with the local men and she was alone in her bed with Filip, her mind moving in the silence had carried an almost transcendent contentment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Or at least that was how she remembered it now. At the time, without knowing what was still to come, the experience might have been different.\n\n\"Where do you need to be?\"\n\n\"We don't talk about that,\" Filip said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Naomi brushed her hair back from her eyes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You brought me here because it's secure, sa sa? So is it that you don't want to be overheard by someone else, or that you think telling me compromises you? Because if you don't trust me enough to ask for what you want, you don't trust me enough for me to be here.\"\n\nThe words seemed to carry more nuance than they could bear, as if the simple logistical facts also meant something about why she'd left. About who they were to each other. It was like she could feel the words creaking, but she didn't know what Filip heard in them, or what she should have said differently." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For a moment, there was a flicker in his expression." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sorrow or hatred or pain, it was gone too quickly to identify. A new stratum of guilt settled onto her, bearing her down. Compared to what she already had, it was trivial.\n\n\"He said I should tell you once we were off the station,\" Filip said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Apparently he didn't know I'd be arranging passage on a different ship. Plans change. It's what they do.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Filip's gaze fixed on her, his eyes hard as marbles. She realized she'd been quoting Marco without meaning to. Maybe Filip thought it was a slap, that she was making a claim on his father by using his words. She didn't know. She didn't know him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She had to keep reminding herself of that." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There's a rendezvous point.\"\n\n\"Is there a time?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"How long?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She saw We don't talk about it floating in his eyes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When he spoke, his voice was smaller, younger. More vulnerable. \"Soon.\"\n\n\"How soon?\"\n\nHe looked away.\n\n\"Very.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She'd known, back then, that there were hard-core OPA factions on Ceres, but it hadn't bothered her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Radical OPA was still OPA, and that made them family. The crazy uncle who got drunk and started fights, maybe, but with Earth cranking up tariffs and Mars lowering the prices it would pay for ore, the sense of being under siege put Belters on the side of Belters first. And after shipping with Rokku for a while, talk of killing Earthers and Martians became a kind of white noise.\n\nThe birth had been hard." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Thirty hours of labor." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The muscles of her abdominal wall, made weaker by a lifetime of inconstant g, had shredded themselves. If they had been in Rokku's ship or even back on Hygeia Station, she might have died, and the baby with her. But the medical complex on Ceres had seen it all before, and worse. A gray-haired woman with a cathedral of tattoos on her hands and arms had been in her room the whole time, singing little tunes in Swahili and Arabic." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Naomi could still see her and hear her voice, though she'd forgotten the woman's name." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If she'd ever known it.\n\nFilip had drawn his first, exhausted, angry breath at five in the morning, the day after she'd gone into the complex. The pediatric autodoc scanned him, considered for the longest five seconds of Naomi's life, and declared the baby safely within standard error. The gray-haired woman had placed him on Naomi's breast and sung a blessing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It hadn't occurred to her then to wonder where Marco was." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had assumed he was in a waiting area somewhere, ready to pass out some equivalent of cigars as soon as news of her came. Of her and their son. Maybe that had even been true.\n\n\"Do we need to be there, or is off station enough?\" Naomi asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Off station at minimum. Better to be there, but not here solid.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And where are we going?\"\n\n\"Hungaria cluster.\" They were a group of minor asteroids. High albedo. No station, but an open-access storage facility. As close to the inner planets as Belt rocks got." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are we meeting someone there?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not there. There's a ship a few days in. Sunward. But locked to Hungaria. Pella, it's called.\"\n\n\"And after that?\"\n\nFilip made the hand shrug of a Belter. Apparently she could know that much, but no more." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She wondered what would happen if she pushed, and knew it was an experiment she wouldn't make." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I'm sorry, she thought. I loved you more than I have ever loved anything. I would have stayed if I could. I would have taken you with me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Filip looked at her and then away." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She'd spent most of the weeks following the birth in recovery. The baby kept her from sleeping very long at a stretch, but apart from one week of frankly hellish colic, he was neither harder nor easier than she'd been led to expect. The worst thing she suffered was boredom, and Marco helped with that. The local group he'd been drinking with were mechanics and technicians at the port, and Marco brought her engineering problems that they were trying to solve." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were the sort of work consultants would do for half a month's credit." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She did them from goodwill and the need to do something intellectually challenging. While Filip napped in the little plastic crib, she customized diagnostic programs for water recyclers. She built virtual timing sequencers for shear force detection units. She designed software overrides for testing the containment limits of magnetic bottles." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The kind of limits that, before long, would fail on the Gamarra." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"All right,\" Naomi said. \"I'll see what I can do.\"\n\n\"Do you have access to another ship?\" Filip asked.\n\n\"I may be able to charter something.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You can't just hire a charter. This has to be untraceable.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Meaning, she knew, that whatever was going to happen, it would mean people with guns coming after Filip and Cyn and all the others. Maybe security forces, maybe a rival faction, maybe something else that she hadn't anticipated yet. But there would be consequences. And there would be violence." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I may be able to charter something discreetly,\" Naomi said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If it doesn't work, I'll be sure it doesn't come back to you.\"\n\nFilip swallowed. For a moment, she saw a glimmer of fear in him. He was sixteen years old now. A year younger than when she'd met his father." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Three years younger than when she'd held him to her breasts to feed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I would have looked for you if he'd let me,\" Naomi said. The words came out of her from a need she couldn't control. He was a boy. He was carrying whatever burden Marco had put on him already." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Making him responsible for how she felt too wasn't a kindness." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She rose to her feet. \"You don't need to do anything about that. Just I would have. If he'd let me.\"\n\nIf he'd let me. The words were heavy and toxic as lead." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I would have done what I wanted, except he still controlled me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Still does. After all these years, and all these changes, and everything I have done and become, I wouldn't have left you to him except that Marco still controls me. Constrains me. Punishes me for not letting him rule me outright.\n\n\"All right,\" Filip said. His expression was empty." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Naomi nodded. Her hands were in fists so tight the knuckles ached." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She made herself relax. \"Give me a day. I'll know more.\"\n\n\"Come to the club,\" Filip said. \"If we're not there, just wait and we'll make contact. We need to stay moving.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I thought I could stay with you, she thought, and then hated herself for the disappointment she felt." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This wasn't a reunion. Her unfinished business with Filip might be what brought her here, but he was doing something else. Something that had brought his long-lost mother back into his world. If she wanted to sit with him and eat sweets and share stories the way they never had, that was her problem." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Fair enough,\" Naomi said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She hesitated, then turned to the door. As she reached it, he spoke again, his voice tight. Like the words were hard to say.\n\n\"Thank you for coming.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She felt it in her sternum, someone taking a hammer to the bones over her heart." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Filip watched her from the table. He looked so much like his father. She tried to imagine that she had ever been that young herself. Tried to imagine that at that age she would have known how to pick words that were that perfectly empty and heartwarming and cruel." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She felt the smile press her lips out a millimeter." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was an expression of sorrow more than joy.\n\n\"He told you to say that,\" she said. \"Didn't he?\"\n\nThere were a hundred ways to unpack the boy's silence.\n\nAfter the Gamarra, Marco had come home drunk and happy from his celebration." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She'd told him to be quiet, not to wake the baby." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Marco had swooped her up in his arms, twirling her in the little room until her ankle hit the bed and she yelped with pain. He'd put her down then, rubbing the little injury. Kissing it. He'd looked up at her with a smile that asked as much as it promised, and she'd thought about whether they could make love quietly enough that Filip would keep sleeping. That was what she'd been thinking of when he destroyed her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Managed it, us. You, que si?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Managed what?\" she asked, leaning back against the gel of the bed.\n\n\"Got even for Terryon Lock,\" Marco said. \"Stood up for the Belt. For us. For him.\"\n\nMarco nodded toward the baby." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Filip's thumb had been in his sleep-slack mouth, his eyes so closed they seemed like they'd never open again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She'd known before she understood what she knew. An electric cold washed her heart, her belly, all her body. Marco sensed it. The memory of his quizzical smile looking up past her knee was still burned in her mind.\n\n\"What did I manage?\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Perfect crime,\" he said. \"First of many.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She understood. The Gamarra had been killed with her code. The people who died there were dead because of her, and all of Rokku's rough talk and ranting had stopped being empty banter. Marco was a killer now. She was too. They'd gone on to make love anyway, him too warm and dangerous to refuse, her too much in shock even to understand how much she wanted to object." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She hated the fact, but they had." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was the beginning of the dark times, but looking back, all the rest of it—the depression, the fear, the loss of Filip, her failed suicide—had all been implicit in that night.\n\nThe script over the doors of hell, writ small.\n\nRenting a hole by the port was easy. She had enough money to buy anonymous credit, route it through an off-station exchange, and bring it back to a mayfly shadow account." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It only felt strange doing it because she hadn't had to go through those motions in so long." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not since she'd signed on to the Canterbury, and that felt like it had been seven lifetimes ago.\n\nShe sat on the thin gel bed and waited for the weeping and nausea to stop. They would, even though at the worst of it, they felt like they might not. Then she took a long shower, changed into a fresh set of clothes purchased from a kiosk." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Watching the hard puck of compressed cloth expand into a jumpsuit reminded her of an insect pulling itself out of its shell." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It seemed like it should be a metaphor for something.\n\nHer hand terminal showed a half-dozen new messages from Jim. She didn't play them. If she had, the temptation to reply—to confess to him and take comfort in him, to talk to someone she trusted completely—would have been too much." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And then he would have felt obligated to do something." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To come and fix things. To insert himself into the messes that she'd made and the things she'd done. The distance between here and there, between Marco and the Rocinante, was too precious to sacrifice. The time for comfort would come later, when she'd done the things she needed to do." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When she'd saved Filip." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When she'd escaped Marco. So she didn't play the messages. But she didn't delete them either.\n\nEven back on with Rokku, Marco had been cultivating himself as a leader." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He'd been good at it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No matter how bad things got, he'd always managed to make it seem like each new hurdle was something he'd factored in, every solution—even ones he'd logically had nothing to do with—was somehow his brilliance. He'd explained once how he managed it.\n\nThe trick, he said, is to have a simple plan that more or less can't go wrong so that you always have something, and then stack your risks on that. Have another alternative that won't work but maybe one time in a hundred, and if it happens, you look like a god." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And then one that won't work but one time in twenty, that if it lands you look like you're the smartest one in the room." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And then one that's only one time in five, but you look like you knew you could do it. And if everything else fails, you've still got the one that would always win.\n\nIf there was a single phrase for Marco, that was it: always win.\n\nShe wondered more than once over the years where she'd been on that scale." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Had she been his one-in-a-hundred or his sure thing?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She'd never known, and there was no way that she ever would. It didn't even matter to her anymore, except the way a missing finger itched sometimes.\n\nAnd now here she was again, doing what he wanted. He'd made her complicit in his plans, whatever they were." }, { "from": "human", "value": "This time, though, she knew who she was dealing with." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She wasn't the girl who he'd tricked into sabotaging the Gamarra. She wasn't a love-struck teenager in over her head. And Filip wasn't a baby that could be spirited away and held as hostage against her good conduct. Her silence.\n\nAnd so maybe—maybe—this was the moment she'd wanted." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Maybe calling her in was Marco's mistake." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She pushed the idea away. It was too dangerous, too complicated. Too likely to be what Marco had known she would think.\n\nDigging through the station directory, she took the better part of an hour to find the address, even knowing what she was looking for." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She didn't know what Outer Fringe Exports did, except that they were shady enough that she hadn't wanted to work with them, and that they were competent enough that they'd known about the Martian claims disputing the salvage of the Rocinante before her crew had." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Naomi found their physical address—a different berth than the one she'd been at the last time—and caught a cart.\n\nThe warehouses near the port were in a constant state of flux. The pressure of commerce and efficiency kept every space in use with as little downtime between rental agreements, loading, and unloading as could be arranged. The sign on the tempered glass door read OUTER FRINGE EXPORTS, but in a week, a day, an hour, it could have been anything." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A young man at the counter smiled up at her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had close-cropped hair and skin several shades darker than her own. The steel-rimmed glasses could have been an affectation or an interface device. She'd never seen him before.\n\n\"Hi,\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Miss Nagata,\" the man said as if they were old acquaintances." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's been some time. I'm sorry to say we don't have any work that would be suited to your ship at this time.\"\n\n\"Not what I'm here for,\" she said. \"I need to charter a ship. And I need to do it very quietly.\"\n\nThe man's expression didn't change." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That can be an expensive problem.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It needs to carry a crew no larger than twenty.\"\n\n\"How long would you need it?\"\n\n\"I don't know.\"\n\n\"Would it be hauling cargo?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The man's eyes lost their focus for a moment. The glasses were an interface, then. Naomi crossed her arms.\n\nOne in a hundred, she thought, I show up with my own warship ready to carry people off Ceres." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Mode:\nCo-writing\n\nLength:\nfour sentences\n\nStyle:\nJames S. A. Corey" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The ride to the hospital was a thing out of a nightmare." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As the transport sped through the corridors, the painkillers started to take effect. The combination of ache and sharpness in his body shifted into a deep and troubling sense of simply being wrong. Once, when they were near the emergency admitting entrance, time stuttered as his consciousness slipped away and back again. None of the medics paid him much attention." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were all focused on Bobbie." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The big woman's eyes were closed, and a pale plastic tube came out of her mouth, keeping her jaw open. From where he rode, Alex could make out only parts of her gurney's readout, and he wasn't sure how to interpret what he was seeing. The medics' voices were clipped and tense. Words and phrases like attempting to reinflate and stabilizing and maintaining pressure pushed Alex toward the edge of panic." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bobbie's body, what he could see of it, was limp." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He told himself she wasn't dead. If she were dead, they wouldn't be trying to save her. He hoped that was true.\n\nAt the emergency ward, he found himself wheeled into an automated surgical bed not that different from the ones on the Rocinante." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The scan probably took a minute and a half, but it seemed to go on forever." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He kept turning to the side, looking for Bobbie, then remembering she was in a different room now. Even then he didn't understand how much his injuries and painkillers had compromised his mind until the police came and he tried to explain what had happened.\n\n\"So how did the woman with the power armor fit into it?\" Bobbie asked.\n\nShe was sitting up in her hospital bed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her gown was thick, disposable paper with Bhamini Pal Memorial Hospital printed on it like a pattern, dark blue over light." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her hair was pulled back into a loose bun, and deep bruises darkened her left cheek and her knuckles. When she shifted, the movement was careful. It was the way Alex moved after he'd worked out too hard and felt a little sore. He hadn't been shot twice—once through her left lung, once in her right leg—and he'd seriously considered taking a wheelchair to go between his room and hers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I meant you,\" Alex said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I was having trouble coming up with your name.\"\n\nBobbie chuckled. \"Yeah, they're going to want to talk to you again. I think the version they got was a little muddled.\"\n\n\"Do you think... Should we not be talking?\"\n\n\"We're not under arrest,\" Bobbie said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The only one of the other guys that's still breathing lawyered up before he got here. I'm pretty sure they're not going to be looking at us if they want to throw someone in jail.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What did you tell them?\" Alex asked.\n\n\"The truth. That a bunch of thugs broke into my rooms, tied me up, and started taking turns between kicking the shit out of me and asking why I was meeting with Alex Kamal.\"\n\nAlex pressed his thumb against his upper lip until it ached a little. Bobbie's smile carried a load of sympathy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't know why that is,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't have any enemies on Mars. That I know of.\"\n\nBobbie shook her head and Alex noticed again that she was a remarkably attractive woman. He coughed and mentally filed the thought under horrifically inappropriate given the circumstances.\n\n\"My guess,\" Bobbie said, \"is that it was less about who you are than who you're connected to.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Holden?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And Fred Johnson. And maybe they can even put the two of us together with Avasarala. She shipped on the Rocinante for a while.\"\n\n\"For about a minute and a half, years ago.\"\n\n\"I remember. I was there,\" Bobbie said. \"Still, one way or another, the most plausible scenario I've got is that they thought I was reporting something to you or you were reporting something to me. And, even better, the idea scared them.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't mean to look a gift horse in the mouth, but that definition of even better has got some mighty long teeth,\" Alex said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Did you tell them about your investigation?\"\n\n\"No, I'm not ready to do that.\"\n\n\"But you think this was related.\"\n\n\"Oh, hell yes. Don't you?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's what I'm hoping for, actually,\" Alex said with a sigh." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Across the hallway, someone shouted words Alex couldn't make out. A nurse stalked by, scowling. \"So what are we goin' to do about it?\"\n\n\"Only thing we can do,\" Bobbie said. \"Keep digging.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Fair enough. So. What exactly are we looking at?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bobbie's expression sharpened. The problem, she said, was ships. The Martian Navy was the newest, best set of ships in the solar system. Earth had more ships, but her Navy was aging, with tech in them that was either generations old or retrofitted, shoehorning more recent designs into older frames. Both fleets had taken heavy losses in the last few years." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Whether you called Avasarala's influence prompting or putting her on a mission, Bobbie had started looking, and what she'd found was interesting." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The seven big Donnager -class ships were easy to keep track of, but the fleet of corvettes that they carried, ships like the Rocinante—they were slippery. Bobbie had started by going back to review the battle data from Io, from outside the Ring, from the incident in the slow zone. Really, when it came to damage reports, there was an embarrassment of riches.\n\nAt first, the numbers had seemed to match up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Half a dozen ships lost here, a handful there, the transponder codes decommissioned." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But as she looked more deeply, she started running into discrepancies.\n\nThe Tsuchi, a corvette assigned to the Bellaire, had been decommissioned and scrapped after Io. A year later, it appeared in a small-group action report near Europa. The supply ship Apalala had been retired from service, and then seven months later, picked up a shipment headed to Ganymede." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A load of medical supplies lost to accident appeared briefly on a loading schedule bound for Ceres and then disappeared again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Weapons lost in the fighting around what was now Medina Station appeared in an audit at Hecate Base once and not again.\n\nSomeone, Bobbie reasoned, had gone back through the records and doctored the old reports, forging the deaths of ships and then erasing them from the later records, or trying to. She'd found half a dozen hiccups in the data, but any ships that had been successfully erased, she wouldn't see. That meant someone had to be involved high enough up the naval chain of command that they had access to the files." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was protocol, of course, that laid out who was supposed to have access to the records, but she'd been in the process of looking into how that actually played out in practice when Alex had dropped her a line and suggested dinner." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If you're up for it,\" Bobbie said, \"that's what I'd want you to look at. Just who could have changed the information. Then I can start looking at them.\"\n\n\"Keep going down the road you were already on,\" Alex said.\n\n\"Only with maybe some friends in the Navy.\"\n\n\"That's one way we can go. It ain't the only one, though.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bobbie sat forward, caught her breath, and leaned back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What else are you thinking?\"\n\n\"Someone hired the gentlemen who messed us up. Seems like findin' out what we can about them might also be worth our time.\"\n\nBobbie grinned. \"That was the part I was planning to do.\"\n\n\"Well, all right, then,\" Alex said, and a man stepped into the doorway." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was huge. His shoulders brushed the doorframe on both sides, and his face was thick and heavy with a distress that could have been fear or anger." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The bouquet of daffodils in his hand seemed tiny, and would until they were in a vase.\n\n\"Hey,\" he said. \"I was just...\"\n\n\"Come in,\" Bobbie said. \"Alex, this is my brother Ben. Benji, this is Alex Kamal.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Good to meet you,\" the massive man said, enfolding Alex's hand in his grip and shaking gently." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Thank you for everything you've done.\"\n\n\"Betcha?\" Alex said.\n\nThe bed creaked as Bobbie's brother sat at its foot. He looked sheepishly at his sister." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Now that she'd said the words, Alex could see the resemblance in them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bobbie wore the look better.\n\n\"The doctor says you're doing well,\" Ben said. \"David wanted me to tell you he's thinking of you.\"\n\n\"That's sweet, but David doesn't think about anything but terraforming and boobs,\" Bobbie said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I've cleaned out the guest room,\" Ben said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"When they release you from the hospital, you're coming to stay with us.\"\n\nBobbie's smile grew sharper. \"I don't actually see that happening.\"\n\n\"No,\" her brother said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No, this isn't a discussion. I told you from the beginning that Innis Shallow was a dangerous place, especially for someone living by herself. If Alex hadn't saved you—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not sure I was actually saving anyone,\" Alex said, but Ben scowled and kept right on going over the words.\n\n\"—you could have been killed. Or worse.\"\n\n\"Worse than killed?\" Bobbie said.\n\n\"You know what I mean.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bobbie leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, I do, and I think that's bullshit too. I am in no more danger in Innis Shallow than I would be up in Breach Candy.\"\n\n\"How can you even say that?\" her brother demanded, his jaw slipping forward. \"After what you've just been through, it should be obvious that...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alex sidestepped toward the door." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bobbie caught his eye, and the brief smile, gone as soon as it was there, was eloquent. I'm sorry and Thank you and We'll talk about the important stuff when he's gone. Alex nodded and retreated to the hallway, the buzz-saw tones of siblings lecturing each other following after him.\n\nWhen he got back to his recovery bed, the police were waiting, and this time he gave a statement that was, at least, coherent." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Even if he left some of the background issues vague." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For the most part, family was a metaphor on long-haul ships. Now and then, there'd be a group that was actually related by blood, but that was almost always Belters. On military and corporate assignments, there might be a handful of married couples, and now and then someone would have a baby. People would wind up on the same ship who were cousins." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were the exception, and the rule was that family was a way of talking about need." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The need for friendship, the need for intimacy, the need for human contact that ran so deeply into the genome that anyone without it seemed not entirely human anymore. It was camaraderie writ large, a synonym for loyalty that was stronger than the concept it echoed.\n\nAlex's experience of real family—of blood relations—was more like having a lot of people who had all wound up on the same mailing list without knowing quite why they signed up for it. He'd loved his parents when they were alive, and he still loved his memory of them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His cousins were always happy to see him, and he was glad of their welcome and their company." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Seeing Bobbie and her brother together and feeling even in that brief moment the deep and unbridgeable mismatch of character between them drove something home to Alex.\n\nA mother could love her daughter more than life itself the way the stories told, or she could hate the girl's guts. Or both. A sister and brother could get along or fight each other or pass by in a kind of uncomfortable indifference.\n\nAnd if real relationship-by-blood shared descent could mean any of those things, maybe family was always a metaphor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was still thinking about it when he got to Min's hole." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her boys and the girl that she and her husband had adopted were all there, sharing a meal of fish and noodles when he arrived, and they all greeted him like they knew him, like his injuries were important to them, like they cared. He sat at the table for a little bit, making jokes and minimizing the assault and its aftermath, but what he wanted to do—what he did as soon as his sense of etiquette allowed—was excuse himself and head back to the guest room they'd set aside for him.\n\nA message was waiting for him from the Roci. From Holden. Seeing the familiar blue eyes and tousled brown hair was weirdly displacing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alex felt like part of him was already on the way back to the Rocinante, and he was a little surprised not to be there already." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Alex. Hey, hope things are going well out there, and that Bobbie is good.\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" Alex said to the playback. \"Funny you'd ask.\"\n\n\"So, I've been looking into this thing with missing ships? And there's a suspicious hit out at 434 Hungaria. Any chance you have access to a ship? If you need to rent one, feel free to pull the funds from my account. I'd like you to go see if a ship named the Pau Kant is sitting out there parked and dark. Specs on the transponder code attached to this message.\"\n\nAlex paused the playback, the skin at the back of his neck tickling." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Missing ships was turning into a motif to his day, and it made him uneasy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He played the rest of Holden's message, rubbing his chin as he did it. There was a lot less to it than he wanted to know. The records on the Pau Kant didn't show it as a Martian vessel, or anything else in particular. Alex set his hand terminal to record, saw what he looked like in the display, combed his fingers through his hair, and started the message." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hey, Captain. Got your thing about the Pau Kant. I was wondering if I could get a little more information about that. I'm sort of in the middle of somethin' a mite odd myself.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He described what had happened to him and Bobbie in lighter tones than he actually felt. He didn't want to scare Holden when there was nothing the man could do to protect him or Bobbie. Apart from saying that the attackers seemed to have been spooked that Alex had appeared on the scene, he left out the details of Bobbie's investigation and Avasarala's. It might have been paranoia, but transmitting that information without another couple levels of encryption seemed like asking for trouble." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He did ask what other ships were supposed to have gone missing, and how it might relate to Mars before he signed off." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Maybe whatever Holden was looking into was just coincidence. Maybe the Pau Kant and the missing Martian warships were totally unrelated. Wasn't where Alex would put his money, though.\n\nHe checked to see if there was anything from Amos or Naomi, and felt a little let down when there wasn't." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He recorded brief messages for the both of them and sent them out." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the main room of the apartment the kids' voices were loud, three conversations going on at the same time, each fighting to be heard over the others. Alex ignored them, accessing the local directory and looking up old names. People he could think of from his time in the service. There were dozens. Marian Costlow. Hannu Metzinger." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Aaron Hu." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He checked the directory against them, old friends and acquaintances and enemies, looking for who was still on Mars, still in the Navy, still someone who might remember him well enough to go out for a few beers and talk.\n\nBy the end of the evening, he had three, and he sent messages to each of them, then requested a connection to Bobbie. A few seconds later, she appeared on his screen. Wherever she was, it wasn't the hospital." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She had on a shirt with a green collar instead of the blue patient's gown, and her hair had been washed and braided back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Alex,\" she said. \"Sorry about my brother. He means well, but he's kind of a dick.\"\n\n\"Everybody's related to someone,\" he said. \"You wind up at his place or your own?\"\n\n\"Neither one,\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I need to hire a cleanup crew to get the blood off my floor, and I'm doing a solid security audit to figure out how they got in.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yeah. Wouldn't feel safe until that's done,\" Alex agreed.\n\n\"Right? And if there is a follow-up attack, I'm sure as hell not staying where it's going to catch Ben and his wife in the crossfire. I popped for a hotel room. They've got their own security, and I can pay for extra surveillance.\"\n\nMin's voice rose in the background, calling for calm. There was laughter in her tones, and he heard it echoed in the protests of her children." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A tightness like a hand closed over his heart." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He hadn't thought about a follow-up attack. He should have.\n\n\"They got a spare room at that hotel?\" he asked.\n\n\"Probably. You want me to find out?\"\n\n\"Nah, I'll just pack up and head over, if that's all right. They don't, someone will.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "And whoever it is, it won't be Min, he thought but didn't say." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I got a few people I thought I'd try chatting up in the next few days. See if anything seems likely.\"\n\n\"I really appreciate this, Alex,\" Bobbie said. \"We should talk about how to manage that safely. I don't want you walking into a trap.\"\n\n\"Wouldn't make me happy either. Also, you don't have access to a ship, do you?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bobbie blinked at the non sequitur." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What kind of ship?\"\n\n\"Something small and fast,\" Alex said. \"May need to get out to the Belt, take a gander at something for Holden.\"\n\n\"Well, actually, yeah,\" Bobbie said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Avasarala gave me the old racing pinnace we took from Jules-Pierre Mao back in the day. It's pretty much just been sucking dock fees, but I could probably get it polished up.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Now write approximately five sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're kiddin'. She gave you the Razorback?\"\n\n\"Not kidding. I think it was her way of paying me without actually paying me. She'd probably be confused that I haven't sold it yet. Why? What's up?\"\n\n\"I'll let you know when I hear more,\" Alex said. \"Maybe something, maybe nothing.\"\n\nBut either way, he thought, it'll get you and me both where it's hard as hell to have someone make a follow-up attack." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Continue with the same vibes as James S. A. Corey" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The security footage from Tycho Station covered almost all of the public spaces." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The wide, open common corridors, the thinner access ways. Gantries and maintenance corridors. It seemed like the only places the eyes of station security didn't reach were the businesses and personal quarters. Even the storage lockers and tool shops had cameras logging whoever went in or out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It should have made things easy. It didn't." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This has got to be it,\" Holden said, tapping a finger against the screen. Under his nail, Monica's doorway opened. Two people came out. They wore light blue jumpsuits with no signs or insignia, dark, close-fitting caps, and work gloves." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The crate they wheeled between them was the same formed plastic and ceramic that food and environmental services used to transport biological materials: raw fungal matter to be textured and flavored, then the foods that were made from them, and—when needed—the processed fecal remains taken back as substrate for the fungus." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Magnetic clamps held it to the cart, and the indicator on the side showed it was sealed. It was big enough, maybe, to hold a woman. Or a woman's body.\n\nThey'd gone in an hour earlier." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Monica had gone in twenty minutes before." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Whatever happened, she had to have been in that box.\n\nFred, scowling and hunched over, marked the crate as an item of interest and put a follow order on it. Holden couldn't tell what the older man was thinking, but his eyes were flat with anger. Anger and something else." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You recognize them?\" Holden asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They're not in the system.\"\n\n\"Then how did they get on the station?\"\n\nFred glanced at him. \"Working on that.\"\n\n\"Right. Sorry.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "On-screen, the two men—Holden was pretty sure they were both men—took the crate to a maintenance corridor, the trace clicking over from camera to camera automatically." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the narrower space, the crate bumped against the walls and tried to bind up where the corridor turned.\n\n\"Doors and corners,\" Holden said.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Nothing.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The security trace showed men and cart entering a warehouse." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Pallets of similar crates filled the space. The men guided the cart to a half-filled one, unlocked the clamps, and hauled the crate up and onto the pallet with its siblings. Fred split the display, holding the trace on the cart, but adding one to each of the two men. One panel showed the storage space; the other followed the two figures out to the common corridors." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the warehouse, a pair of mech drivers came, logged in from lunch, and resumed the task of piling on crates." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the common corridor, the two men went into a lavatory and didn't come out. The trace on them flickered forward until the green border that marked a live feed framed the images. A short call to the warehouse manager verified that the two men hadn't holed up there; they'd just disappeared. The cart, still going through the older records, was buried in among others just like it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fred advanced the feed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mech drivers came and went. Pallets filled and were piled on top of each other.\n\n\"Present status,\" Fred said, and the security feed skipped forward without moving away from the warehouse camera. Whatever had been in the crate was still there." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well,\" Fred said, rising to his feet, \"this is about to turn into an unpleasant day. You coming?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The environmental controls in the warehouse showed no anomalies, but Holden couldn't help imagining he smelled something under the oil and ozone. A smell like death. The mech driver was a fresh-faced young woman with straight brown hair the same color as her skin. Her expression as she moved the crates back out from the pallet spoke of excitement and curiosity and barely constrained dread." }, { "from": "human", "value": "With every crate that came off, Holden's gut went tighter." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Monica had told him that involving other people in his investigation was dangerous. He couldn't help thinking that whatever they found in the next few minutes was going to be his fault.\n\nAnd so fixing it would be his responsibility. Assuming it could be fixed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's the one,\" Fred said to the mech driver." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Put it over here.\"\n\nShe maneuvered the container to the empty decking. Its magnetic clamps engaged with a deep thump. The indicator still showed that it was sealed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Even if Monica had been put into the thing alive, her air would have run out hours ago." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The mech backed away, settling onto titanium and ceramic haunches. Fred stepped forward, lifted his hand terminal, and tapped in an override. The indicator on the crate shifted. Fred flipped open the lid." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The smell was rich and organic." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden had a sudden powerful memory of being fourteen at his family compound on Earth. Mother Sophie had kept an herb garden by the kitchen, and when she'd turned the dirt before planting, it smelled just like this. The crate was filled to the brim with the soft, crumbling beige of raw fungal protein. Fred leaned forward, pressing his hand deep." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Looking for a hidden body." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When he pulled his arm back, dust clung to it up to the elbow. He shook his head no. It was an Earth gesture.\n\n\"Are you sure it's the right crate?\" Holden asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I am,\" Fred said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But let's check anyway.\"\n\nFor the next hour, the increasingly confused mech driver hauled out crates from the pallet and Fred and Holden opened them. When the motes of protein dust in the air set off the particulate warning alarm twice, Fred called a stop.\n\n\"She's not here,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I saw that. So that's kind of weird, right?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It is.\"\n\nFred rubbed his eyes with his finger and thumb. He looked old. Tired. When he gathered himself, the sense of power and authority was still there." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Either they switched the crates somewhere between her quarters and here or they doctored the feed.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Both of those would be bad.\"\n\nFred looked over at the mech driver as she piled the opened crates into a stack to ship back for reprocessing. When he spoke, his voice was low enough it would only carry to Holden. \"Both of which would mean they had a high-level working knowledge of the security system, but not enough access to wipe the records completely.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That narrows it down?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A little, maybe. Could be a UN black ops team. They could have done something like this. Or Mars.\"\n\n\"But you don't think that's it, do you?\"\n\nFred chewed his lip. He pulled up his hand terminal, typed in a series of codes, every tap sharp and percussive." }, { "from": "human", "value": "An alert Klaxon sounded and gold-and-green alert icons appeared on every display from Holden's hand terminal to the door controls to the mech status panel." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fred pushed his fists into his pockets with a satisfied grunt.\n\n\"Did you just lock down the station?\" Holden said.\n\n\"I did,\" Fred said. \"And I'm keeping it locked down until I've got some answers. And Monica Stuart back.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Good,\" Holden said. \"Extreme, but good.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I may be a little pissed off.\"\n\nThe contents of Monica's quarters were laid out on the gray-green ceramic counters of the security lab. No blood, no images, and the background soup of DNA from thousands of people who'd been in contact with the objects in the last week, usually with too small a sample to identify an individual. This was what was left." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A clothing bag, its zipper ripped and hanging open in a mindless smile." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A shirt Holden remembered her wearing when he'd seen her a few days before. Her crippled hand terminal with its shattered display. All the things that hadn't belonged to the station when it rented her the space. It seemed small, like there wasn't enough there." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He realized it was just that he was thinking of it as the collection of a lifetime." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Probably she had other possessions somewhere else, but maybe she didn't. If they didn't find her alive, maybe this was all she'd have to leave behind.\n\n\"You cannot be fucking serious,\" Sakai said for what seemed like the third or fourth time. The chief engineer's face was red, his jaw set." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He'd arrived at the security station a few minutes after Fred and Holden, and Holden was a little surprised Fred hadn't had him thrown out yet." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I have eight ships inbound within the next week. What am I supposed to do? Tell them to match orbit and float until we decide whether we'll let them in?\"\n\n\"Seems like a good start,\" Fred said.\n\n\"We have supplies due to ship on half a dozen contracts.\"\n\n\"I'm aware of that, Mister Sakai.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fred's voice was no louder; there was no anger in it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The cool politeness made the hair on the back of Holden's neck rise. Sakai seemed to feel it too. It didn't stop him, but his voice went from accusatory to almost wheedling.\n\n\"I've got shipments on two dozen jobs due to go out. There are a lot of people counting on us.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "For a moment, Fred's shoulders seemed to sag, but his voice was just as strong." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm aware of that. We'll open up for business again as soon as we can.\"\n\nSakai wavered, on the edge of saying something more. Instead, he made a short, impatient sigh and walked back out as the head of security came in. She was a thin-faced woman Fred called Drummer, but Holden didn't know if that was her first name, her last, or just something she went by." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How's it going?\" Fred asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Nothing we can't handle,\" she said. Her voice had a crisp accent that Holden couldn't place. She glanced at him, nodded curtly, and turned back to Fred. \"Do we have any information we can give on how long we expect the lockdown to be in effect?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Tell them the interruption of service will be as brief as possible.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,\" Drummer said, then turned away.\n\n\"Drummer. Close the door when you go, eh?\"\n\nHer eyes flickered, cut back to Holden, then away again. She didn't say anything, but she pulled the door closed behind her when she left." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fred gave Holden a mirthless, tired smile." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sakai's right. I just shut down the equivalent of a major port city because of one missing woman. Every hour I keep it like this, Tycho's losing thousands of credits in a dozen different scrips.\"\n\n\"So we'll have to find her quickly.\"\n\n\"If they haven't already fed her into the recyclers and broken her down to water and a few active molecules,\" Fred said. And then a moment later, \"I have the sensor arrays sweeping the local area. If she's been spaced, we'll know it soon.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Thank you,\" Holden said, leaning against the counter." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I know I don't say it often, but I do appreciate this.\"\n\nFred nodded to the door. \"You see her? Drummer?\"\n\n\"Sure.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I've been working with her directly for three years. Knew who she was for ten before that.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"All right,\" Holden said.\n\n\"If you'd asked me yesterday, I'd have told you I trusted her with my life.\"\n\n\"Now?\"\n\n\"Now there is exactly one person on this station who I'm certain isn't going to shoot me in the back of the head if I keep pressing on this, and that's you,\" Fred said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's got to be uncomfortable.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It really is. So what I mean to say, James, is that while I am glad that you appreciate all I'm doing for you, I'm also taking you on right now as my personal bodyguard. In return, I'll try to keep anyone from shooting you.\"\n\nHolden nodded slowly. Something in the back of his brain was shifting, like a thought that wasn't quite formed. A wave of vertigo washed over him like he was looking over a cliff. \"Two of us against a deep OPA conspiracy.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Until I have evidence to the contrary, yes.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That really is an uncomfortable position to be in, isn't it?\"\n\n\"Not what I would have picked, no,\" Fred said. \"But someone knows how to circumvent my security systems, and whatever your reporter friend was doing was enough to spook them into action direct enough to tip their hand.\"\n\n\"The missing ships,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There were a couple of people I mentioned it to.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's not something you do.\"\n\n\"In retrospect, I wish I'd played it a little closer to the vest, but—\"\n\n\"Not that,\" Fred said. \"When you've infiltrated the enemy security structures, you don't do anything that shows that you've managed it. It's basic information warfare. As long as the enemy doesn't know they're compromised, you can keep gathering intelligence. That's not something you give up unless the stakes are unimaginably high or...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Or?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Or the enemy you've compromised isn't going to be around very long anyway. I don't know if those missing ships spooked someone into making a stupid mistake, or if my position on Tycho is so precarious that it doesn't matter anymore whether I know.\"\n\n\"You seem to be taking it all in stride.\"\n\nFred hoisted an eyebrow. \"I'm panicking on the inside,\" he said in a deadpan." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden looked over the pile of Monica's belongings as if they might have something to add to the conversation." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The hand terminal blinked forlornly. The blouse hung loose and sad.\n\n\"Did you pull anything from her terminal?\" he asked.\n\n\"We can't connect to it,\" Fred said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"All the diagnostics are disabled or sunk in third-party encryption. Journalists.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden picked up the hand terminal. The shattered display was a mess of light scatter. The only sections that still had anything close to recognizable were a blinking red button in one corner and a few letters in a particularly large shard: NG SIG. Holden tapped the red button and the hand terminal flashed once." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The button was gone, the letters replaced by something pale brown with a line across it, a single jigsaw puzzle piece floating in a sea of noise-light." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What did you do?\" Fred asked.\n\n\"There was a button,\" Holden said. \"I pushed it.\"\n\n\"Jesus Christ. That really is how you go through life, isn't it?\"\n\n\"But look. It... I think I may have accepted an incoming signal.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"From what?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden shook his head. Then turned back to the pile of Monica's belongings, the tiny half-thought that had been bothering him slipping into his consciousness with something like relief.\n\n\"Her video capture,\" he said. \"She has a little wearable interview rig. It's intentionally unobtrusive so that the person she's talking to sort of forgets they're on camera.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden spread his hands. \"It's not here.\"\n\nFred moved forward, his lips thin, his eyes shifting over the mess of light from the broken screen. Holden had a sense of movement, as if the image was shifting slightly. Voices came from the far side of Fred's office door." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A man's voice raised in anger; Drummer's calm, clipped reply." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Are you sure we can't get into this hand terminal?\" Holden said.\n\n\"Positive,\" Fred said, \"but there may be another way. Come on. If we're going to solve this, we're going to need an imaging astronomer.\"\n\nOnce Fred explained the problem, it took three hours to set up a rig that would capture the glow coming from the scattered screen and an hour more to get the computer to understand its new task. The properties of light coming off extrasolar dust clouds were apparently very different from a busted terminal display." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Once the expert systems were convinced that the problem fit inside their job description, the lab went to work matching polarizations and angles, mapping the fissures in the surface of the display, and building a computational lens that couldn't exist in the physical world." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fred had emptied the lab and sealed it. Holden sat on a chair, listening to the tick-tick-tick of the scanners recording photons and watching the image on the display slowly cohere. Fred hummed to himself, a low, slow tune that seemed melancholy and threatening at the same time. The empty stations and desks highlighted how alone the two of them were in a station filled with people." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A computational run ended." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The image updated. It was still rough. Rainbow-colored deformations crossed it and sections were simply missing; it looked like the beginning of a migraine.\n\nBut it was enough. Several empty meters, ending in a square metal door complicated by an industrial bolt mechanism." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Walls, ceiling, and floor marked with scuffed yellow paint and stippled by guide holes where pallets and crates would stack." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's a storage container,\" Fred said. \"She's in a shipping container.\"\n\n\"The way the image moves. Is that her? Is she moving?\"\n\nFred shrugged." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Because if she's moving, then she's probably alive, right?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Could be. If she's alive, it's because they want her alive. And off Tycho. Look at that.\"\n\nHolden followed Fred's finger. \"It's the edge of the doorway?\"\n\n\"The door's sealed. You don't do that until it's ready to ship. There are probably a quarter million containers like that on the station, but I'd bet we don't have more than a few thousand sealed and ready to go out. Whoever wants her, they want her someplace we can't get her back from.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden felt something in his gut relax." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was out there, and she was okay. Not safe, not yet. But not dead. He hadn't realized how much the guilt and fear had settled down on his shoulders until the moment of hope lifted it.\n\n\"What?\" Fred said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I didn't say anything.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But you made that noise.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" Holden said. \"Yeah, I was just noticing how having everyone I care about gone makes it really important that I not screw up the things I can control.\"\n\n\"Good insight. Well done.\"\n\n\"Are you making fun of me?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Little bit. But I'm also running a targeted security scan of the shipping containers on the float. And guess what?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Now write approximately five sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fred gestured to the display on the desk before him. The great emptiness of the Tycho work sphere was drawn in thin, clean schematic lines. From habit, Holden's gaze went to the Rocinante. Fred pointed beyond it to a floating cluster of metal containers. \"One of them's warm.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Task: The user will write a bit then you need to write around 4 sentences continuing directly from the user's text.\n\nAuthor style: James S. A. Corey" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alex had spent a fair amount of his training time at Hecate Base, and going back now was strange in a couple ways." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were the sorts of changes that he'd become accustomed to on Mars—old bars gone, new restaurants in place, the crappy handball courts converted to an administrative center, things like that. But driving his cart through the wide corridors, the thing that struck him most was how young everyone was. Cadets strutted in front of the bar that had once been the Steel Cactus Mexican Grill and sold to-go cups of Thai food now, their chins up and their chests out looking like they were playing dress-up. The ads on the screens were all for weapons and churches, singles services designed for people on tours of duty, and life insurance tailored for the families they left behind." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were the sorts of things that promised control or comfort in an uncertain universe." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alex remembered ads like that from decades before. The styles had changed, but the needs and subterranean fears that fueled them were the same.\n\nAlex had worn the uniform, told the jokes. Or at least the same kind." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He'd wondered whether there would be violence when he got out with a mixture of hope and dread." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He'd pretended to be tougher than he was in hope of becoming tougher. He remembered how serious it had all been. The time Preston had gotten drunk and started a fight with Gregory. Alex had been pulled into it, and they'd all ended up before the MPs, certain their careers were over." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The time Andrea Howard got busted cheating and had been dishonorably discharged." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It had felt like someone died.\n\nNow, looking at these kids, of course there was brawling and stupid decisions. They were children. And so he'd been a child when he was there too, and his choices had been made by a guy who didn't know any better. He'd married Talissa when he was about that old." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They'd made their blueprints for how he'd serve his tours and then come home." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All their plans had been made by kids this young. Looked at that way, it made sense how nothing had worked out.\n\nThe other thing that surprised him was that everyone seemed to know who he was.\n\nHe parked his cart outside a teahouse called Poush that had survived the years since he'd served." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The blue-and-gold awning put a gentle shadow over the glassed doorway." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Faux-aged paint on the window curved in art nouveau framing with phrases in French. Alex figured the intention was to evoke the idea of some Parisian café of centuries before for people who'd never so much as stepped on the same planet as France. It was strange that the quaint feeling translated so well.\n\nInside, a dozen small tables with real linen cloth crowded together." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The air was thick with the scent of the local qahwa—almonds and cinnamon and sugar." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Captain Holden had a thing for coffee, and Alex felt a moment's regret that he was off on Tycho Station where he couldn't smell this. Before he could finish the thought, Fermín boiled up out of his chair and wrapped his arms around him.\n\n\"Alex!\" Fermín shouted. \"Good God, man. You got fat.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No,\" Alex said, returning the hug and then breaking it. \"That was you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ah,\" his old friend said, nodding. \"Yes, that was me. I forgot. Sit down.\"\n\nThe waiter, a young man of maybe eighteen, looked out from behind the kitchen door and his eyes widened. The smile pretended to be the customary politeness, but when he ducked back Alex could hear him talking to someone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He sounded excited. Alex tried not to feel awkward about that." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Thanks for this,\" Alex said. \"I don't like to be the guy who doesn't keep in touch until he needs a favor.\"\n\n\"And yet,\" Fermín said. The years had turned his stubble gray and thickened his jowls." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alex felt like if he squinted, he could still see the sharp-faced man he'd served with hidden somewhere in him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was easier to see him in his gestures when he waved Alex's concern away. \"It's nothing. Happy to do a favor for a friend.\"\n\nThe waiter came out of the kitchen, nodding. The wide-mouthed cup in his hand steamed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He put it in front of Alex almost shyly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Specialty of the house,\" the boy said. \"For you, Mr. Kamal.\"\n\n\"Ah,\" Alex said. \"Thank you.\"\n\nThe boy nodded again and retreated." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alex chuckled uncomfortably at the cup, and Fermín grinned." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Come on now. You've got to be used to this kind of thing, right? You're Alex Kamal. First pilot through the Ring.\"\n\n\"Naw, just the first one that lived.\"\n\n\"Same thing.\"\n\n\"And I surely didn't want to be,\" Alex said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They were shooting at me.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And that makes it less romantic?\"\n\nAlex blew across the surface of the cup and sipped at it. Chai with honey and cardamom and something else he couldn't quite place. \"That trip was a lot of things,\" he drawled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Romantic wasn't one of 'em. And usually since then I've had the captain around to soak up the attention.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Probably different elsewhere. But you're a local boy. One of us who got out and made good.\"\n\n\"Is that what happened?\"\n\nFermín spread his hands, the gesture taking in the teahouse, the corridor outside, Hecate Base, and Mars. \"I've been here the whole damned time. Made it as far as chief petty officer. Two divorces and a kid in upper university calls me twice a year to borrow money.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Bet you had fewer people shooting at you, though. It's not as much fun as you make it sound.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Suppose not,\" Fermín said. \"Grass is always greener.\"\n\nFor an hour, more or less, they sat drinking chai and eating almond cookies—though fewer of those than they had when they'd been younger. Fermín brought him up to speed on half a dozen of the others that they'd known in common back in the day." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The chai was good and Fermín jovial." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was hard to say what it was exactly that left Alex melancholy. When the time came to leave, the boy wouldn't take their money. He just said \"On the house\" when they tried.\n\nThe checkpoint into the base proper was manned by a security team that had Fermín glance into a facial recognition setup." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Once he cleared, they checked Alex for weapons and contraband and issued him a visitor pass." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The process was less than five minutes, and leisurely at that. Alex followed Fermín to a moving walkway and leaned against the rail with him as it drew them forward, deeper into Olympus Mons.\n\n\"So this guy,\" Alex said.\n\n\"Commander Duarte? You'll like him. Everyone likes him. Admiral Long's aide. Has been for the last ten years.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Long hasn't retired?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She'll die at her desk,\" Fermín said. He sounded just on the edge of resentful, but his smile covered whatever it was over.\n\n\"I appreciate you setting this up.\"\n\n\"Not a problem. Duarte was excited to meet you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Really?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why the surprise? You're pilot of the Rocinante. You're famous.\"\n\nWinston Duarte's office was plain and comfortable. The desk was simple pressed polycarbonate, a little larger maybe than the receptionist's in the lobby. The screen on the wall was set to a calm semi-abstract piece that flowed in sepia and brown, evoking fallen leaves and mathematical proofs in roughly equal proportions." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The only touch of luxury was a shelf of what appeared to be actual printed books on military strategy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The man himself fit in the space like he'd been designed for it. Half a head shorter than Alex with acne-pocked cheeks and warm brown eyes, Duarte radiated politeness and competence. After they shook hands, he took the seat beside Alex rather than cross back behind his desk.\n\n\"I have to say I'm a little surprised at the visit,\" Duarte said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Most of my dealings with the OPA are formal.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The Roci's not OPA.\"\n\nDuarte's eyebrows ticked up a millimeter. \"Really?\"\n\n\"We're more of an independent contractor. We've taken jobs from the OPA, but Earth's paid some of our bills. Private companies too, if the job's a good fit.\"\n\n\"I stand corrected. All the same, I'm honored. What can I do for you, Mr. Kamal?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Call me Alex for one thing. I'm not here officially. I mean, I'm on leave from the ship. Came back to the old stompin' grounds for a visit, came across an old friend who needed a hand with something, and one thing led to another.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Which led you to me,\" Duarte said. His smile was sudden and warm. \"I'll count myself lucky for that. What's on your friend's mind?\"\n\n\"Missing ships.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Duarte went still, his smile still perfectly in place." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For a moment, it was like the man had become a statue. When he moved again, he sat back, leaning into the chair with a barely exaggerated casualness that plucked at Alex's ears. \"I'm not aware of any ships that have gone missing. Is there something I should know about?\"\n\nAlex folded his hands on his knee." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"My friend. She's a marine. Well, ex now. She's been doing a little digging into the black market.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A journalist, then?\"\n\n\"A patriotic Martian,\" Alex said. \"She's not looking to stir up anything, and neither am I. But she's found some things that got her back up.\"\n\n\"Things like what?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alex lifted a finger." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll get there in a minute. Thing is, she's not Navy. Doesn't have friends and contacts on our side. So she asked if I'd ask, and when I did—\"\n\n\"Chief Petty Officer Beltran sent you to me,\" Duarte said. \"I see.\"\n\n\"Did he make a mistake?\"\n\nDuarte was quiet for a long moment, his eyes soft and fixed on nothing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alex shifted in his seat." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "These sorts of conversations weren't part of his usual duties, and he couldn't tell if it was going well or poorly. Duarte sighed. \"No. He didn't.\"\n\n\"You're... you're seeing things too. Aren't you?\"\n\nDuarte stood and moved to the door, not touching it, but looking." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His head bent a degree." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This isn't the sort of thing we talk about. I don't break the chain of command.\"\n\n\"I respect that,\" Alex said. \"I'm not asking you to be disloyal to anyone. Only I have some information, you maybe have some too. I'll tell you what I'm comfortable sharing, you do the same. Maybe we can do each other some good.\"\n\n\"I have an investigation in progress.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Anything I give you, I don't mind your passing on,\" Alex said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And maybe it'd be best if it was like that for you too.\"\n\nDuarte considered, his lips pressing together. \"All right. What have you got?\"\n\n\"Blips in the inventories. Things that got lost or destroyed that showed up again later. Weapons. Medical supplies.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Ships?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yeah,\" Alex said. \"Ships.\"\n\n\"Give me a name.\"\n\n\"Apalala.\"\n\nDuarte seemed to deflate." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He went to his desk and sank into the chair behind it, but when he spoke, his voice had a relaxed tone that made Alex feel like he'd passed a test." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Like the false and cordial ease that had begun the meeting had fallen away like a mask.\n\n\"That's one I've been looking at too,\" Duarte said.\n\n\"What are you seeing?\"\n\n\"I don't know. Not exactly. We're stretched thin. You know that?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"People heading out for the new planets.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Inventories are running slow. I think more of them are being dry-labbed than anyone wants to admit. I've been trying to convince the admiral that it's a problem, but either she doesn't understand or...\"\n\n\"Or?\"\n\nDuarte didn't finish his thought. \"There has been a pattern of attacks too. They may be political or it may just be theft and piracy. You heard about the attack on Callisto?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Heard about it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Have you come across anything about it particularly?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nDuarte clenched his jaw in disappointment. \"There was something about that one that bothers me, but I can't put my finger on it. The timing was precise. The attack was well coordinated. And for what? To loot a shipyard?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What did they take?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Duarte's gaze clicked onto Alex. His smile was sorrowful. \"I don't know. Nobody knows. I think nobody will ever know, because I can't even figure out what was there. That's how bad it is.\"\n\nAlex scowled. \"You're telling me that the Martian Navy doesn't know where its own ships are?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm telling you that the tracking of supplies, ships, and material has all but collapsed. We don't know what's missing because we don't know. And I'm telling you that the leadership is so focused on trying not to lose face in front of Earth and the OPA that they're downplaying it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Covering it up.\"\n\n\"Downplaying it,\" Duarte said. \"Prime Minister Smith is making a big show right now of taking a convoy to Luna to meet with the UN secretary-general and swearing that everything's fine, and he's doing that because it isn't true. If I were a criminal and a black marketer, all this would look like a permanent Christmas.\"\n\nAlex said something obscene." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Duarte opened his desk and took out a pad of paper and a silver pen." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He wrote for a moment, then tore off the sheet and handed it across the desk. In precise, legible handwriting he'd written KAARLO HENDERSON-CHARLES and an address in base housing. The act of physically writing something down, not trusting the information to electronic transfer, felt like either sensible precaution or paranoia. Alex wasn't sure which." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"While you're here, I'd recommend talking to Kaarlo. He's a senior programmer that's been working on a project that was supposed to coordinate the databases. He was the one who came to me first to say he was seeing problems. If you have specific questions, he may be able to give you answers. Or he may be able to point you to where they are.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Will he help me?\"\n\n\"He may,\" Duarte said. \"I did.\"\n\n\"Could you... give him cover?\"\n\n\"No,\" Duarte said, with his sad smile." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm not ordering anyone to do anything with you. No offense. You're not Navy anymore. Whatever we do, you and I, we do as part of my investigation. And I report all of it, down to the letter, to the admiral.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Covering your ass.\"\n\n\"Hell yes,\" Duarte said. \"You should do the same.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" Alex said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fermín wasn't in the waiting area when he left, so Alex went out and caught one of the moving walkways heading east, toward base housing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His head felt a little light, like he'd been running the oxygen too lean for too long.\n\nThe Navy had always been the thing in his life that didn't change. The permanent factor. His relationship to it might shift. He did his tours, he mustered out, but those changes were all about him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His life, his fragility and mortality and impermanence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The idea that the Navy itself could be fragile, that the government of Mars might stumble or collapse, was like saying the sun might go out. If that wasn't solid, then nothing was.\n\nSo maybe nothing was.\n\nKaarlo Henderson-Charles' hole was in a stretch of a hundred just like it, spare and spartan." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was nothing on the gray-green door to identify it beyond numbers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No flowers in the planter, only dry soil. Alex rang the bell. When he knocked, the door opened under his knuckles. He heard someone grumbling angrily under their breath." }, { "from": "human", "value": "No. Not a person." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The recyclers on high, scrubbing the air. He caught a whiff of cordite and something like rotten meat.\n\nThe body was on the kitchen table in its uniform jumper. The blood had pooled under the chair and spattered along the wall and ceiling." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A pistol still hung in the limp right hand." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alex coughed out a laugh of mixed disbelief and despair, then he pulled out his hand terminal and called the MPs.\n\n\"Then what happened?\" Bobbie asked.\n\n\"What do you think? The MPs came.\"\n\nThe hotel lobby was decorated in crimson and gold." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A wall fountain burbled and chuckled beside the couches, giving the two of them something like privacy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alex sipped at his gin and tonic. The alcohol bit a little. Bobbie pressed her knuckles against her lips and scowled. She was looking solid for any other person who'd been tortured and shot, but still a little fragile for Bobbie." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The bandages that covered bullet wounds on her left side made an awkward bump under her blouse, but nothing more." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They questioned you?\" she said, barely even making it a question.\n\n\"For about eight hours. Duarte was able to give me a solid alibi, though, so I'm not in prison.\"\n\n\"Small favors. And your friend? Fermín?\"\n\n\"Apparently his terminal's not on the network. I don't know if he killed the guy or if whoever killed the guy killed him or... anything. I don't know anything.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He drank again, more deeply this time." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I may not be good at this whole investigation thing.\"\n\n\"I'm not much better,\" Bobbie said. \"Mostly I've just been shaking the trees and seeing what falls out. So far the only thing I'm really sure about is that something's going on.\"\n\n\"And that people are willing to kill each other over it,\" Alex said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And now that the MPs are involved, they're going to lock down the investigation like it was fissionable. I'm not going to be able to do a damned thing.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Amateur detective hour does seem to be pretty much over,\" Alex agreed. \"I mean, I can still ask around.\"\n\n\"You did more than enough,\" Bobbie said. \"I shouldn't have gotten you into this in the first place. I just don't like disappointing the old lady.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I can respect that. But I do kind of wish I knew what was going on.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Me too.\"\n\nAlex finished his drink, the ice clicking against his teeth. He had a pleasant warmth in his belly. He looked at Bobbie, saw her looking back at him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You know,\" he said slowly, \"just because everything's shut down here, it doesn't mean everything's shut down everywhere.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bobbie blinked. Her shrug was noncommittal, but there was a gleam in her eyes. \"You're thinking about that backwater asteroid Holden was asking about?\"\n\n\"You've got a ship. There's nothing we can do here,\" Alex said. \"Seems like something we could do.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Let's engage in a collaborative writing exercise. I'll provide a starting point, and You'll continue with 4 sentences in the style of James S. A. Corey." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The construction sphere of Tycho Station glittered around Holden, brighter than stars." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ships hung in their berths in all states of undress, the Rocinante just one among many. Other ships hung in the center, awaiting clearance to leave. The sparks of welding rigs and the white plumes of maneuvering thrusters blinked into and out of existence like fireflies. The only sound he heard was his own breath, the only smell the too-clean scent of bottled air." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The dirty green-gray EVA suit had TYCHO SECURITY stenciled on the arm in orange, and the rifle in his hand had come from Fred's weapons locker." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Station security was on high alert, Drummer and her teams all set to watch each other on the assumption—and Holden was too painfully aware that it wasn't anything more—that if there was a dissident faction within them, they'd be outnumbered by the ones loyal to Fred. When they'd started out from the airlock, Holden had turned on the security system. It highlighted slightly over a thousand possible sniper's nests. He'd turned it off again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fred floated ahead of him strapped into a bright yellow salvage mech." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The rescue-and-recovery kit looked like a massive backpack slung across the mech's shoulders. A burst of white gas came from the mech's left side, and Fred drifted elegantly to the right. For a moment, Holden's brain interpreted the dozens of shipping containers clustered in the empty space outside the massive warehouse bays as being below them, as if he and Fed were divers in a vast airless sea; then they flipped and he was rising up toward them feetfirst. He turned the HUD back on, resetting its display priorities, and one container took on a green overlay." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The target. Monica Stuart's prison, or else her tomb." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How're you doing back there?\" Fred asked in his ear.\n\n\"I'm solid,\" Holden said, then curled his lip in annoyance and turned his mic on. \"I'm solid except that this isn't my usual suit of armor. The controls on this thing are all just a little bit wrong.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Keep you from dying if they start shooting at us.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sure, unless they're good at it.\"\n\n\"We can hope they're bad,\" Fred said. \"Get ready. I'm heading in.\"\n\nAs soon as they'd identified the container, Holden had thought they'd send out a mech, haul it into a bay, and open it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He hadn't thought about the possibility of booby traps until Fred pointed it out." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The container's data showed awaiting pickup, but the frame that should have said what ship it was slated for was garbled. The image from Monica's feed didn't show anything beyond the access door. For all they knew, she could be sitting on tanks of acetylene and oxygen wired to the same circuit as the docking clamps. What they knew for certain was that the main doors were bolted and sealed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But even those could be wired to a trigger." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The lowest-risk option, according to Fred, was to cut a hole into the visible doorframe and send someone in to take a look. And the only someone he was sure he could trust was Holden.\n\nFred positioned himself in front of the container's doors, and the mech's massive arm reached back and plucked the r-and-r pack loose. Fred unpacked it with a speed and efficiency of movement that made it seem like something he did all the time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The thin plastic emergency airlock, a single-use cutting torch, two emergency pressure suits, a distress beacon, and a small, sealed crate of medical supplies all took their places in the vacuum around him like they'd been hooked in place." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden had spent enough years bucking ice to admire how little drift each piece of equipment had.\n\n\"Wish me luck,\" Fred said.\n\n\"Don't blow up,\" Holden replied. Fred's mic cut out on his chuckle, and the mech's arms swung into motion with a surgical speed and precision." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The welding torch bloomed, slicing through the metal while a sealant foam injector followed to keep the air in the box from venting." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden opened a connection to the lab and the captured image from Monica's feed. A brightness like a star shone there.\n\n\"We've got confirmation,\" Holden said. \"This is the right one.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I saw,\" Fred replied, finishing the cut." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He smoothed the airlock over the scar, pressing the adhesive against the surface, and then opened the outer zipper. \"You're up.\"\n\nHolden moved forward. Fred held out a bulky three-fingered mech claw, and Holden gave it the rifle, scooping up the medical bag and emergency suit.\n\n\"If anything looks suspicious, just get back out,\" Fred said. \"We'll take our chances with a real demolitions tech.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'll just pop my head in,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sure you will,\" Fred said. The angle of the faceplate made Fred's smile impossible to see, but he could hear it. Holden pulled the outer sheet of the lock over him, sealed it, inflated the blister, and opened the interior sheet. The cut was a square, a meter to each side, black scorch marks with a pale beige foam between them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden put a foot on the uncut container door, locking the mag boot in place, and kicked in." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The foam splintered and broke inward; the cut panel floated into the container. Dull buttery light spilled out.\n\nMonica Stuart lay strapped in a crash couch. Her eyes were open but glazed, her mouth slack." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A cut across her cheek had a ridge of black scab." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A cheap autodoc was clamped to the wall, a tube reaching out to her neck like a leash. There didn't seem to be anything else there. Nothing with a big CAUTION EXPLOSIVES sign anyway.\n\nWhen Holden grabbed the edge of the crash couch, it shifted on its gimbals." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her eyes looked into his, and he thought he saw a flicker of emotion there—confusion and maybe relief." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He took the needle out of her neck gently. A tiny spurt of clear liquid bubbling and dancing in the air. He cracked the emergency medical kit open and strapped it over her arm. Forty long seconds later, it reported that she appeared sedated but stable and asked if Holden wanted to intervene." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How's it going in there?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fred asked, and this time Holden remembered to turn on the mic.\n\n\"I've got her.\"\n\nThree hours later, they were in the medical bay on Tycho Station proper. The room was sealed off, four guards posted outside and all network connections to the suite physically disabled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Three other beds sat empty, the patients, if there were any, rerouted to other places." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was half recovery room, half protective custody, and Holden could only wonder if Monica understood how much of that security was just theater.\n\n\"That wasn't fun,\" Monica said.\n\n\"I know,\" Holden said. \"You've been through a lot.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I have.\" The words were slushy, like she was drunk, but her eyes had the sharpness and focus Holden was used to seeing in them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fred, standing at the foot of the bed, crossed his arms. \"I'm sorry, Monica, but I'm going to have to ask you some questions.\"\n\nHer smile reached her eyes. \"Usually goes the other way.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, but I usually don't answer. I'm hoping you will.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She took a deep breath. \"Okay. What do you have?\"\n\n\"Why don't we start with how you wound up in that container,\" Fred said.\n\nHer shrug looked sore and painful." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Not much to tell there. I was in my quarters and the door opened. Two guys came in. I sent an emergency alert to security, screamed a lot, and tried to get away from them. But then they sprayed something in my face and I blacked out.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The door opened,\" Fred said. \"You didn't answer it?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nFred's expression didn't change, but Holden had the sense of growing weight in the angle of his shoulders. \"Go on.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I came to when they were loading me into the crash couch. I couldn't move much,\" Monica went on, \"but I managed to turn my camera rig on.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Did you hear anyone speaking?\"\n\n\"Did,\" she said. \"They were Belters. That's what you're getting at, isn't it?\"\n\n\"It's one thing. Can you tell me what they said?\"\n\n\"They called me some unpleasant names,\" Monica said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There was something about a trigger. I couldn't follow all of it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Belter creole can be hard to follow.\"\n\n\"And I'd been drugged and assaulted,\" Monica said, her voice growing hard. Fred lifted his hands, placating.\n\n\"No offense meant,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do you remember anything specific that—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This is about the missing colony ships, isn't it?\"\n\n\"It's early to say what this is 'about,'\" Fred said, and then, grudgingly, \"but that's certainly one possibility.\"\n\n\"The OPA's doing it, then. Only you didn't know about it.\"\n\n\"I'm not confirming or denying anything, just at the moment.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then neither am I,\" Monica said, crossing her arms." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hey, hey, hey,\" Holden said. \"Come on, you two. We're all on the same side here, right?\"\n\n\"Not without terms,\" Monica said.\n\nFred's jaw went tight." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We just saved your life.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Thanks for that,\" Monica said. \"I'm included in the investigation. All of it. Exclusive interviews with both of you. I'll give you everything I have about the colony ships and my abduction. Even the parts I didn't tell Holden. And fair warning before I go public with any of this.\"\n\n\"Wait a minute,\" Holden said. \"There were parts you didn't tell me?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Final approval before anything sees air,\" Fred said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not a chance,\" Monica said. \"And you need me.\"\n\n\"Final approval exclusively for issues of security and safety,\" Fred said. \"And two weeks lead time.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Monica's eyes were bright and hungry." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden had traveled with her for weeks going out to the Ring the first time, and he felt like he knew her. The ruthlessness in her expression was surprising. Fred only seemed amused by it.\n\n\"One week lead time, and nothing unreasonably withheld,\" she said and pointed an accusing finger at Fred." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm trusting you on that.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fred looked to Holden, his smile thin and unamused. \"Well, now I've got two people I know aren't working for the other side.\"\n\nThe thing Holden hadn't known—No, that wasn't true. The thing Holden had known, but hadn't appreciated, was the number of ships moving through the rings and out to the vast spread of new planets." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Monica's full logs tracked the almost five hundred ships that had made the transit." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Many were smaller even than the Rocinante, traveling together in groups to make a claim on a new and unknown world or else to join newly founded steadings on places with names like Paris and New Mars and Firdaws. Other ships were larger—true colony ships loaded with the same kinds of supplies that, generations before, humanity had taken out to Luna, Mars, and the Jovian moons.\n\nThe first one to vanish had been the Sigyn. She'd been a converted water hauler a little newer than the Canterbury." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then the Highland Swing, a tiny rock hopper that had been nearly gutted to put in an Epstein drive with three times the power a ship like that could ever have used." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Rabia Balkhi that she'd shown him had the best footage of its transit, but it wasn't the first or the last to disappear. As he went through, he made note of the types and profiles of all the missing ships to forward on to Alex. The Pau Kant could be any of them.\n\nThere was another pattern to the vanishing too." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The ships that went missing did so during times of high traffic when Medina Station's attention was stretched between five or six different ships." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And afterward—this was interesting—the ring through which the missing ship had passed showed not a spike in radiation but a discontinuity—a moment when the background levels changed suddenly. It wasn't something that other transits seemed to have. Monica had interpreted it as evidence of alien technology doing something inscrutable and eerie. Knowing what they did now, it looked to Holden more like a glitch left over where the data had been doctored." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Like switching the crate that Monica had been taken away in or vanishing into a men's room and never coming out, someone would have had to hide the \"missing\" ships coming back through the ring." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If there was a similar glitch in the sensor data of the ring that led back to humanity's home system—\n\n\"Holden?\"\n\nThe security office around him was empty. Fred had cleared it for his \"personal use\"—meaning as the center for his private investigation of how deeply he had been compromised." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The security personnel Holden had walked past coming in seemed nonplussed to be turned out of their own offices, but no one had raised any objection." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Or at least none that he'd heard.\n\nFred stood in the archway of the short hall that led to the interrogation rooms. He was in civilian clothes, well tailored. A scattering of white stubble dusted his chin and cheeks, and his eyes were bloodshot and the yellow of old ivory." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His spine was stiff though, and his demeanor sharp enough to cut." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Did you hear something?\" Holden asked.\n\n\"I've had a conversation with an associate of mine who I've known for a long time. Light delay always makes these things painfully slow, but... I have a better idea what I'm looking at. A start, anyway.\"\n\n\"Can you trust them?\"\n\nFred's smile was weary." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If Anderson Dawes is against me, I'm screwed whatever I do.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"All right,\" Holden said. \"So where do we start?\"\n\n\"If I could borrow you for a few minutes,\" Fred said, nodding back toward the interrogation rooms.\n\n\"You want to question me?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"More use you as a prop in a little play I'm putting on.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Seriously?\"\n\n\"If it works, it'll save us time.\"\n\nHolden stood. \"And if it doesn't?\"\n\n\"Then it won't.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Good enough.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The interrogation room was bare, cold, and unfriendly. A steel table bolted to the floor separated the single backless stool from three gel-cushioned chairs. Monica was already sitting in one. The cut on her face was looking much better—little more than a long red welt." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Without makeup, she looked harder." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Older. It suited her. Fred gestured to the seat at the other side for Holden, then sat in the middle.\n\n\"Just look serious and let me do the talking,\" he said.\n\nHolden caught Monica's gaze and lifted his eyebrows." }, { "from": "human", "value": "What is this? She cracked a thin smile." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Guess we'll find out.\n\nThe door opened, and Drummer walked in. Sakai followed her. The chief engineer's gaze flickered from Holden to Monica and back. Drummer guided him to a stool." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Thank you,\" Fred said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Drummer nodded and walked tightly out of the room. She might have been pissed at being kept out of the proceedings. Or maybe it was something else. Holden could see how something like this could lead to crippling paranoia pretty quickly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fred sighed. When he spoke, his voice was soft and warm as flannel." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So. I think you know what this is about.\"\n\nSakai opened his mouth, shut it. And then it was like watching a mask fall away. His features settled into an image of perfect, burning hatred." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You know what?\" Sakai said. \"Fuck you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fred sat still, his expression set. It was like he hadn't heard the words at all. Sakai clenched his jaw and scowled at the silence until the pressure built up and it became too much to bear.\n\n\"You arrogant fucking Earthers. All of you. Out here in the Belt leading the poor skinnies to salvation? Is that who you think you are? Do you have any idea how fucking patronizing you are? All of you. All of you. The Belt doesn't need Earther bitches like you to save us. We save ourselves, and you assholes can pay for it, yeah?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden felt a flush of anger rising in his chest, but Fred's voice was calm and soft." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm hearing you say you resent me for being from Earth. Am I getting that right?\"\n\nSakai leaned back on the stool, caught his balance, then turned and spat on the decking. Fred waited again, but this time Sakai let the silence stretch. After a few moments Fred shrugged, then sighed and stood up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When he leaned forward and hit Sakai it was such a simple, pedestrian movement, Holden wasn't even shocked until Sakai fell over." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Blood poured down the engineer's lip.\n\n\"I have given up my life and the lives of people I care for a hell of a lot more than you to protect and defend the Belt,\" Fred growled. \"And I am not in the mood to have some jumped-up terrorist piece of shit tell me different.\"\n\n\"I'm not scared of you,\" Sakai said in a voice that made it very clear to Holden he was desperately scared." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden was a little unnerved himself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He'd seen Fred Johnson angry before, but the white-hot rage radiating from the man now was another thing entirely. Fred's eyes didn't flicker. This was the man who had led armies and massacred thousands. The killer. Sakai shrank from his pitiless regard like it was a physical blow." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Drummer!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The head of security opened the door and stepped in. If she was surprised, it didn't show in her face. Fred didn't look at her.\n\n\"Mister Drummer, take this piece of shit to the brig. Put him in an isolation cell, and be sure he gets enough kibble and water that he doesn't die. No one in, no one out. And I want a complete audit of his station presence. Who he's talked to. Who he's traded messages with. How often he's taken a shit. Everything goes through code analysis.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, sir,\" Drummer said, paused." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And then, \"Should I take the station off lockdown?\"\n\n\"No,\" Fred said.\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" Drummer repeated, and then helped Sakai to his feet and ushered him out the door. Holden cleared his throat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We need to double-check the work on the Rocinante,\" he said, \"because there's no way I'm flying something that guy did the safety inspections for.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Now write approximately 5 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Monica whistled low.\n\n\"Schismatic OPA faction?\" she said. \"Well. It wouldn't be the first time a revolutionary leader was targeted by the extreme wing of his own side.\"\n\n\"It wouldn't,\" Fred agreed. \"What bothers me is that they're feeling secure enough to tip their hand.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "The user will write a bit then you need to write around 4 sentences continuing directly from the user's text. Try to mimic the style of James S. A. Corey.Produce 4 sentences using the prose and structure of James S. A. Corey every time its your turn using what the user wrote as a seed." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The beer was vat-brewed: rich and yeasty with a little fungal aftertaste where the hops had been cut with engineered mushrooms. Karal was making hot-plate cousa: thin, unleavened cracker bread heavy with gum roux and hot onion. With Cyn and Naomi and a new man named Miral sharing air with Karal and the hot plate both, the recyclers were working near their top rate for the space. The heat and the spiced air, the closeness of bodies and the just-buzzed relaxation of the alcohol felt like falling backward through time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Like if she opened the door, it wouldn't be the dockside grunge of Ceres Station but Rokku's ship burning for the next claim or the next port." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So Josie,\" Cyn said, waving one vast palm. He paused and turned a scowl to Naomi. \"Kennst Josie?\"\n\n\"I remember which one he is,\" Naomi said.\n\n\"Yeah, so Josie sets up shop there, sa sa? Start charging the Earthers to go down the corridor. Calls it...\"—Cyn snapped three times, trying to call up the story's punch line—\"calls it a municipal tollway. Tollway!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And how long did that last?\" Naomi asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Long enough we had to get off station before security grabbed us,\" Cyn said around a grin. Then he grew sober. \"That was before, though.\"\n\n\"Before,\" Naomi agreed, lifting her glass." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Everything changed after Eros.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Everything changed after the fuckers killed the Cant,\" Miral said, eyes narrowed at Naomi as if to say That was your ship, wasn't it? Another invitation for her to tell her stories.\n\nShe leaned forward a degree, hiding behind the veil of her hair. \"Everything changed after Metis Base. Everything changed after Anderson Station. Everything changed after Terryon Lock. Everything changed after everything.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Ez maldecido igaz,\" Cyn said, nodding." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Everything changed after everything.\"\n\nKaral looked up. His expression was a mix of camaraderie and regret that meant Everything changed after the Gamarra.\n\nNaomi smiled back. It had, and she was sorry too. Being here, with these men, brought up a kind of nostalgia that seeped into everything." }, { "from": "human", "value": "All of them would have liked her to tell her stories—being on Eros, riding the first ship through the gate, trekking out to the first colony on the new worlds." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Cyn and Karal wouldn't ask, and so the new one followed their lead. And she kept her own counsel.\n\nFilip was asleep in the next room, his body curled into a comma, his eyes merely closed. They weren't the profoundly shut eyes of a sleeping baby." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The rest of the cell were in other safe houses." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Smaller groups drew less attention, and even if they lost one group, the rest could go on. It wasn't something anyone had said. The strategy was familiar and strange at the same time, like a once-favorite song heard again after years of being forgotten. Karal scooped up the cousa, lifting it off the heating element and spinning it on his fingertips in the same motion." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Naomi held out her hand, and he set the cracker down on her palm, their fingers brushing against each other." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The simple physical intimacy of close companionship. Of family. It had been true once, and that it was less true now was forgiven by the fact that they all knew it wasn't what it had been. Since she'd arrived, they'd all been careful not to let conversation stray into anything that put too fine a point on the gap of years she'd been absent.\n\nAnd so when she broke the unspoken covenant, they would know she'd meant to." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And as much as she didn't want to undo the fragile moment, the only thing worse than talking about it was leaving it all unsaid." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Filip is looking well,\" she said, as if the words carried no extra significance. She bit the cracker, roux and onion flooding her tongue and the back of her nose with salt and sweet and bitter. She talked around it. \"He's grown.\"\n\n\"Has,\" Cyn said, his voice cautious." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Naomi felt years of grief and anger, loss and betrayal at the back of her throat." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She smiled. Her voice didn't waver. \"How's he been?\"\n\nCyn's glance at Karal was nothing, a flicker almost too fast to notice. They were in dangerous territory now. She didn't know if they were looking to protect her from the truth or Filip and Marco from her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Or if they only didn't want a part of the drama that had been and still was her old lover and their son." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Filipito's been good,\" Karal said. \"Smart boy, and focused. Ser focused. Marco seen after him. Kept him safe.\"\n\n\"Safe as any of us ever are,\" Miral said, trying to make the words light. The hunger of curiosity was in the man's expression." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He hadn't been there when Naomi and Marco had been together." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was like the rest of them were having a conversation, and half the words Miral couldn't hear.\n\n\"Que a mí?\" Naomi asked.\n\n\"We all told him the truth,\" Karal said, a hardness coming into his voice. \"Not going to lie to our own.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Cyn coughed once. He looked at her sideways, like a guilty dog." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"When he got old enough to ask, him, Marco tells him how things got harsh. Too harsh. His mother, she needed to step away from it. Put ellas kappa together.\"\n\n\"Ah,\" Naomi said. So that was the story of who she was. The one who'd been too sensitive. Too weak. From where Marco sat, it might even look like the truth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But then what must it have been to see who she'd become?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "XO of the Rocinante, survivor of Eros Station, traveler to new worlds. Looked at that way, \"too harsh\" was a strange thing. Unless it meant she just didn't love her son enough to stay. Unless what she'd run from was him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Filipito, he's solid,\" Cyn said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Be proud of him.\"\n\n\"Nothing but,\" Naomi said.\n\n\"So,\" Miral said, his voice fighting and failing for casual. \"You ship sui James Holden, yeah? What's that like?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Steady work. No room for promotion,\" Naomi said, and Cyn laughed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After a moment, Miral joined in ruefully. Only Karal kept quiet, and that might only have been from concentrating on the hot plate.\n\nNaomi's hand terminal chimed. She picked it up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Two more messages from Jim." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her fingertip was a centimeter from the button to accept them. His voice was a few small movements away, and the thought pulled at her like a magnet. Hearing him now, even just his recorded voice, would be like taking a long shower in clean water. She pushed the messages into her hold queue." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Soon, and then all of them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But if she started now, she wouldn't stop, and she wasn't done yet. Instead, she put in a connection request to the address the Outer Fringe Exports representative had given her. A few seconds later, the connection hiccupped to life, a red border marking that the channel was secure.\n\n\"Ms. Nagata,\" the young man said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How can I help you today?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Waiting on the ship,\" she said. \"Need to know where we stand.\"\n\nThe man's eyes unfocused for a moment, then his smile sharpened. \"We're waiting for the title transfer to update in the base registry, ma'am.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So the payment's gone through?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes. If you'd like, you can take possession now, but please be aware you can't be cleared to leave port until the registry updates.\"\n\n\"That's fine,\" she said, getting to her feet. \"Where's she berthed?\"\n\n\"Dock six, berth nineteen, ma'am. Would you like a representative present for the handover?\"\n\n\"No,\" she said. \"Just leave the keys in the ignition, and we can take it from here.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Of course. It's been a pleasure.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Likewise,\" Naomi said. \"Have a better one.\"\n\nShe dropped the connection. Cyn and Miral were already gathering their few things. Karal scooped up the last cousa from the hot plate with one hand and unplugged it with the other." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She didn't need to tell them to alert the others." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Cyn was already doing it. Without changing, the air in the room felt suddenly too thick, the heat from the hot plate and their bodies too oppressive. Naomi stepped through the doorway.\n\n\"It's time,\" she said, her voice gentle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She remembered all the drama feeds and films with a mother waking her child up for school." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This was the closest thing she would ever have to that, and against her best judgment, she savored it. \"Filip. We can go now.\"\n\nHis eyes opened, and for a moment, he wasn't wholly awake. He looked confused. Vulnerable. Young." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And then his focus sharpened, and he was himself again. His new self." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The one she didn't know.\n\nThey cycled the front door and stepped out into the corridor. The cool rotation breeze smelled of damp and ozone. She was still holding Karal's cousa half-eaten in her off hand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She took another bite, but it had gone cold and the roux was clotting." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She dropped what was left in the recycler and tried not to see it as a metaphor for anything else.\n\nCyn loomed up from the door, his face in its resting scowl. He looked older. Harder. She missed who he'd been when they were young." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She missed who she'd been." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ready to go, Knuckles?\" Cyn asked.\n\n\"Hell, yes,\" she said, and he looked at her more closely. Hearing, maybe, something more in the words than only the affirmation.\n\nThe ship was a simple transport skiff so small that the docking clamps holding it seemed about to crush its tarnished sides in." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It didn't have an Epstein drive, so most of the hold would be taken up by the propellant mass." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It would have to fly teakettle, and even then, a fair stretch of the way they'd be on the float. It was one step better than getting EVA suits and a bunch of extra air bottles, but it would do what they needed. Naomi had bought it at salvage rates, routing money from her share in the Rocinante through two anonymized accounts, one on Luna, the other on Ganymede. The final owner of record was Edward Slight Risk Abatement Cooperative, a company that had not existed before it appeared on the registration forms and that would vanish again when the ship was disposed of." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The transponders would announce it as the Chetzemoka." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In all, it represented about half of everything Naomi could call her own, and her name wasn't on any of the paperwork.\n\nIt didn't seem like enough. It seemed like too much. She didn't know what it seemed like." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Filip waited in the bay outside the boarding gantry, and so she did too." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Cyn and Karal and Miral stood far enough away to give them something like privacy. The berth was a rental space with a red-numbered counter on the wall measuring the minutes left under agreement before its ownership changed. The metal and ceramic walls had the foggy look of sealant breaking down from the constant radiation of space. The air stank of lubricant." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Someone had left an old poster on the wall, the split circle of the OPA with a hemisphere of Mars and one of Earth as the circle." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not just OPA, but militant OPA.\n\nThey'd been her people, once.\n\nThe others arrived. Josie and Old Sandy. Wings, whatever his real name was." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A thick-faced, sorrow-eyed woman with one missing tooth that Naomi hadn't seen before." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A shaven-headed man with livid scars webbing the dark flesh of his scalp and the limp of an unhealed foot wound. More. Each of them nodded to Filip as they passed, their expressions a mix of respect and indulgence. All of them knew him better than she did. All of them would ship with him when he left." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The ache behind her breastbone would have concerned her any other time." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Just now, she knew what it was.\n\nSoft tears threatened, but she blinked them back. Bit her tongue to stop them.\n\n\"All well?\" Filip asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She laughed, and the tightness around her heart grew harder." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well enough. As soon as the registry updates, we can file a plan and go.\"\n\n\"Good.\"\n\n\"Do you have a moment?\"\n\nHis gaze flickered up to hers, something like anxiety in his eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A heartbeat later, he nodded once and pointed to the corner with his chin." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They walked together, and the others gave them space. Naomi's heart beat like she was in danger. She could feel her pulse in her throat.\n\nAt the wall of the berth, she stopped." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Filip turned to face her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The memory of him as an infant, toothless and grabbing onto her finger with a grin of unmistakable pride intruded powerfully into her mind and she took a moment to shove it away.\n\n\"It's been good seeing you,\" she said.\n\nFor a moment, she thought he wouldn't answer, then, \"You too.\"\n\n\"The ship,\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"When it's done, it's yours, all right?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Filip looked over her shoulder toward the gantry. \"Mine?\"\n\n\"I want you to have it. Resell it, keep the money for yourself. Or hold it, if you want. Yours, though. No one else.\"\n\nHe tilted his head. \"You're not coming with?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I didn't come here to join back in,\" she said, then sighed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I came because he said you were in trouble. I came because of you. Whatever he's doing, whatever he's having you do, I can't be part of it. Not before. Not now either.\"\n\nFor a long moment, Filip didn't move. Her throat felt too narrow, like she couldn't get air through it.\n\n\"I understand,\" her son said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her son who was leaving again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Who was going back to Marco and everything he was.\n\n\"Your father isn't a good man,\" Naomi said, the words spilling out. \"I know you love him. I loved him too once, but he isn't...\"\n\n\"You don't have to justify it,\" Filip said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You did this for us, and I appreciate it. This is all you're willing to do, and that's disappointing, but he told me it might happen this way.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You could come with me.\" She hadn't meant to say it, but as soon as she did, she meant it to her marrow. \"The ship I'm on needs crew. We're independent and we're well stocked. Come do a tour with me, yeah? Get to... get to know each other?\"\n\nFor the first time, a real expression cracked her son's reserve." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Three thin lines drew themselves between his brows and he smiled with what could have been confusion or pity." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Kind of in the middle of something,\" he said.\n\nShe wanted to beg. She wanted to pick him up and carry him away. She wanted him back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It hurt worse than sickness that she couldn't have him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Maybe after, then,\" she said. \"When you want it, you say it. There's room for you on the Rocinante.\"\n\nIf Marco lets you, she thought, but didn't say. If he doesn't hurt you as a way to punish me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And then, a moment later, God this will be weird to explain to Jim." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Maybe after,\" Filip said, nodding. He put his hand out, and they held each other by the wrist for a moment. He turned first, walking away with his hands in his pockets.\n\nThe sense of loss was vast and oceanic." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And it was worse because the loss wasn't happening now." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It had happened every day since she'd left. Every day that she'd lived the life she chose instead of the one Marco had prescribed for her. It only hurt so badly now because she was seeing what all those days summed to and feeling the tragedy of it.\n\nShe didn't see Cyn and Karal coming up until they were there." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She wiped her eyes with the heel of her palm, angry and embarrassed and afraid that a kind word would shatter the composure she still had." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A kind word or a cruel one.\n\n\"Hoy, Knuckles,\" Cyn said, his landslide-deep voice low and soft. \"So. No chance kommt mit? Filipito's something. Know he's tight and thin right now, but he's still on mission. When he's not running herd, he can be funny. Sweet too.\"\n\n\"I left for reasons,\" Naomi said, the words feeling thick and muddy and true. \"They haven't changed.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Your son, him,\" Karal said, and the accusation in his voice was calming because she knew how to answer it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You know those stories about a trapped wolf chewing itself free?\" she said. \"That boy's my paw. I'll never be whole without him, but I'm fucked if I'll give up getting free.\"\n\nCyn smiled, and she saw the sorrow in his eyes. Something released in her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was done. She was done." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All she wanted now was to go listen to every message Jim had left her and find the fastest transport back to Tycho that there was. She was ready to go home.\n\nCyn spread his arms, and she walked into them one last time. The big man folded around her, and she rested her head on his shoulder." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She said something obscene and Cyn chuckled." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He smelled of sweat and incense.\n\n\"Ah, Knuckles,\" Cyn rumbled. \"Didn't have to fall this way. Suis désolé, yeah?\"\n\nHis arms tightened around her, pinning her arms to her sides." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He reared back, lifting her feet off the deck." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Something bit at the flesh of her thigh and Karal limped back, needle still in his hand. Naomi thrashed, slamming her knee into Cyn's body. The vicious embrace pressed the air out of her. She bit Cyn's shoulder where she could reach it and tasted blood." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The big man's voice was soft and lulling in her ears, but she couldn't tell what the words were anymore." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A numbness spread along her leg and up into her belly. Cyn seemed to fall with her locked in his arms, but he never landed. Only spun backward into space without his legs ever leaving the deck.\n\n\"Don't do this,\" she gasped, but her voice seemed to come from far away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Please don't do this.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Had to, Knuckles,\" Cyn said. \"Was the plan immer and always, sa sa? What it's all about.\"\n\nA thought came to her and then slid away. She tried to land her knee in his crotch, but she wasn't sure where her legs were anymore." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her breath was loud and close." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Over Cyn's shoulder, she saw the others standing beside the gantry to the ship. Her ship. Filip's ship. They were all turned to watch her. Filip was among them, his face empty, his eyes on her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She thought she might have cried out, but it could only have been something she imagined." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And then, like a light going out, her mind stopped." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Continue with the same vibes as James S. A. Corey" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When piloting a ship—any ship—there was a point where Alex's sense of his body reached out to subtly include the whole vessel. Coming to know how that individual ship felt as she maneuvered—how the thrust gravity cut out as that particular drive shut down, how long the flip took at the midpoint of a run—all of it made a deep kind of intimacy. It wasn't rational, but it changed how Alex felt about himself. His sense of who he was." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When he'd gone from the massive, stately heft of the colony-ship-turned-ice-hauler Canterbury to the fast-attack frigate that had become the Rocinante, it had been like turning twenty years younger." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But even the Roci had tons of metal and ceramic. She could spin fast and hard, but there was an authority behind the movement. Muscle. Piloting the racing pinnace Razorback was like strapping onto a feather in a thunderstorm. There was nothing to the ship but a blister the size of the Roci's ops deck strapped to a fusion drive." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Even the engineering deck was a sealed compartment, accessible to technicians at the dock." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It wasn't the sort of ship the crew was going to maintain; they had hired help for that. The two crash couches huddled close together, and the compartments behind them were just a head, a food dispenser, and a bunk too small for Bobbie to fit in. There wasn't even a system to recycle food, only water and air. A maneuvering thruster could spin the ship around twice in ten seconds with power output that would have shifted the Roci five degrees in twice the time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If piloting the Rocinante required Alex to think of the ship like a knight's horse, the Razorback begged for attention like a puppy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The screens wrapped around the couches and covered the walls, filling his whole visual field with the stars, the distant sun, the vector and relative speed of every ship within a quarter AU. It threw the ship's performance data at him like it was boasting. Even with interior anti-spalling fabric a decade out of fashion and the grime and signs of wear on the edge of the couches, the ship felt young. Idealistic, feckless, and a little bit out of control." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He knew if he spent enough time to get used to her, the Roci would feel sluggish and dull when he got back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But, he told himself, only for a little while. Until he got used to it again. The thought kept him from feeling disloyal. For sheer power and exuberance, the Razorback would have been an easy ship to fall in love with." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But she wasn't built for privacy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"... as a community, Mars has got its collective asshole puckered up so tight it's bending light,\" Chrisjen Avasarala continued behind him. \"But the prime minister's convoy has finally launched. When he gets to Luna, I'm hoping we can get him to say something that hasn't already been chewed by half a dozen diplomats playing cover-your-ass. At least he knows there's a problem. Realizing you've got shit on your fingers is the first step toward washing your hands.\"\n\nHe hadn't seen the old woman since Luna, but he could picture her. Her grandmotherly face and contempt-filled eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She projected a weariness and amusement as part of being ruthless, and he could tell Bobbie liked her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "More, that she trusted her.\n\n\"In the meantime, you stay out of trouble. You're no good to anybody dead. And if that idiot Holden's plucking another thread in the same knot, God alone knows how he'll fuck it up. So. Report in when you can.\"\n\nThe recording ticked and went silent.\n\n\"Well,\" Alex said. \"She sounds the same as ever.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Give her that,\" Bobbie agreed. \"She's consistent.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alex turned his couch to look back at her. Bobbie made hers look small, even though it was the same size as his own. The pinnace was doing a fairly gentle three-quarter-g burn. Over twice the pull of Mars, but Bobbie still trained for full g just the way she had when she was an active duty marine." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He'd offered less in deference to her wounds, but she'd just laughed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Still, he didn't need to burn hard.\n\n\"So when you said you were working with her?\" Alex said, trying not to make it sound like an accusation. \"How different is that from working for her?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bobbie's laugh was a cough." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't get paid, I guess.\"\n\n\"Except for the ship.\"\n\n\"And other things,\" Bobbie said. Her voice was carefully upbeat in a way that meant she'd practiced hiding her discomfort." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She's got a lot of ways to sneak carrots to me when she wants to. My job is with veterans' outreach. This other stuff...\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sounds complicated.\"\n\n\"It is,\" Bobbie said. \"But it all needs doing, and I'm in a position to do it. Makes me feel like I matter, so that's something. Still miss being who I was, though. Before.\"\n\n\"A-fucking-men,\" Alex said. The lift of her eyebrows told him he'd said more than he'd meant to." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's not that I don't love the Roci. She's a great ship, and the others are family. It's just... I don't know. I came to it out of watching a lot of people I knew and kind of liked get blown up. Could have lived without that.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bobbie's expression went calm, focused, distant. \"You still dream about it sometimes?\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" Alex drawled. It felt like confession. \"You?\"\n\n\"Less than I used to. But sometimes. I've sort of come to peace with it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Really?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, at least I'm more comfortable with the idea that I won't come to peace with it. That's kind of the same thing.\"\n\n\"You miss being a marine?\"\n\n\"I do. I was good at it.\"\n\n\"You couldn't go back?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Nope.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yeah,\" Alex said. \"Me neither.\"\n\n\"The Navy, you mean?\"\n\n\"Any of it. Things change, and they don't change back.\"\n\nBobbie's sigh was like agreement." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The vast emptiness between Mars and the Belt, between the two of them and the distant stars, was an illusion made by curved screens and good exterior cameras." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The way the space contained their voices was more real. The two of them were a tiny bubble in a sea immeasurably greater than mere oceans. It gave them permission to casually discuss things that Alex normally found hard to talk about. Bobbie herself was in that halfway space between a stranger and a shipmate that let him trust her but not feel a responsibility to protect her from what he thought and felt." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The days out from Mars to Hungaria were like sitting at a bar, talking to someone over beer." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He told her his fears about Holden and Naomi's romance and the panic attacks he'd had on the way back to Earth from New Terra. The times he'd killed someone, and the nightmares that eventually replaced the guilt. The stories about when his father died, and his mother. The brief affair he'd had while he was flying for the Navy and the regret he still felt about it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For her part, Bobbie told him about her family." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The brothers who loved her but didn't seem to have any idea who or what she was. The attempts she'd made at dating since she'd become a civilian, and how poorly they'd gone. The time she'd stepped in to keep her nephew from getting involved with the drug trade.\n\nRather than trying to fold into the bunk, Bobbie slept in her couch." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Out of unspoken solidarity, Alex did the same." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It meant they wound up on the same sleep cycle. Bad for rotating watches, good for long meandering conversations.\n\nThey talked about the rings and the protomolecule, the rumors Bobbie had heard about the new kinds of metamaterials the labs on Ganymede were discovering based on observation of the Ring and the Martian probes reverse engineering what had happened on Venus. In the long hours of comfortable silence, they ate the rations that they'd packed and watched the scopes as the other ships went on their own ways: a pair of prospectors making for an unclaimed asteroid, the little flotilla escorting the Martian prime minister to Luna, a water hauler burning back out toward Saturn to gather ice for Ceres Station, making up for all the oxygen and hydrogen humanity had used spinning the rock into the greatest port city in the Belt." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The tracking system generated tiny dots from the transponder data; the actual ships themselves were too small and far away to see without magnification." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even the high albedo of the Hungaria cluster only meant the sensor arrays picked them up a little easier. Alex wouldn't have identified that particular centimeter of star-sown sky as being different from any other if the ship hadn't told him.\n\nThe intimacy of the Razorback and shortness of the trip was like a weekend love affair without the sex. Alex wished they'd thought to bring a few bottles of wine." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The first sign that they weren't alone came when they were still a couple hundred thousand klicks out from Hungaria." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Razorback's external sensors blinked and flashed, the proximity reading dancing in and out. Alex closed down the false stars and pulled up tactical and sensor data in their place.\n\n\"What's the matter?\" Bobbie asked.\n\n\"Unless I'm reading this wrong, this is the time when a military ship would be telling us that someone out there's painting us.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Targeting lasers?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yup,\" Alex said, and a creeping sensation went up his spine. \"Which is a mite more provocative than I'd have expected.\"\n\n\"So there is a ship out here that's gone dark.\"\n\nAlex flipped through the databases and matching routines, but it was just standard procedure." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He hadn't expected to find anything and he didn't." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No transponder signal. I think we've found the Pau Kant. I mean, assuming we can find her. Let's just see what we see.\"\n\nHe started a sensor sweep going in a ten-degree arc and popped open the comms for an open broadcast. \"Hey out there. We're the private ship Razorback out of Mars. Couldn't help noticing you're pointing a finger at us. We're not looking for any trouble. If you could see your way to answering back, it'd ease my mind.\"\n\nThe Razorback was a racing ship." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A rich kid's toy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the time it took her system to identify the ship that was targeting them, the Roci would have had the dark ship's profile and specs and a target lock of her own just to make the point. The Razorback chimed that the profile data had been collected and matches were being sought. For the first time since they'd left Mars, Alex felt a profound desire for the pilot's chair in the Rocinante.\n\n\"They're not answering,\" Bobbie said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They're not shooting either,\" Alex said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"As long as they think we're just some yahoo out joyriding, we'll be fine. Probably.\"\n\nBobbie's couch hissed on its gimbals as she shifted her weight. She didn't believe it either. The moments stretched. Alex opened the channel again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hey out there, unidentified ship. I'm going to cut thrust here until I hear from you. I'm just letting you know so I don't startle anyone. I'd really appreciate a ping back, just so we all know we're good here. No offense meant.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He cut the drive; the grip of acceleration gravity loosened its hold on him. The gel of the couch launched him gently against his restraints. He could feel his heartbeat in his neck. It was going fast." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They're deciding what to do about us,\" Bobbie said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's my guess too.\"\n\n\"Taking them a while.\"\n\nThe Razorback announced a visual match, but it wasn't with the data Holden had sent them. The ship with its sights on them wasn't any of the colony ships that had gone missing out in the gates." }, { "from": "human", "value": "With an eighty-nine percent certainty, it was a Martian naval corvette, floating dark." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Behind him, Bobbie saw the same thing and drew the same conclusions.\n\n\"Well,\" she said. \"Fuck.\"\n\nProfile match completed, the Razorback returned to its scanning arc. Another passive contact. If the corvette was the Pau Kant, it wasn't out here alone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And then two more. And then six." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Razorback picked the nearest one and cheerfully started matching its profile. By reflex, Alex went to activate his point defense cannons. Only, of course, he didn't have any.\n\n\"Maybe they'll talk,\" Bobbie said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He could hear it in her voice that she didn't expect them to." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He didn't either. Half a second later, the Razorback announced two fast-movers coming from the corvette.\n\nHe spun the pinnace away from the missiles and punched the drive. The couch slammed into his back like a blow. Behind him, Bobbie grunted." }, { "from": "human", "value": "With a mental apology to her, he pushed them to ten g, and the pinnace leaped forward eagerly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It wasn't going to be enough.\n\nAs light as the Razorback was, the missiles were an order of magnitude less mass to accelerate. And they didn't carry anything as fragile as a human body. They could pull a much heavier burn and close the gap to target in a matter of hours." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He didn't have countermeasures to shoot them down, and there was nothing to hide behind." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He didn't even have a load of cargo to drop out the back in hopes the missiles might blunder into it.\n\nHis vision started to narrow, darkening at the edges and dancing gold and fractured in the center. He felt the couch's needles slide into his thighs and neck, the juice like pouring ice water into his veins. His heart labored and he was fighting to breathe, but his vision was clear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And his mind. He had to think." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His ship was fast, as ships went, but nothing compared to a missile. There was no cover he could reach in time, and if the missiles were half as good as the ship that fired them, they'd be able to guide themselves right up his drive cone, no matter what he tried to huddle behind.\n\nHe could run away, draw the attackers into a line behind him, and then drop core. The vented fusion reaction would probably take out at least the first one." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Maybe more. But then they'd be on the float, and at the mercy of a second volley." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Well. A bad plan was better than no plan at all. His finger twitched on the controls. The layout was unfamiliar and the fear that he was coding in the wrong information just because he wasn't on his own damned boat was like a stake in his heart.\n\nBobbie grunted. He wasn't strong enough to look back at her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He hoped it wasn't pain." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "High g wasn't a good thing for someone who'd had a bunch of holes pushed through her recently. He told himself it was just the needles feeding her the juice.\n\nAn alert popped onto his screen from Bobbie's console. PRIME MINISTER. GUARD SHIPS." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Between the drugs and the panic and the compromised blood flow in his brain, it took Alex a few seconds to understand what she meant." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Razorback didn't have point defense cannons or interceptor missiles, but the flotilla heading for Luna did. Alex pulled the data into the plotting system. There was no way they could reach the Martian ships before the missiles caught up with them, but it was just possible—barely—to get inside the range of their antimissile defenses. If he turned course now." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If the Martians figured out what was going on and launched almost immediately." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And the burn was going to be at the outer limit of what he or Bobbie could handle.\n\nAlmost without thinking, he engaged the maneuvering thrusters and the crash couches clicked to match the new vector. The missiles seemed to leap closer, correcting for the new course and anticipating where the pinnace would be. He sent an emergency signal, broadcast on all standard frequencies, and hoped whoever saw it on the flotilla was a quick thinker." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The two spheres—time-to-collision and Martian antimissile range—didn't overlap, but there were only a few hundred klicks between them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Barely an eyeblink at their relative speeds. He shifted to medical control and switched Bobbie from juice to life support protocol.\n\nSorry, Bobbie, he thought. I'd warn you if I had time, but you're gonna need to take a little nap if we don't want you bleeding out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He watched her vital signs spike and then drop, her blood pressure and core temperature falling like a stone in the ocean." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He pushed the ship to fifteen g.\n\nHis head hurt. He hoped he wasn't having a stroke, but it'd be fair if he did. Sustained fifteen g was a stupid, suicidal thing to do. He felt the air pressed out of his chest under the weight of his ribs, his skin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The sound of his gasping was like gagging." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But the spheres touched now. Minutes stretched. Then fast-movers from the Martian flotilla. It had taken damned long enough, but the defenses were on the way. He tried to type in a message, warning the Martians that there were more ships out there, a dark fleet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He couldn't keep hold of the thought long enough to send it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His consciousness kept blinking, like the universe stuttering.\n\nThe medical system flashed up a warning, and he thought it was Bobbie, her old wounds reopening after all. But it was tagged for him. Something in his gut had ripped free." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He canceled the alert and went back to watching death get closer." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They weren't going to make it. The lead missile was too close. It was going to take out the Razorback before the rescuers could come. Hadn't he had an idea about that? Something..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He wasn't aware of changing course." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His fingers just did it. The spheres didn't touch anymore, until he switched to collision to track the second missile. Then, maybe. Maybe.\n\nHe waited. The lead missile closed. Five thousand kilometers. Four thousand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He vented the core." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Two hundred kilometers—\n\nThe crush of gravity vanished. The Razorback, still hurtling through space, stopped accelerating. Behind him, the lead missile died in the nuclear furnace of the rapidly diffusing core." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The second missile jittered and turned to avoid the expanding cloud of superhot gas, and four lights burned before him, streaking across his screens so quickly he only knew them by their afterimages." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A fraction of a second later the Martian antimissile defenses destroyed the pursuing torpedo, but he had already lost consciousness." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Continue with the same vibes as James S. A. Corey" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Bist bien, Knuckles?\" Karal asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The thin, slapped-together galley was too big for so small a crew. Bad design, waste of space. It wasn't worn; it was cheap. She looked at him from behind the veil of her hair and smiled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Fine, things being,\" she said, making a joke. \"Como sa?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Karal shrugged with his hands. His hair had gotten gray over the years. And the stubble of his beard. It had been as black as the space between the stars once." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He looked at her eyes and she didn't flinch." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Something to say, me.\"\n\n\"No secrets between us now,\" she replied, and he laughed. She smiled back. The prisoner flirting with the turnkey, hoping a kind thought in his head would help her later. Maybe it would.\n\nThe thing that frightened her most was how well she knew how to play it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "From the moment she'd come back to consciousness, she talked when people talked to her, laughed when someone told a joke." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She acted like her abduction was just one of those things that happens, like using someone's tools without asking first. She pretended to sleep. Ate as much as she could past the tightness in her gut. And they all treated her like she was the girl she'd been, like they could all ignore the years and the differences, fold her back in as though she'd never gone away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As if she'd never been anyone else." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hiding her fear and her outrage slipped back on so easily, it was as if she'd never stopped.\n\nIt made her wonder whether perhaps she hadn't.\n\n\"So I was one,\" he said. \"Helped with Filipito. Took care.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Good.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No,\" Karal said. \"Before that. Sometimes, he was with me.\"\n\nNaomi smiled. She'd been trying not to remember those desperate days after she'd told Marco she was leaving. The days after he'd taken Filip. To keep the boy safe, he'd said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Until she got her emotions under control, he'd said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A knot filled her throat, but she smiled past it.\n\n\"Those days. You had him?\"\n\n\"Immer, no. But sometimes. Hijo moved, yeah? Night here, two nights there.\"\n\nHer baby passed around among the people she knew." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The manipulation of it was brilliant." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Marco using his child as a marker of how much trust he placed in them and at the same time painting her as the crazed one. The dangerous one. Making sure the story in their community was about how solid he was and how close to cracked she'd come. She had the sudden powerful memory of Karal looking in from the kitchen while she broke down in his wife's arms. Souja, her name had been." }, { "from": "human", "value": "What must her tears and profanity have looked like to him then?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Kept it quiet,\" Naomi said, \"and I wouldn't have known. So why say it here?\"\n\nKaral's hands shrugged again. \"New day. New start. Looking to scrape off some old rust.\"\n\nShe tried to read from his face whether that was true, or if this was just another little cruelty in a form she couldn't call out without looking like the crazy one." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If it had been back on the Roci, she would have known." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But here, now, the balance between fear and anger and trying to control herself swamped little things like truth. It was the beauty of the way Marco had set her against herself. Tell her she was broken as a way to break her, and here they were a decade and a half past, and it still worked.\n\nThen, for a moment, Amos was there, stronger in her memory than the surrounding ship." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It don't matter what's inside, boss." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They only care what you do. She didn't know if it was a memory or just her mind reaching for a place of certainty in an environment where nothing could be relied upon.\n\nIf Amos has become my personal touchstone for wisdom, I'm fucked, she thought, and laughed. Karal ventured a smile." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Thank you for telling it straight,\" Naomi said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"New start. Scrape off the rust.\"\n\nAnd if I ever get the chance to leave you behind in a fire, Karal, then good God you will burn.\n\nA chime sounded, then the acceleration warning came on. She hadn't noticed when the ship had made its flip." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Might have been when she was asleep, or slowly over the course of hours so that the rotation was subliminal." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It didn't matter. She was cargo here. It didn't matter what she knew.\n\n\"Strap in, yeah?\" Karal said.\n\n\"On my way,\" she said, launching herself gently to the ceiling, and then back to the deck at the crash couch between Cyn and Wings." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It had turned out Wings' real name was Alex, but that space was taken in her mind, so he was Wings forever to her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He smiled to her and she smiled back as she strapped herself in against the gel.\n\nThe warning went from an amber glow to a ten-count in soft amber numbers, and at zero the couch lurched up against her, folding her a few centimeters in. The deceleration burn had started. When it stopped, they'd be where Marco was." }, { "from": "human", "value": "After the passageway linked the airlocks, she'd thought there would be some kind of farewell." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hugs and lies and all the things people did at the parting after a long journey. When it didn't happen, she understood that it had only been a long journey for her. The flight from Ceres to the empty space sunward of Mars and the Hungaria asteroids was like going from the couch to the head for them.\n\nFilip emerged from the ops deck looking sharp and hard." }, { "from": "human", "value": "No, that wasn't true." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Looking like a boy trying to look sharp and hard.\n\n\"Check her for weapons,\" Filip said, biting at the words.\n\nCyn looked from Filip to Naomi and back. \"Verdad? Knuckles been packing, she's been for a long time. Doesn't seem—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No prisoners on the Pella without a check,\" Filip said, pulling a fléchette gun from his pocket and not pointing it at her in particular." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Way it is, yeah?\"\n\nCyn shrugged and turned to her. \"Way it is.\"\n\nFilip looked at her, his lips pressed thin. His fingers too aware of the trigger on his gun." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He should have looked threatening, but he mostly looked scared." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And angry. Sending a son on a kidnap job was the sort of thing Marco would do. It wasn't that it was cruel, though it was cruel. It wasn't that it would corrode any relationship that they might have had, though it did that too. It was only that it would work." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Even putting Filip on Ceres looked like a manipulation now." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Here is your son, where you left him. Come into the mousetrap and take him back.\n\nAnd she'd done it. She didn't know if she was more disappointed in Filip or herself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were two very different kinds of disappointment, and the one pointed at her had more poison in it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She could forgive Filip anything. He was a boy, and living with Marco in his head. Forgiving herself was going to be harder, and she didn't have much practice.\n\nWhen the outer airlock cycled, she suffered a wave of disorientation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The passage was the usual design of inflated Mylar and titanium ribs." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was nothing about it that looked strange. It wasn't until they'd nearly reached the other side that she recognized the smell of it: tangy and deep and probably carcinogenic. The outgassing of volatile organics from the cloth.\n\n\"This is new?\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We don't talk about it,\" Filip said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We don't talk about much, do we?\" she snapped, and he looked back at her, surprised by the bite in her voice. You think you know what I am, she thought, but all you've got is stories.\n\nThe airlock of the other ship was weirdly familiar." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The curve was like the airlock on the Roci, and the design of the latch." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Martian design. And more than that, Martian Navy. Marco had come into a military ship. Inside, soldiers waited. Unlike the ragged group on Ceres, they wore a rough kind of uniform: gray jumpsuits with the split circle on their arms and breasts. Against the clean design of the ship's corridor, they looked like bad costumes in a play with good set design." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The guns were real though, and she didn't doubt they'd use them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The bridge looked like the Rocinante's younger brother. After the cheap, barely-enough aesthetic of the Chetzemoka, military-grade crash couches and terminal displays looked solid and reassuring. And there, in the center of it all like he'd posed himself, floated Marco. He wore something like a military uniform, but without any insignia." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was beautiful as a statue." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even now, she had to give him that. She could still remember when those lips and the softness in those eyes had made her feel safe. Lifetimes ago, that was. Now he smiled, and a strange relief spread through her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She was with him again, and unquestionably in his power." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her nightmare had come true, so at least she didn't have to dread it anymore.\n\n\"I've brought her, sir,\" Filip said, all his consonants sharp enough to cut with. \"Mission accomplished.\"\n\n\"I never had a doubt,\" Marco said. In person, his voice had a richness that recorded messages lost. \"Good work, mijo.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Filip gave a little salute, and spun to leave." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ah!\" Marco said, pulling the boy up short. \"Don't be rude, Filip. Kiss your mother before you go.\"\n\n\"You don't have to do that,\" Naomi said, but—eyes blank and empty—Filip floated over and pecked her cheek with dry lips before returning to the lift. The guards went with him, except for two that took up stations behind her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's been a long time,\" Marco said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You look good. The years have been kind to you.\"\n\n\"You too,\" she said. \"Sound different too. When did you stop talking like a Belter?\"\n\nMarco spread his hands." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"In order to be heard by the oppressing class, one must speak as a member of it. Not only the language, but the diction. The accusation of tyranny, however well-founded in fact, is dismissed unless it is delivered in the manner that power recognizes as powerful. That's why Fred Johnson was useful. He was already iconic of an authority that the authorities understood.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So you've been practicing, then,\" she said, folding her arms.\n\n\"It's my job.\" Marco reached up, pushed his fingertips against the upper deck, and floated down toward the control couches. \"Thank you for coming.\"\n\nNaomi didn't answer that." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She could feel him already rewriting the past." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Treating her like she'd chosen to join him. Like she was responsible for being here. Instead, she nodded toward the ops deck. \"Nice ride. Where'd you get it?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Friends in high places,\" Marco said, and then chuckled." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And strange, strange alliances. There are always people who understand that when the world changes, the rules change with it.\"\n\nNaomi tugged at her hair, pulling it down over her eyes, and then, angry with herself, pushed it back. \"So then. To what do I owe this setup bullshit?\"\n\nMarco's hurt expression could have passed for genuine." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No setup. Filip was in trouble, you were in a position to get our son out of a bad place that had the potential to get a whole lot worse.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And paid for it by being pulled on your ship against my will? I can't really thank you for that.\"\n\n\"You should,\" Marco said. \"We brought you because you're one of ours. To keep you safe. If we could have explained it all, we would have, but things are delicate, and you don't stop to explain why you're protecting someone when the danger's close. The stakes are the lives of millions of Belters, and—\"\n\n\"Oh please,\" Naomi said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You don't think so?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Marco said, a harshness coming into his voice. \"You're the one who killed us. You and your new captain. The minute those gates opened, all the rest of us were dead.\"\n\n\"You're still breathing,\" Naomi said, but her anger sounded like petulance even to herself. He heard it that way too." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You didn't grow up down a well. You know how little the inners cared about us. The Chesed. Anderson Station. The Cielo mine fire. Belter lives don't mean shit to inners. Never have. You know that.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They're not all like that.\"\n\n\"Some that pretend they aren't, yeah?\" The accents of the Belt slipped into his voice. And a rattling anger with them. \"But they can still go down the wells. There're a thousand new worlds, and billions of inners who can just step onto them. No training, no rehab, no drugs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "You know how many Belters can tolerate a full g?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Give them everything, all the medical care, the exoskeleton support mechs, nursing homes? Two-thirds. Two-thirds of us could go be cripples on these brave néo worlds, if the inners pulled together and threw all their money at it. You think that's going to happen? Never has before. Last year, three pharmaceutical plants stopped even making their low-end bone density cocktails." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Didn't open the patents." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Didn't apologize to any ships don't have budget for the high-end stuff. Just stopped. Needed the capacity for colony ships and all the new ganga they're making with the data coming back from the rings.\n\n\"We're leftovers, Naomi. You and me and Karal and Cyn. Tia Margolis. Filip." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They're moving on, and they're forgetting us because they can." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They write the histories, you know what we'll be? A paragraph about how much it sucks when a race of people go obsolete, and how it would have been more humane to put us down.\n\n\"Come. Tell me I'm wrong.\"\n\nIt was the same ranting he'd done before, but perfected by years." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A new variation of the same arguments he'd made on Ceres." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She half expected him to say The Gamarra had it coming. This is war, and anyone who helps choke out the enemy is a soldier whether they know it or not. Her gut felt like it was made from water. It was a feeling she remembered from the dark times." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Something in the back of her head shifted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The serpent of learned helplessness long asleep starting to wake. She pretended it wasn't there, in hopes that if she denied it enough, it wouldn't exist.\n\n\"What's it got to do with me?\" Naomi asked, less forcefully than she intended." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Marco smiled. When he spoke, it was back in the voice of the cultured leader." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The rough-cut Belter thug vanished behind his mask. \"You're one of us. Estranged, yes, but one of us all the same. You're the mother of my son. I didn't want you in harm's way.\"\n\nShe was supposed to ask what that meant. The path was laid out before her in lights." }, { "from": "human", "value": "What do you mean, harm's way?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "she'd say, and he'd tell her. Watch her eyes go wide. See the fear in her.\n\nFuck that." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Didn't want me,\" she said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Wanted the Rocinante, only that didn't work out. Was it the ship? Or was it Holden? You can tell me. Did you want to show off in front of my new boyfriend? Because that would be kind of sad.\"\n\nShe felt her breath coming fast, adrenaline pumping through her. Marco's expression hardened, but before he could speak, the comms chimed and a voice she didn't recognize echoed on the deck.\n\n\"Hast contact,\" the woman said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Que?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Little one. Pinnace out from Mars. Talking to the Andreas Hofer.\"\n\n\"Scout ship?\" Marco snapped.\n\nThe pause stretched for seconds. Then, \"Looks like just some pinché asshole wrong-placing it. Seen one, seen the whole strike force, though, yeah?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How long before the trigger impact?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Twenty-seven minutes.\" There had been no hesitation. Whoever was on the other end of the comms had known the question was coming. Marco scowled at the control panel.\n\n\"Couldn't have waited a little longer. Would have been prettier without. But fine. Take out the pinnace.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Toda?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Marco looked over at Naomi, his dark eyes on her. A smile touched his lips. Theatrical asshole that he was.\n\n\"No. No es toda. Launch the assault on the Martian prime minister's ship too. And tell the hunt group to get ready, so that when the duster runs, we can take him down.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Sabez,\" the woman said. \"Orders out.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Marco waited, hand out like a challenge. \"This is the way,\" he said. \"Make it so they can't forget us. Take chains they fashioned to bind us and use them as whips. We won't go down to darkness. They'll respect us now.\"\n\n\"And do what? Shut down the Ring?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Naomi said. \"Start making your cheap bone drugs again? What do you think shooting a Martian politician's going to do for 'our people'? How does that help anybody?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Marco didn't laugh, but he softened. She had the sense that she'd said something stupid, and it had pleased him. Despite it all, she felt a twinge of embarrassment.\n\n\"I'm sorry, Naomi. We're going to have to take this up later. But I really am glad you've come back. I know there's a lot of harsh between us, and that we don't see the world the same way. But you'll always be the mother of my son, and I will always love you for that.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He lifted a fist to the guards." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Make sure she's secure, then get ready for hard burn. We're heading to the fight.\"\n\n\"Sir,\" one guard said as the other took Naomi by the elbow. Her first instinct was to resist, pull back, but what would the point have been? She pushed off for the lift, her jaw tight, her teeth aching." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"One thing,\" Marco said, and she turned, thinking he was speaking to her." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your next one should be approximately one sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He wasn't. \"When you lock her down, make sure it's someplace she can watch a newsfeed. Today everything changes. Wouldn't want her to miss it, yeah?\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "I'll be your writing partner today. I will set the scene, and you will continue the story with 4 sentences, channeling the voice and techniques of James S. A. Corey.i'll kick things off by writing a bit, then you'll take over and write the next 4 sentences in the distinctive voice of James S. A. Corey.Ive got a bit of writers block, im gonna send you something then keep it going 4 sentences at a time, also im going for a James S. A. Corey sorta thing." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Reports at this hour are that a massive asteroid has impacted northern Africa. The Oxford Center in Rabat, five hundred kilometers west of the event, is estimating eight point seven five on the Richter scale at the epicenter.\"\n\nAmos tried again to lean back in his chair. It was an uncomfortable little piece of furniture. Just crappy lightweight plastic to start with, then molded in a factory by a machine that didn't have to sit in it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His first guess was that it had been designed specifically to be awkward and ineffective if you tried to hit someone with it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And then they'd bolted it to the floor. So every five minutes or so, he placed his heels on the textured concrete and pushed back without even knowing he was doing it. The chair bent a little under the pressure, but didn't get more comfortable, and when he gave up, it bounced right back into its old shape.\n\n\"—unseen since Krakatoa. Air traffic is being severely affected as the debris plume threatens both civilian and commercial craft. For further analysis of the situation on the ground, we are going now to Kivrin Althusser in Dakar. Kivrin?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The screen jumped to an olive-skinned woman in a sand-colored hijab." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She licked her lips, nodded, and started talking.\n\n\"The shock wave hit Dakar just under an hour ago, and authorities are still taking stock of the damage. My experience is that the city is devastated. We have reports that many, many of the local structures have not survived the initial shock. The power grid has also collapsed. The hospitals and emergency medical centers are overwhelmed. The Elkhashab Towers are being evacuated as I speak, and there are fears that the north tower may have become unstable. The sky... the sky here—\"\n\nAmos tried to lean back in his chair, sighed, and stood up. The waiting room was empty apart from him and an old woman in the far corner who kept coughing into the crook of her elbow." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It wasn't what you'd call a big place." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The windows looked out on an uninspiring two hundred meters of North Carolina, bare from the entrance facility to the perimeter gate. Two rows of monofilament hurricane fencing blocked the path to a two-story concrete wall. Sniper nests stood at each corner, the automatic defense and control weapons stiller than tree trunks. The building was low—a single story peeking up out of the ground with administrative offices and a massive service entrance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Most of what happened here happened underground." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was exactly the kind of place Amos had never hoped to be.\n\nGood thing was, when he was done, he could leave again.\n\n\"In other news, a distress call from the convoy carrying the Martian prime minister appears to be genuine. A group of unidentified ships—\"\n\nBehind him, the admin door swung open." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The man inside looked like he was one hundred kilos of sculpted muscle and also tremendously bored. \"Clarke!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Here!\" the coughing old woman said, rising to her feet. \"I'm Clarke!\"\n\n\"This way, ma'am.\"\n\nAmos scratched his neck and went back to looking at the prison yard. The newsfeed kept on being excited about shitty things going on." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He'd have paid more attention to it if the back of his head hadn't been planning the ways he'd have pushed to get out of here if they'd sent him, and where he'd have died trying." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "From the parts he caught, though, it sounded like a good day for reporters.\n\n\"Burton!\"\n\nHe walked over slowly. The big guy checked his hand terminal." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You Burton?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Today I am.\"\n\n\"This way, sir.\"\n\nHe led him to a small room with more chairs bolted to the floor and a table too. The table was solidly made, anyway." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So. Visitation?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yup,\" Amos said. \"Looking for Clarissa Mao.\"\n\nThe big guy looked up under his eyebrows. \"We don't have names here.\"\n\nAmos opened his hand terminal." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm looking for 42-82-4131.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Thank you. You'll need to surrender all personal effects including any food or beverages, your hand terminal, and any clothing with more than seven grams of metal. No zippers, arch supports, anything like that. While you are inside the prison grounds, you are subject to reduced civil rights, as outlined in the Gorman code. A copy of the code will be made available to you at your request. Do you request a copy of the code?\"\n\n\"That's all right.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry, sir. I need a yes or no.\"\n\n\"No.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Thank you, sir. While in the prison, you are required to follow the directives of any guard or prison employee without hesitation or question. This is for your own safety. If you fail to comply, the guards and prison employees are authorized to use any means they deem necessary to ensure your safety and the safety of others. Do you understand and consent?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sure,\" Amos said. \"Why not?\"\n\nThe big guy pushed a hand terminal across the table, and Amos mashed his thumb onto it until the print read. A little indicator on the side of the form went green. The big guy took it back along with Amos' hand terminal and shoes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The slippers were made out of paper and glue." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Welcome to the Pit,\" the big guy said, smiling for the first time.\n\nThe elevator was steel and titanium with a harsh set of overhead lights that flickered just a little too quickly to be sure it was really flickering. Two guards apparently lived in it, going up and down whenever it did. So that seemed like a shitty job." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At the tenth level down, they let him out, and an escort was waiting for him: a gray-haired woman with a wide face, light armor, and a gun in her holster that he didn't recognize." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Something beeped twice as he stepped into the hall, but none of the guards tried to shoot anyone, so he figured it was supposed to do that.\n\n\"This way, sir,\" the escort said.\n\n\"Yeah. Okay,\" Amos said. Their footsteps echoed off the hard floor and ceiling." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The lights were recessed into metal cages, making a mesh of shadows over everything." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amos found himself flexing his hands and balling them into fists, thinking about how exactly he'd have to bounce the guard's head against the wall in order to get the gun off her. Nothing more than habit, really, but the place brought it out in him.\n\n\"First time down?\" the escort asked.\n\n\"It show?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Little.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "From down the hall, a man's voice lifted in a roar. A familiar calmness came over him. The escort's eyebrows went up, and he smiled at her. Her lips turned up in answer, but there was a different assessment behind it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You'll be fine,\" she said. \"Right through here.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The hallway was brutal concrete; green-gray metal doors in a line with identical windows of thick green-tinted glass that made the rooms beyond look like they were underwater. In the first, four guards in the same armor Amos' escort wore were forcing a man to the ground. The woman from the waiting room huddled in the corner, her eyes closed. She seemed to be praying." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The prisoner—a tall, thin man with long hair and a flowing beard the color of iron—roared again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His arm flashed out, quicker than Amos' eye could follow, grabbing one of the guards by the ankle and pulling. The guard toppled, but two of the others had what looked like cattle prods out. One of them landed on the prisoner's back, the other at the base of his skull. With one last obscenity, the iron-bearded man collapsed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The fallen guard rose back to her feet, blood pouring from her nose as the others teased her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The old woman sank to her knees, her lips moving. She took a long, shuddering breath, and when she spoke, she wailed, her voice sounding like it came from kilometers away.\n\nAmos' escort ignored it, so he did too.\n\n\"Yours is there. No exchange of goods of any sort. If at any point you feel threatened, raise your hand. We'll be watching.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Thanks for that,\" Amos said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Until he saw her, Amos hadn't realized how much the place reminded him of a medical clinic for people on basic. A cheap plastic hospital bed, a steel toilet on the wall without so much as a screen around it, a battered medical expert system, a wall-mounted screen set to an empty glowing gray, and Clarissa with three long plastic tubes snaking into her veins. She was thinner than she'd been on the ride back from Medina Station before it had been Medina Station. Her elbows were thicker than her arms." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her eyes looked huge in her face." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hey there, Peaches,\" Amos said, sitting in the chair at her bedside. \"You look like shit on a stick.\"\n\nShe smiled. \"Welcome to Bedlam.\"\n\n\"I thought it was called Bethlehem.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Bedlam was called Bethlehem too. So what brings you to my little state-sponsored apartment?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On the other side of the window, two guards hauled the iron man past. Clarissa followed Amos' gaze and smirked.\n\n\"That's Konecheck,\" she said. \"He's a volunteer.\"\n\n\"How'd you figure?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He can leave if he wants to,\" she said, lifting her arm to display the tubes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We're all modified down here. If he let them take out his mods, he could transfer up to Angola or Newport. Not freedom, but there'd be a sky.\"\n\n\"They couldn't just take 'em?\"\n\n\"Body privacy's written into the constitution. Konecheck's a bad, bad monkey, but he'd still win the lawsuit.\"\n\n\"What about you? Your... y'know. Stuff?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Clarissa bowed her head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her laugh shook the tubes. \"Apart from the fact that every time I used them, I wound up puking and mewling for a couple minutes afterward, they've got some other drawbacks. If we pull them out, I'd survive, but it would be even less pleasant than this. Turns out there's a reason the stuff I got isn't in general use.\"\n\n\"Shit. That's got to suck for you.\"\n\n\"Among other things, it means I'm here until... well. Until I'm not anywhere. I get my blockers every morning, lunch in the cafeteria, half an hour of exercise, and then I can sit in my cell or in a holding tank with nine other inmates for three hours. Rinse, repeat. It's fair. I did bad things.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"All that shit the preacher pitched about redemption, getting reformed—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sometimes you don't get redeemed,\" she said, and her voice made it clear she'd thought about the question. Tired and strong at the same time. \"Not every stain comes out. Sometimes you do something bad enough that you carry the consequences for the rest of your life and take the regrets to the grave. That's your happy ending.\"\n\n\"Huh,\" he said. \"Actually, I think I know what you mean.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I really hope you don't,\" she said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sorry I didn't put a bullet in your head when I had the chance.\"\n\n\"Sorry I didn't know to ask. What brings you down here, anyway?\"\n\n\"Was in the neighborhood saying goodbye to a bunch of my past, mostly. Don't see how I'm coming back this way, so thought I'd better say hi now if I was going to at all.\"\n\nTears welled up in her eyes, and she took his hand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The contact was weird." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her fingers felt too thin, waxy. Seemed rude to push her away though, so he tried to remember what people were like when they had an intimate moment like this. He pretended he was Naomi and squeezed Clarissa's hand.\n\n\"Thank you. For remembering me,\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Tell me about the others. What's Holden doing?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, shit,\" Amos said. \"How much they tell you about what happened on Ilus?\"\n\n\"The censors don't let me see anything that involves him. Or you. Or anything involving Mao-Kwikowski or the protomolecule or the rings. It might be disruptive for me.\"\n\nAmos settled in. \"All right. So a while back, Cap'n gets this call...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "For maybe forty-five minutes, maybe an hour, he laid out all the stuff that had happened since the Rocinante turned Clarissa Mao over to the authorities." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Telling stories that didn't have a punch line wasn't something he had much practice with, so he was pretty sure that as story time went, it sucked. But she drank it up like he was pouring water on beach sand. The medical system beeped every now and then, responding to whatever was happening in her bloodstream.\n\nHer eyes started to close like she was going to sleep, but her fingers didn't lose their grip on his." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her breath got deeper too." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He wasn't sure if that was part of the medical whatever it was they were doing to her or something else. He stopped talking, and she didn't seem to notice. It felt weird to sneak out without saying anything, but he also didn't want to wake her up just to do it. So he sat for a while, looking at her because there wasn't anything else to look at." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The weird thing was, she looked younger." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No wrinkles at the sides of her mouth or eyes. No sagging in her cheeks. Like the time she'd spent down in the prison didn't count. As if she'd never get old, never die, just be here wishing for it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was probably some kind of side effect of the shit they'd pumped into her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were kinds of environmental poisoning that did that too, not that he knew the details. She'd killed a lot of people, but he had too, one way and another. Seemed a little weird that she'd be staying and he'd be walking out. She felt bad about all the things she'd done." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Maybe that was the difference." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Regret and punishment the flip sides of the karmic coin. Or maybe the universe was just that fucking random. Konecheck didn't look like he had a lot of regrets, and he was locked up just the same.\n\nAmos was about to start trying to get his hand free when the Klaxons went off." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Clarissa's eyes shot open and she sat up, present and alert and not even sort of groggy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So maybe she hadn't been asleep after all.\n\n\"What is that?\" she said.\n\n\"I was about to ask you.\"\n\nShe shook her head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I haven't heard that one before.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It seemed like the right time to get his hand back. He went to the door, but his escort was already there coming in. She had her weapon drawn, but not pointing at anything.\n\n\"I'm sorry, sir,\" she said, and her voice was higher than it had been before." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She was scared. Or maybe excited." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This facility has been put on lockdown. I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to remain in here for the time being.\"\n\n\"How long are we talking about?\" he asked.\n\n\"I don't know the answer to that, sir. Until the lockdown is lifted.\"\n\n\"Is there a problem?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Clarissa asked. \"Is he in danger?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That was a good move. No guard ever gave a fuck whether the prisoner was in danger, so she was asking about the civilian. Even so, the escort wasn't going to say a goddamn thing unless she wanted to.\n\nTurned out, she wanted to." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"A rock came down outside Morocco about three hours ago,\" she said, her sentence curling up at the end like it was a question." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I saw something about that,\" Amos said.\n\n\"How did it get through?\" Clarissa asked.\n\n\"It was going very, very fast,\" the escort said. \"Accelerated.\"\n\n\"Jesus,\" Clarissa said, like someone had punched her in the chest." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Someone dropped a rock on purpose?\" Amos said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Rocks. Plural,\" the escort said. \"Another one came down about fifteen minutes ago in the middle of the Atlantic. There're tsunami and flood warnings going out everywhere from Greenland to fucking Brazil.\"\n\n\"Baltimore?\" Amos said.\n\n\"Everyplace. Everywhere.\" The escort's eyes were getting watery and wild. Panic maybe." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Maybe grief." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She gestured with her gun, but it just looked impotent. \"We're on lockdown until we know.\"\n\n\"Know what?\" Amos said.\n\nIt was Clarissa that answered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If that was the last one. Or if the hits are going to keep on coming.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the silence that came afterward, they weren't guard, prisoner, and civilian. They were just three people in a room.\n\nThe moment passed.\n\n\"I'll be back with an update as soon as I have one, sir.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Amos' brain ran through all the scenarios that came easy and didn't see many options." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hey, wait. I know it ain't for pleasure viewing or nothing, but that screen over there catch newsfeeds?\"\n\n\"Prisoners only get access in the common area.\"\n\n\"Sure,\" Amos said. \"But I'm not a prisoner, right?\"\n\nThe woman looked down, then shrugged." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She took out her hand terminal, tapped in a few lines of text, and the empty gray screen flickered to life." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A pale man with broad, soft lips was in the middle of his report.\n\n\"—undetected by the radar arrays, we are getting reports that there was a temperature anomaly that may have been related to the attack.\"\n\nThe guard nodded to him and closed the door. He couldn't hear it lock, but he was pretty sure it had." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He sat back in his chair and propped his heels on the side of the hospital bed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Clarissa sat forward, her bone-thin hands knotted together. The feed switched over to a white-haired man talking earnestly about the importance of not jumping to conclusions.\n\n\"Do you know where the first one hit?\" Clarissa asked. \"Do you remember anything from the news?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I wasn't paying attention. I think they said Krakatoa? Is that a place?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Clarissa closed her eyes. If anything, she went a little paler. \"Not exactly. It's a volcano that blew itself up a long, long time ago. Sent ash eighty kilometers up. Shock waves went around the world seven times.\"\n\n\"But it's not North Africa?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No,\" she said. \"I can't believe they really did it. They're dropping rocks. I mean, who would even do that? You can't... you can't replace Earth.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Maybe you kind of can now,\" Amos said. \"Lot of planets out there now weren't around before.\"\n\n\"I can't believe someone would do this.\"\n\n\"Yeah, but they did.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Clarissa swallowed. There had to be stairs around here." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They'd be locked up so that prisoners couldn't get to them, but Amos figured there'd have to be stairs. He went to the window to the hall and pressed his head against it. He couldn't see anything down the hall either way. Kicking the glass out seemed unlikely too." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Not that he was looking to try. Just thinking." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On the screen, a mushroom cloud rose over a vast and empty sea. Then, as a woman's voice calmly talked about megatonnage and destructive capacity, a map was displayed with one bright red dot on North Africa, another in the ocean.\n\nClarissa hissed.\n\n\"Yeah?\" Amos said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If the spacing's even,\" Clarissa said, \"if there's another one, it's going to be close.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Okay,\" Amos said. \"Can't do anything about that, though.\"\n\nThe hinges were on the other side of the door too, because of course they were. It was a fucking prison. He clicked his tongue against his teeth." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Task: Cooperative storytelling\nMy role: Provide a brief opening\nYour role: Expand upon my opening with 4 sentences, emulating the writing style of James S. A. Corey." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden sat back, light-headed, his eyes still on the screen." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The immensity of the news made Fred's office seem fresh and unfamiliar: the desk with the fine black lines of wear at the corner; the captain's safe set into the wall like a little privacy window; the industrial carpeting. It was like he was seeing Fred, leaning forward on his elbows, grief in his eyes, for the first time. Less than an hour earlier, reports had come through with red frames around the feed windows to show how serious everything was. The previous headlines—a meteor or possibly a small comet had struck North Africa—were forgotten." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The ships carrying the prime minister of the Martian Republic were being approached by an unknown and apparently hostile force, his escort moving to intercept." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was the news of the year.\n\nThen the second rock hit Earth, and what might have been a natural disaster was revealed as an attack.\n\n\"They're connected,\" Holden said. Every word came out slow." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Every thought. It was like the shock had dropped his mind in resistance gel." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The attack on the prime minister. This. They're connected, aren't they?\"\n\n\"I don't know. Maybe,\" Fred said. \"Probably.\"\n\n\"This is what they were planning. Your dissident OPA faction,\" Holden said. \"Tell me you didn't know about this. Tell me you're not part of it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fred sighed and turned to him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The weariness in his expression was vast. \"Fuck you.\"\n\n\"Yeah. Okay. Just had to ask.\" And then a moment later, \"Holy shit.\"\n\nOn the newsfeed, images of Earth's upper atmosphere showed the strike like a bruise." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The cloud of dust was smearing off to the west as the planet turned under it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The dust plume would keep widening until it covered the whole northern hemisphere—and maybe more—but for now it was just a blackness. His mind kept bouncing off the image, rejecting it. His family was on Earth—his mothers and his fathers and the land he'd grown up on. He hadn't been back in too long, and now—" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He couldn't finish the thought." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We have to get in front of this,\" Fred said, to himself as much as Holden. \"We have to—\"\n\nA communication request popped onto the side of the screen, and Fred accepted it. Drummer's face filled a small window.\n\n\"Sir, we have a problem,\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"One of the ships we've got parked out there waiting to dock just put target locks on the main engines and the upper habitation ring.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Defense grid up?\"\n\n\"That's the problem, sir. We're seeing—\"\n\nThe door of the office opened. The three people who came in wore Tycho Station security uniforms." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One carried a large duffel bag; the other two had instruments in their hands that Holden struggled to make sense of." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Strange hand terminals, or some sort of compact tool.\n\nOr, guns.\n\nLike someone speaking through the radio, a voice in the back of Holden's mind said This is a coordinated, system-wide attack just as the first woman fired. The sound alone was like being struck, and Fred toppled back in his seat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden scrambled for his own sidearm, but the second woman had already turned to him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He tried to drop down, to take cover behind the desk, but the two women fired almost simultaneously. Holden caught his breath. Something kicked him just below the rib, and he didn't know if he'd hit the edge of the desk or he'd been shot. He fired wild, and the man dropped the duffel bag." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The first woman's head snapped back and she dropped to her knees." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Someone else was shooting, and it took what seemed like minutes and was probably less than a second to realize it was Fred, supine behind the desk and firing between his feet. Holden had no idea where Fred had acquired a gun in the seconds since the attack started.\n\nThe second woman turned her gun toward Fred, but Holden took a breath and remembered how to aim, hitting her in the ribs. The man fled out the office door." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden let him go and slid to the ground." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There didn't seem to be any blood on him, but he still wasn't sure whether he'd taken a bullet. The first woman struggled to her knees, one blood-soaked hand pressing her ear. Fred shot her again. She dropped. Like it was happening in a dream, Holden noticed that the duffel bag had fallen open." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It had emergency environment suits in it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When Fred shouted, his voice was strangely high and very far away. The gunfire had left them both almost deaf. \"You're a shitty bodyguard, Holden. Do you know that?\"\n\n\"No formal training,\" Holden shouted back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The words felt louder in his throat than they sounded in his ears." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He became aware of another voice shouting, but not from here. From the desk console. Drummer. He stooped over Fred, ignoring her. Blood covered the man's side, but Holden couldn't see where the wound was." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are you okay?\" Holden shouted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Just ducky,\" Fred growled, hauling himself up. He winced, clenched his teeth, and took his seat. On the monitor, Drummer blanched.\n\n\"You'll have to speak up,\" Fred said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Things got a little loud here. Holden! Secure the goddamn door.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Doors and corners,\" Holden said, stepping over the bodies. \"Always doors and corners.\"\n\nOutside, the security office was empty. A light was flashing on the wall." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Emergency signal of some kind." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now that he knew to listen for it, he could hear the alarm. Evacuation warning. Someone was evacuating the station ring. That couldn't be good. He wondered if the good guys had sounded the alert, or if it was just part of the plan." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A distraction while something even worse happened." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was having a hard time catching his breath. He had to keep checking to make sure he hadn't been shot.\n\nHe looked at the gun in his fist. I think I just killed someone, he thought." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And someone dropped a rock on Earth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And then they tried to kill Fred. It was bad. It was all just bad.\n\nHe didn't notice Fred coming up behind him until he took Holden's elbow, leaning against him for support and pushing him forward at the same time.\n\n\"Look alive, sailor,\" Fred said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We've got to go. They've fired a torpedo at us, and some ratfucker sabotaged my defense grid.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fred was cursing more than usual. The stress of combat waking up the long-dormant marine inside of him.\n\n\"They're shooting the ring?\" Holden said.\n\n\"Yes. And in particular, they're shooting at my office. I'm starting to get the feeling they don't like me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Together, they struggled forward." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the wide corridor, people were scampering to hardened shelters and evacuation stations.\n\nAn older man with close-shaved hair and a mouth set in a permanent grimace saw Fred and the blood. Without a word, he took Fred's far arm across his shoulder.\n\n\"Are we heading to medical bay or evac?\" Grimace asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Neither one,\" Fred said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The bad guys are trying to take engineering. My men got jumped. They're pinned down, and there are two enemy torpedoes on their way to disable the engines. We've got to relieve our people, and get the grid back up. See if we can't start firing back.\"\n\n\"Are you joking?\" Holden said. \"You've been shot. You're bleeding.\"\n\n\"I'm aware of that,\" Fred said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There's a security transfer up here to the left. We can take it. Get to the construction sphere. What's your name, chief?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Grimace looked at Holden, asking by his expression who Fred was talking to. Holden shook his head. Fred knew his name already. \"Electrician First Class Garret Ming, sir. Been working for you about ten years, one way and another.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Sorry I haven't met you before,\" Fred said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You know how to use a gun?\"\n\n\"I'm a quick study, sir.\"\n\nFred's face was gray. Holden didn't know if it was blood loss or shock or the first symptoms of a deeper despair. \"That's good.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tycho Station was built like a ball half a kilometer across." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The construction sphere was big enough to accommodate almost any ship smaller than a battleship in its interior space. At rest, the two rings at its equator gave spin gravity to a city's worth of the Belt's best engineers and technicians. The great drives at the sphere's base could move the station anywhere in the system. Or out of it, now." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tycho had overseen the spinning up of Ceres and Pallas." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was the beating heart of the Belt and its loudest boast. The Nauvoo, the ship that would have taken humans to the stars, had been too large to fit inside the construction sphere, but it had been built in space next to the massive station. There was no better place for the construction of grand dreams than Tycho. Along with the terraforming of Mars and the farms of Ganymede, it was a living testament to humanity's ambition and skill." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden would never have imagined it could feel fragile." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The transfer from ring to construction dome was like taking a particularly awkward lift. They began at the full one-third g of the station, lurched, and their weight began to leach away. When doors opened again, they were in free fall. The blood that had started dripping from Fred's arm was a fluid coating now, the liquid held to his body by surface tension as it gradually thickened into a kind of jelly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Garret was covered with it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden was too. He kept expecting Fred to pass out, but the old man didn't lose focus or determination.\n\nVisible from the long translucent tube of the access corridor, the construction sphere looked like a network of purified functionality. Other corridors curved between the ship berths, the walls tiled with a subtly repeating pattern of access panels, power transfers, storage and equipment lockers, and mech parking plates. The steel and ceramic bones of the station showed everywhere, and the light was as bright and harsh as sunlight in vacuum." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The air in the access corridor was sweet with the scent of carbon lubricant and electrical discharge." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Together, the three of them pulled themselves headfirst toward station south, the engineering decks, and the massive fusion reactors. Holden's body couldn't decide if he was falling down a long, bent well or swimming along an underground river of air.\n\n\"Drummer!\" Fred snapped. \"Report.\"\n\nThe audio feed from his hand terminal was confused for a moment, then the woman's voice came, her syllables clipped, calm, and measured in a way that sounded like the professional version of raw panic." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Understood. Main engineering has been shut down by the hostiles. They are holding auxiliary engineering with a force of approximately twenty well-armed enemy, sir. We're in a mutual holding action.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Can you disengage?\"\n\n\"Not safely, sir. They can't move, but neither can we.\"\n\n\"Do we know—\"\n\nSomething loud happened on the other end of the terminal, and a second later, a bone-deep ringing shuddered through the corridor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Garret swore under his breath." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The first torpedo has made impact, sir,\" Drummer said.\n\n\"The ring?\"\n\n\"No, sir. The drive cone. The torpedo targeting the ring hit a few minutes ago, but failed to detonate.\"\n\n\"Small favors,\" Fred said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do we know the armament of the insurgents?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Small automatic weapons. Some grenades.\"\n\n\"Can you shut down their air?\"\n\n\"There's a manual cutoff, but I haven't had the spare manpower yet.\"\n\n\"I've got an electrician first class with me,\" Fred said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Tell me where to take him.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Understood. We're looking at an access on service deck four. Environment controls Delta-Foxtrot-Whiskey-slash-six-one-four-eight.\"\n\n\"They had vacuum suits,\" Holden said. \"The ones in your office. They had emergency suits. Turning off the air may not matter.\"\n\nDrummer answered from Fred's hand terminal." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We'll keep them in place until their bottles run out if that's what we need to do.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Good,\" Fred said. \"We're on our way.\"\n\n\"Don't stop for beer, sir,\" Drummer said, and the background hiss of the connection dropped. Fred made a small, satisfied grunt and pushed himself farther down the hall.\n\n\"It's not going to work,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They'll figure out what we're doing and cut through a bulkhead or something.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You know the difference between a code and a cipher, Holden?\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"A code and a cipher. Cipher, you encrypt text so that no one can tell what the words in the message are. A code, you say the words right out in the open, but you change what they mean. Anyone with a smart computer and a lot of time can break a cipher. No one can break a code.\"\n\nHolden launched himself across a wide intersection where three passageways came together." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For a moment, the station extended around him on all three axes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fred and Garret floated close behind him but pushed off faster, so that they reached the far side before him. Fred turned to his left and gestured for them to follow.\n\n\"Service deck four's the other way, sir,\" Garret said.\n\n\"But the four people on the ambush team are this way,\" Fred replied." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His words were getting slushy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Level six, section fourteen, berth eight. Once we're in position, I'll try to pull the bad guys out, and we'll take them in the flank.\"\n\nHolden thought for a moment. \"You had a whole system set up in case this happened. But what if Drummer had been one of them?\"\n\n\"I had other systems set up with Oliver, Chu, and Stavros,\" Fred said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Secure, open communications with whoever I had left.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Tricky,\" Holden said.\n\n\"I've been doing this sort of thing for a while.\"\n\nThe ambush team was where Fred said it would be: three male Belters and a woman with the thick build of Earth, all in light armor with riot guns and suppression grenades. Fred gave Garret a short-barreled shotgun and a position at the rear where he could be both useful and safe." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One tried to tend to Fred's gunshot wound, but he waved the man away." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Near the bottom of the station, the curve of the corridors was tighter, the horizon close. They were less than ten meters from the doors to auxiliary engineering, and the bent wall offered them cover. When the time came, they'd have to get even closer.\n\nHolden's hand terminal vibrated in his pocket." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Around a red frame, the newsfeed announced a third rock had struck Earth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden thumbed it off. If he let himself think about what was happening around the rest of the solar system now, he couldn't think about what was about to happen in this corridor. Still, his throat felt thick and his hands had a shudder he couldn't entirely control. His family was on Earth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Amos was on Earth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And Alex was in a tiny ship someplace not too far from the Martian prime minister's convoy. And Naomi was... somewhere. That he didn't know where made it worse.\n\n\"Be okay,\" he murmured. \"Just be okay.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What?\" Fred said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Nothing. I'm ready.\"\n\nFred opened a connection. \"Drummer. Killing the air is a no-go. We're going to have to pull in heavy artillery. I have a squad of combat marines I scraped out of a bar. They're coming to relieve you now.\"\n\n\"Understood,\" Drummer said. Holden thought there was a smile in her voice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Make it fast, though. We've got two down. I'm not sure we can hold much longer.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ten minutes,\" Fred said, raising his bloodied left hand in the Belter idiom for Take position. The ambush team steadied their weapons. Holden did too. It took the people holed up in auxiliary engineering almost five minutes to decide they should make a break for it.\n\nThe door popped open, and the first half dozen or so of the enemy streamed out of engineering." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were dressed like normal people: security uniforms, technicians' jumpsuits, the sort of casual clothing Holden would have seen in a bar or in the corridors." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were just people, citizens of Tycho. Of the Belt. They took positions that gave them cover from Drummer's suppressing fire, unaware at first of the second team. At Fred's signal, the six of them opened up, though Holden was aware that he wasn't trying very hard to hit anyone. A second wave tried to get out of engineering as the first one tried to retreat back into it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Drummer's force moved forward with a barrage of gel rounds and suppression grenades that burst into foam and hardened to stone almost instantly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In half a minute, the fight was over. Fifteen minutes later, the defense grid was back up, and the attacking torpedo boat was burning hard for someplace in among the Trojan asteroids. It was almost an hour before the real cost became clear.\n\nWith the station in relative safety, Fred had allowed himself to be taken to the medical bay." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The gentle gravity of the ring was still enough to show how weak he'd become." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The expert system inserted four needles, inflating him with artificial blood, and the color began to come back to his face. Holden, sitting at the bedside, watched the readouts without really seeing them. He wanted to check the newsfeeds about Earth, and he also didn't. The longer he could put it off, the longer he didn't have to think about it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When Drummer came in with the damage report, it was almost a relief. Another distraction." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The torpedoes cracked the drive cone,\" she said.\n\n\"How badly?\" Fred asked.\n\n\"Do you want to fly this thing on a patched-up cone? Badly enough that we're going to manufacture a new one.\"\n\n\"Fair enough,\" Fred said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"At least they didn't blow the ring,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If that one hadn't been a dud—\"\n\nDrummer's face went still. \"About that. We were mistaken. The enemy fired a weapon with the hull and drive of a torpedo, but they rigged it with a salvage mech on the end. Ran it into your office, sliced through the exterior decking, and pulled half the wall away with them.\"\n\nFred blinked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That was why they needed EVA suits,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I was wondering. But it seems like a pretty weird way to get to you. Peeling your office open like a sardine can.\"\n\n\"They weren't after me,\" Fred said, then paused and said something obscene.\n\n\"What?\" Holden said. \"What is it?\"\n\nDrummer answered. Her voice had the same professional calm she'd used in the firefight." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The enemy took the wall that had Colonel Johnson's safe. It won't be easy getting it open, but with enough time and resources, we have to assume they will.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Now write approximately five sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But they already compromised your command structure, right? Any sensitive information they get, they probably already had?\"\n\nHolden knew even before Fred said it, but he wanted to give the universe a chance to prove him wrong. Make it so that the worst possible thing hadn't happened.\n\n\"They got the sample,\" Fred said, making it a reality. \"Whoever did this? They now have the protomolecule.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Hey can you write like James S. A. Corey and use whatever i write as a jumping off point?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Wouldn't the density figure in?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Clarissa asked. Whatever crap they'd been feeding into her bloodstream, it had run out. She was starting to look a little better. He could still see the veins under her parchment-thin skin, but she was getting some color back in her cheeks.\n\n\"Sure, but that's all energy you'd put in getting the rocks up to speed in the first place. You drop a slug of tungsten out of a ship or a fucking feather pillow, you've still got to get the ship going whatever speed you're aiming for. All that price got paid at the front, energetically speaking.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But a pillow would have burned up before it hit ground.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Okay, now that's a fair point.\"\n\nOn the screen, the newsfeed showed the strikes again and again, looting footage from as many different sources as they could find—terminals, security cameras, high-orbit mapping satellites. The bolt of ionized air glowed like the trail of a rail gun, and North Africa bloomed a massive rose of fire, again and again. Another beam-like trail in the air, and the Atlantic Ocean went from a vast expanse of slate-blue water to an expanding circle of eerie green and then spewed white and black to the sky." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was like the reporters thought if they all just kept looking at it, it would start making sense." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Millions of people were dead, and millions more would be in the next few hours as the tsunamis and flooding hit. Billions would go in the next few weeks and months. The Earth had become a different planet since he'd gone underground. It wasn't the sort of thing you could make sense of by staring at it, but he couldn't look away either." }, { "from": "human", "value": "All he could do was talk to Peaches about trivia and wait to see what came next." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The man doing the voice-over had a gentle European accent and a sense of calm that probably meant he'd sucked down a lot of pills. Or it might have been tweaked and enhanced by the sound techs. \"The weapons remained undetected by radar until they entered the Terran atmosphere, less than a second before impact.\"\n\nThe image shifted to an apocalyptic satellite image: five frames in a loop showing the Atlantic impact and the raw shock wave rolling out from it across the ocean." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The scale was massive." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You see,\" Amos said, pointing a thumb at the screen, \"that's how you know they were using radar-absorbing coating on the rocks. Burned off and stopped working after they hit atmo, right? Anyway, you figure it went from the ionosphere to sea level in about half a second, so that's about two hundred klicks per. I'm making this up here, but the kind of bang they're talking about, you could do it with a block of tungsten carbide maybe three and a half, four meters to a side. That ain't big.\"\n\n\"You can figure all that in your head?\"\n\nAmos shrugged. \"My job has been playing with magnetically contained fusion reactions for a lot of years now. It's the same kind of math, more or less. You get a feel for it.\"\n\n\"I can see that,\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And then, \"You think we're going to die?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yup.\"\n\n\"Of this?\"\n\n\"Maybe.\"\n\nOn the screen, the newsfeed replayed a five-second clip from a sailing boat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The flash of perfectly straight lightning, the weird deforming lens of the pressure wave bending the air and light, and the image shattered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Whoever had been in the ship, they'd died before they knew what they were looking at. Probably the most common last words that day were going to be Huh, that's weird. That or Oh shit. Amos was aware in a distant way that his gut hurt, like he'd eaten a little too much food." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Probably fear or shock or something." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Clarissa made a small sound in the back of her throat. Amos looked over at her.\n\n\"I wish I'd seen my father again.\"\n\n\"Yeah?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She was silent for a moment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then, \"If he'd done it? If he'd figured out how to control the protomolecule? Everything would have been different. This wouldn't be happening.\"\n\n\"Something else would be,\" Amos said. \"And if you'd ever seen that thing up close, you wouldn't think it was better.\"\n\n\"Do you think Captain Holden would ever—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The floor rose up and punched Amos in the legs." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "By instinct, he tried to roll, but the attack was too wide. There was no way to get around it. The screen shattered; the lights failed. Something loud happened. For a few seconds, he was rattled around the room like dice in a box, not knowing what was hitting him. Everything went black." }, { "from": "human", "value": "An endless moment later, the amber emergency light flickered on." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Clarissa's bed was on its side, the girl poured out of it to the floor. A pool of clear liquid widened around the medical expert system, filling the air with a pungent smell like coolant and alcohol. The thick wire-and-bulletproof-glass window had shattered in its frame and was now opaque as snow. A network of cracks laced the wall." }, { "from": "human", "value": "From the corner, Clarissa's half-panicked laughter bubbled up, and Amos felt his own feral smile rise up to meet it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "An alarm was sounding, the wail rising and stuttering and rising again. He didn't know if it was supposed to sound like that or if the shock wave had broken it.\n\n\"You all in one piece there, Peaches?\"\n\n\"Not sure. My hand really hurts. May have broken something.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He got to his feet." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He hurt everywhere. But long familiarity with pain told him nothing was seriously damaged, so he shoved the hurt to one side and ignored it. Either the ground was still shaking a little or he was. \"Well, if you did, that'll suck.\" The door to the hall was closed, but it looked wrong." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Like the frame had warped." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He wondered if it would ever open again.\n\n\"We're ten stories underground,\" Clarissa said.\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\n\"If it was like this for us, how bad is it up top?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't know,\" Amos said. \"Let's go see.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She sat up. Her left hand was already swollen to about twice the size of the right one, so something in it was busted. In her prison gown, she looked like a ghost. Something already dead that hadn't stopped moving yet. Which, he figured, might be accurate." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We're on lockdown,\" she said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We're not going anywhere.\"\n\n\"Thing is, for us to be in lockdown, this has to be a prison. For this to be a prison, there has to be, you know, a civilization out there. I think this just turned into a big hole in the ground with a bunch of dangerous people in it. We should leave.\"\n\nHe kicked the door. It was like punching a bulkhead with a bare fist." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He moved over and tried the shattered window." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was only a little bit better. He tried three more times before a voice shouting from outside interrupted him. \"Stop that immediately! We're in lockdown!\"\n\n\"Someone doesn't know this isn't a prison anymore,\" Clarissa said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She sounded a little drunk." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Might be a concussion to go with her broken hand.\n\n\"In here!\" Amos shouted. \"Hey! We're stuck in here!\"\n\n\"We are in lockdown, sir. You have to stay where you are until—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The wall's cracked,\" Amos shouted back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's gonna collapse.\" It might even have been true.\n\nThere was a long moment of quiet, and then a click from the doorway. The door scraped open a couple centimeters and jammed. The escort looked in." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Dim emergency lighting from down the hall turned her into a grayscale outline." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even so, he could see the fear in her expression. There were other people behind her, but he couldn't make them out.\n\n\"I'm sorry, sir,\" she said, \"but this facility is—\"\n\nAmos put his shoulder against the door, not pushing out, but not letting her close it again either." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"In lockdown. I got that,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Here's the thing, though. We need to evacuate.\"\n\n\"You can't, sir, this is—\"\n\n\"Not just us,\" Amos said. \"You too. You need to get out of here too. Unless you're really looking to die at work, which I would find disappointing.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The escort licked her lips." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her gaze cut to the right. He tried to think what would convince her the rest of the way, but the best he came up with was punching her in the jaw and hoping he could push his way out before anyone shot him. He was cocking back his arm when Clarissa put a hand on his shoulder.\n\n\"You've got people on the top, don't you?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "she said. \"Friends? Family?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The escort's gaze lost focus, seeing something else. Someone else. Probably someone dead but not cool yet. \"I can't... I can't think about that right now.\"\n\n\"Penal regulations say that you have the responsibility to maintain the safety and health of prisoners in your custody,\" Clarissa said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You won't get in trouble for leading an evacuation. You'll be a hero.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The escort was breathing heavily, like she was doing some kind of hard physical labor. Amos had seen people do that kind of thing when they were upset about something, but he didn't really understand it. Clarissa moved him gently aside and leaned in toward the escort.\n\n\"You can't be part of a relief effort up there if you're buried alive down here,\" the girl said, softly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Like she was apologizing for something." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There might be aftershocks. The walls might collapse. There's no dishonor in evacuating.\"\n\nThe escort swallowed.\n\nClarissa leaned in, almost whispering. \"There's a civilian in here.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The escort said something under her breath that Amos didn't quite catch, then turned to talk over her shoulder." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Help me get this goddamned door open, Sullivan. The structure's compromised, and we've got a fucking civilian in here that we need to get to safety. Morris, if that bastard tries anything, take him down hard. You understand, asshole? One wrong move, and we'll end you.\"\n\nSomeone in the corridor laughed, and it sounded like a threat. Amos and Clarissa backed up. Two new hands took hold of the door and started hauling it back open." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Keep the civilian safe? That's what got to her?\" Amos asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Clarissa shrugged. \"It was the excuse she needed. Though you are a precious flower.\"\n\n\"Well, sure. Just not used to anybody appreciating it.\"\n\nThe door opened with a shriek, swinging into the corridor only halfway before it stuck fast. Probably permanently. In the hallway, the damage was clearer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A crack ran down the center, three or four centimeters lower on one side than the other." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The air was thicker than it had been coming in; Amos felt the reflexive urge to check the air recyclers. Maybe that wasn't even wrong. Being thirty-odd meters underground was a lot like being in vacuum. If things were busted enough, atmosphere was going to be a problem." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The other prisoner—Konecheck—knelt on the ground, a second guard—Morris—standing three paces behind him with a weapon pointed at the man's back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If it was a gun, it wasn't a design Amos recognized. The prisoner's face was swollen all down the left side like he'd lost a boxing match with a very slow ref. The escort, two other guards, Peaches, and this fella.\n\nKonecheck looked up from behind strands of long iron-gray hair and gave a one-millimeter nod." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Amos felt a wave of something a lot like comfort pass through him—a looseness across his shoulders, a warmth in his gut." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This was going to get ugly before it was over, but it was a scale of violence he understood.\n\n\"New plan,\" the escort said. \"We're evacuating these prisoners and the civilian to the surface.\"\n\nThe guard who'd helped pull the door open—Suliman?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sullivan? Something like that—was a thick-necked bull of a man with a single black eyebrow running across his forehead." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Morris, the one with the gun, was thinner, older, with bad teeth and missing the last knuckle on his left pinky finger.\n\n\"Sure you don't want to put the prisoners in a closet before we go?\" Morris asked. \"I'd feel a lot better getting out of here if we didn't have these fucking psychos at our back.\"\n\n\"Peaches comes with me,\" Amos said with a loose shrug." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's just a thing.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Might need some help clearing debris,\" Konecheck said. He'd been the one that laughed before. The words, innocuous as they were, held just as much threat but the others didn't seem to hear it. Amos wondered why that was." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Elevators are disabled, so we'll get to the stairs,\" the escort said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That'll get us out of here. Once we're up top, we can secure the prisoners.\"\n\n\"What about fallout?\" the thick guard—Amos was almost sure the name was Sullivan—said.\n\n\"That's nukes, asshole,\" Konecheck growled.\n\n\"Rona? Shouldn't you query the captain before we do this?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Morris asked. His eyes hadn't shifted off Konecheck's back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Competent, Amos thought, and filed the information away for later.\n\n\"Captain's not answering,\" the escort, Rona, said. Her voice was tight, too controlled to let the panic out. From the way the other two went quiet, Amos guessed they hadn't known that." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Let's head for the stairs. Morris, you take lead, then the prisoners, then me and Sully. You'll need to follow behind, sir.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll walk with them,\" Amos said.\n\n\"Don't trust me with your girlfriend?\" Konecheck growled.\n\nAmos grinned. \"Nope.\"\n\n\"Let's get moving,\" Rona said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Before there's a fucking aftershock.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fear was an interesting thing. Amos could see it in all the guards without quite being able to point to what it was. The way Morris kept looking over his shoulder, maybe. Or the way Rona and Sullivan walked exactly in step behind them, like they were trying to agree with each other just by the length of their stride." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Peaches seemed focused and empty, but that was kind of just her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Konecheck, on Amos' left, was jutting out his beard and making a big show of what a badass he was, which would have been funnier if he didn't have a nervous system redesigned for violence. Guys like that were either scared all the time anyway or so broken they didn't count. Amos wondered whether he was scared. He didn't know how he'd tell." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He also wondered if there were going to be more rocks falling, but it didn't seem like the kind of thing he had any say over." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All around them, the prison was in shambles. Cracks ran along the walls like the floor had been shoved out a couple centimeters and pushed back in place. There was a sound of water running through pipes from somewhere. The emergency lights were on, but here and there a few had failed, leaving pools of darkness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Even if the elevators were running, he wouldn't have wanted to take them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One of the things living on a ship for years had done was give him a sense for how the whole vessel was running based on a few local indicators. And if the Pit had been above orbit, he'd have been sleeping in an environment suit, just so as not to be unpleasantly surprised by waking up airless.\n\n\"Stop fucking whistling,\" Konecheck said.\n\n\"Was I whistling?\" Amos asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You were,\" Clarissa said, still cradling her swollen hand." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Huh,\" Amos said, and started whistling again, consciously this time.\n\n\"I said stop it,\" Konecheck growled.\n\n\"Yeah,\" Amos agreed with a friendly nod. \"You did say that.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Prisoners will maintain silence,\" Rona snapped behind them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And the civilian will kindly shut the fuck up too.\"\n\nAmos considered Konecheck out of the corner of his eyes. Still too early to be sure, but maybe sixty-forty that one of them was going to have to kill the other. Not now, but before it was over." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He could hope for the forty." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A shudder passed through the floor like a badly tuned thruster firing. Concrete dust sifted down from the lights like amber snow. Morris said something obscene.\n\n\"Aftershock,\" Rona said. \"Just an aftershock.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Might be,\" Clarissa said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Might be the shock wave from Africa. I don't remember how fast that kind of force travels through the mantle.\"\n\n\"Not fucking North Africa,\" Konecheck said. \"No way we'd feel that.\"\n\n\"When the Galveston plant went up, the shock wave was still measurable on its third time around the planet,\" Clarissa said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh, the bitch is a history professor now?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The prisoners will maintain silence!\" Rona shouted. She was sounding a lot more agitated. Around a corner, a light glowed green, the icon of a thick-legged stick man walking up steps. He wondered how many other people were on this level, still in lockdown, waiting on rescue." }, { "from": "human", "value": "How many were already trudging up the stairs on their way out." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The guards were playing it pretty close to the vest, but he'd have bet good money that there were a whole lot of people making their own decisions right now.\n\nMorris stopped at the door to the stairway. The readout set into the wall beside it showed a red image of a closed lock until he swiped his hand terminal across it and keyed something into the display that opened. The lock switched to green, and the door slid open." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Of course a prison would put the locks on the emergency power circuit, Amos thought." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He wondered what else was locked.\n\nA landslide of mud, water, rocks, concrete, and rebar spilled into the corridor. Morris yelped and jumped back, then fell to the ground, grabbing one shin. His pants were ripped, and Amos caught a glimpse of a dark wetness between the man's fingers. Blood." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Morris!\" Rona said. \"Report!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm gonna need stitches.\"\n\n\"I'm moving ahead to look,\" Amos said, leaving So don't shoot me as a given. Beyond the door, the stairway was gone. Rubble and dirt were so thick, he couldn't even tell if the stairs still existed under them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He couldn't tell where the water was coming from, but it smelled clean." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Which meant it was probably the drinking water. Another tremble shook a few stones and a head-sized ball of concrete loose.\n\nSullivan was muttering a stream of obscenities under his breath that sounded less like anger and more like the first signs of panic. Amos shook his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No one's getting out that way,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not without a few months and a digging mech. We're gonna have to find another way up.\"\n\n\"There isn't a goddamn other way up,\" Rona said. \"That's the evacuation route. That right there.\"\n\n\"Peaches?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Clarissa's voice was calm but still a little slurred." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hard call, Amos. It's a prison for high-risk criminals. They don't put a lot of easy egress routes in it.\"\n\n\"Fair enough,\" Amos said. \"But say you had to think of something clever?\"\n\n\"The guards have overrides. If we can get access to the elevator shaft and the car's not blocking it, we might be able to climb up.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Ten stories at one g on a broken hand?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He didn't mention the possible concussion that was probably screwing with her sense of balance.\n\n\"Didn't say it'd be fun.\"\n\n\"The access ladders are all locked down,\" the escort said. \"They put doors across them so no one can get up without permission.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "The user will write a bit then you need to write around 4 sentences continuing directly from the user's text. Try to mimic the style of James S. A. Corey.Produce 4 sentences using the prose and structure of James S. A. Corey every time its your turn using what the user wrote as a seed." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hour by hour, history rolled out, every new moment making things worse. The newsfeeds from Earth and Mars, and then reports from Tycho Station and Ganymede filled with reporters and journalists blank with shock or else weeping. The hammering of Earth took most of the bandwidth: images from an apocalypse. Cities along the coasts of the Atlantic with grinding waves shattering fourth-and fifth-story windows." }, { "from": "human", "value": "An army of small tornados forming behind the shock wave's leading edge." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The planet she was so used to seeing glow as the city lights made it a permanent fire, going dark. The field hospital at Dakar where ash and stones rained down upon row after row of the dead. The shaking UN spokesman confirming the death of the secretary-general. The void between the planets was alive with chatter and speculation, reports and theories and then conflicting reports and theories." }, { "from": "human", "value": "With the complexity of light delay, it was almost impossible to put events in order." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Everything seemed to be happening at once.\n\nWhich, she supposed, was how Marco had wanted it.\n\nThe events in other places—things that would have been shattering on any other day—seemed footnotes to the grand thesis of destruction playing out on Earth. Yes, there had been an attempted coup on Tycho Station, but the Earth was dying." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yes, an OPA cell had taken control of the ports on Ganymede, but the Earth was dying." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yes, a battle was going on between Martian escort ships and an unknown force near the Hungaria asteroids, but Earth was dying. The sense that something vast had descended on all humanity was inescapable.\n\nOutside, in the common room, elated voices rose with each new report, cheering with delight. In her assigned quarters, she watched with a growing numbness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And beneath it, something else." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After half a shift, she turned the screen off. Her own face reflected in the emptiness that followed looked like another stunned reporter searching for words and failing. She pulled herself out of her crash couch and walked out to the common room. It was so much like the Roci's galley that her brain kept trying to recognize it, failing, and trying again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "An utterly unfamiliar space would have been easier than this architectural uncanny valley." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hoy, Knuckles,\" Cyn said, rising from among the crowd. \"A que gehst, yeah?\"\n\nShe made an automatic Belter's shrug, but Cyn didn't sit back down. Not the question of a friend wondering where she was going, but of a guard demanding information of a prisoner." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She arranged her expression more carefully." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This was why, wasn't it? This was why he wanted me?\"\n\n\"Marco son Marco,\" Cyn said, and his voice was weirdly gentle. \"He thought we should get you, so did, yeah? Why does why matter? Still the safest place to be in the system right here.\"\n\nNaomi took a long breath and blew it out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Lot to take in,\" she said. \"Big.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Is that,\" Cyn said. Naomi looked at her hands, her fingers laced together. Act like one of them, she thought. What would she do if she were one of them again?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The answer came too naturally." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As if she was one of them. As if she always had been.\n\n\"Ship's got an inventory,\" she said. \"I can do the checks. Be useful.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'll join,\" he said, falling into step with her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She knew where to go, how the lift would take her, where the machine shop was. In the years she'd been on the Roci, she hadn't been aware that she was also internalizing the design logic of the Martian Navy, but she had been. When they reached the shop, she knew where the diagnostic arrays would be stored even though she'd never set foot in the place before.\n\nCyn hesitated before he opened the cabinets, but only a little." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Checking inventory, testing batteries and relays and storage bubbles, was something everyone did in their spare time if they grew up in the Belt." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was as natural as drinking water, and when she picked up an array, he did too. The door to the cargo bay was sealed, but it cycled open for Cyn.\n\nThe bay was well-stocked. Magnetic pallets locked to the decks and walls in neat rows." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She wondered idly where it had all come from, and what promises had been given in exchange." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She went to the nearest, plugged the array into the pallet, and popped it open. The crates unfolded. Batteries. She took the first, snapped it into the array. The indicator went green, and she snapped the battery back out, replaced it, and took the next one." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"All going to be good,\" Cyn said. \"Military grade, this.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well thank God militaries never get shit wrong.\" The indicator went green. She swapped the battery in her hand for the next one. Cyn went to the next crate over, popped it, and started doing as she was doing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She recognized it as a kindness." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He hadn't come down to be her friend, but her jailer. He could as easily have put her back in her cabin and locked the door to keep her there, but he hadn't. He could have stood guard over her while she worked through the batteries, but he didn't. He pretended that they were together on the task, equals." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Even if it meant missing beer and Armageddon with his friends." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Against her will, Naomi felt a spark of gratitude for that.\n\n\"Big day,\" she said.\n\n\"A long time coming,\" Cyn said.\n\n\"Long time,\" she agreed automatically." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Got to be weird seeing him again.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She pulled another battery, checked it, put it back, grabbed the next one. Cyn cleared his throat.\n\n\"Mé falta,\" he said. \"Shouldn't have said it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No, it's fine,\" Naomi said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, it's weird seeing him again. Did a lot to get away from him last time. Didn't see ever coming back.\"\n\n\"Bad times.\"\n\n\"Those or these?\"\n\nCyn coughed out a laugh and looked over at her, a question in his eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"These? Esá the promised land. Belt standing up. You know how it was before. You remember running thin because we couldn't get enough oxygen. Breaking bones because the meds got taxed too much.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I do,\" she said, but Cyn was on a roll now, and he wasn't ready to stop. He put down his array and stared at her. The sympathy had burned out of him, and there was a rage in his eyes. Not with her. With something bigger." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I got three cousins died because Earth corporations wouldn't sell the good cancer meds to Belters. Gave us the crap left over from the farms on Ganymede. Only vat meats aren't like people, yeah? Don't work the same, but who cares? Tio Bennett got his ship taken away because he was behind on his permitting. He wasn't even in a pinché Earther dock, but he didn't pay, so they boarded him, dropped him on Ceres, and sold his rig. And for what? They protect us from pirates? They protect us from third-rate manufacturers passing off old suits as new? They care if we got shot? If we got killed?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I know they don't.\"\n\n\"Didn't, Knuckles. They didn't. Because past is the past now. Today,\" Cyn said, poking the air with his thumb. \"You been flying on their side for a lot of years, and maybe not tu falta. Things before, keeping Filipito away, maybe we all did that wrong, yeah? But I'm starting to think you been sharing a couch with an Earth coyo so long you forgot what you are. Started thinking maybe you're like them.\"\n\nNo, she wanted to say." }, { "from": "human", "value": "No, I never forgot." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But even as she formed the words, she wasn't sure if they were true. Once, there had been a girl with her name who had belonged here. Who'd felt the rage she saw in Cyn and in Filip. There had been a time when she could have cheered the deaths on Earth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But Jim was from Earth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And Amos. Alex from Mars, which from a Belt perspective was more or less the same thing. And what was she? Their pet Belter? The one that didn't belong? She didn't think so." }, { "from": "human", "value": "So then, she was something else." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And still, how well had they known her, really? There was so much she hadn't said. She didn't know what would have changed if she had.\n\nCyn was scowling at her, his eyes hard, his jaw set." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She tried to retreat back behind the curtain of her hair, but it wasn't enough." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not here. Not now. She had to say something; she had to react or it would be the same as confessing, and she was done taking responsibility for things she hadn't chosen. She tried to think what Jim would have said, but imagining him was like touching an open wound. Guilt at keeping her past from him and the grief and longing of being away from him and the fear that something bad had happened to him on Tycho." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Or was happening to him, right now, while she could do nothing about it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She didn't know what Jim would do, and didn't dare to imagine him.\n\nAll right. Amos, then. What would Amos do?\n\nShe took a deep breath, let it out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When she looked up, she brushed her hair away." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Grinned. \"Well, Cyn. That's one way of looking at things,\" she said, leaning into the words. \"Ain't it?\"\n\nCyn blinked. Whatever he'd expected, it hadn't been that. She checked the last battery on her pallet, replaced it, and shut the box back down. Cyn was still looking at her, his head turned a degree to his left." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It made him seem wary of her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Good.\n\nShe nodded at the open pallet at his feet. \"You going to check those?\" she asked. \"Or d'you need some help?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "By dinner, it seemed like the attacks were done." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The feeds, on the other hand, were in full swarm. She sat at a table that, like everything on the ship, seemed too familiar. Cyn sat on her right, and a young woman she didn't know on her left. Her plate was heaped with fried mushroom in hot sauce, the way Rokku used to make it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She ate it one-handed, the way the others did, and wondered whether someone looking over the room would have been able to pick her out as the one that didn't fit." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The screen was set to a feed coming out of Tycho Station. She watched it and tried not to feel anything. When Monica Stuart appeared, she felt a shock of fear that she couldn't quite explain. The woman made an introduction that told Naomi nothing new, then turned to Fred Johnson sitting stiffly across from her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He looked old. He looked tired." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She didn't watch him, barely listened to them speak, straining instead at the edges of the screen in case Jim was there. The others were heckling and catcalling anyway. She caught fragments.\n\n\"Do you believe that you were the primary target of the attack?\"\n\n\"That appears to be the case.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Fucking liar!\" someone across the galley shouted, and the others roared their approval. Including Cyn." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fred moved carefully, and the camera stayed close on his face. He was hurt then, and hiding it. She'd heard once that birds back on Earth would do everything they could to hide that they were ill. Any visible weakness was an invitation to attack. The comparison made Fred Johnson seem vulnerable." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Maybe everything was vulnerable now." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The attackers are in custody, and we hope very soon to have a clear idea who was behind this.\" Something about that caught her. It was odd, knowing Marco, that he hadn't made a press release of it. He'd brought her here to show off, hadn't he?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Or had he? She was supposed to bring the Rocinante with her, and they'd been disappointed when she didn't." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Was the ship what he'd really wanted? Or Jim? She wondered with a sense of dread what would have happened if she hadn't come alone.\n\nAnd then, as if thinking had summoned him, Monica Stuart ended the interview with Colonel Fred Johnson, voice of the OPA and director of Tycho Station, and turned instead to Captain James Holden.\n\nHer breath stuttered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I understand you were working as a bodyguard for Colonel Johnson,\" Monica said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, that's true,\" Jim said with a little grimace. He hadn't done a very good job of it apparently. \"It wasn't really needed. The people who infiltrated the security team turned out to be a very small minority. He wasn't ever in real danger.\"\n\nHe was lying. Naomi pushed her food away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Is it true that there was a secondary target? There are some people reporting that the attack may have been cover for some kind of theft.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Annoyance flashed in Jim's eyes. She wondered if anyone else saw it. Monica was probably pushing into territory that they hadn't agreed on. Or had agreed to avoid." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They're not reporting that to me,\" Jim said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"As far as I know, apart from some damage to the station, the coup was a total failure.\" Another lie.\n\n\"Switch the feed!\" someone shouted. A chorus of agreement rose. Someone called Jim something insulting, and Cyn glanced over at her and then away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Naomi went back to her food." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The hot sauce burned her lips, but she didn't mind. The screen switched to a major newsfeed from Earth. The reporter was a young man in a black raincoat. The text said he was in someplace called Porto." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The buildings behind him were a mix of ancient and new, with thick, muddy water tearing at them all." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On the higher ground behind him, there were rows of sacks. No, body bags.\n\n\"That was him, wasn't it?\"\n\nShe didn't know how long Filip had been standing behind her. The girl to her left nodded to Filip and fled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The boy took the empty seat." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Wisps of stubble stretched along the line of his jaw, black against the golden brown of his skin. He turned to look at her, and his eyes took a moment to find her, like he was drunk. \"That was the man you left us for, si no?\"\n\nCyn grunted like he'd been hit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Naomi didn't know why." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The question was so wrong it was actually funny.\n\n\"Not how it played,\" she said. \"But yes. I ship with him.\"\n\n\"He's handsome,\" Filip said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She wondered whose voice he was echoing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It didn't sound like Marco. \"Wanted to say, about your being here? Wanted to say.\"\n\nBut then he didn't go on to actually finish the thought. She wondered whether she saw regret in his eyes, or if she was imagining it because she wanted it to be there." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She didn't know what to say, how to answer." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It felt like there were many versions of her—the captive, the collaborator, the mother reunited, the mother who went away—and all of them spoke differently. She didn't know which was her real self. If any of them.\n\nProbably, it was all." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Not the way I'd have chosen,\" she said, stepping through the words like they were sharp." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But that's true of a lot of things, yeah?\"\n\nFilip nodded, looked down. For a moment she thought he'd move away, and didn't know whether she wanted him to stay or go.\n\n\"It's me up there now, you know,\" Filip said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"On the feed? That's me.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The reporter was older than Filip, broader across the face and shoulders. For a moment, she tried to see a resemblance between them, and then like walking into a freezer, she understood.\n\n\"Your work,\" she said.\n\n\"Gave it to me as a present,\" Filip said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The stealth coating on the rocks? I led the team that retrieved it, me. Without me, none of this.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was boasting. It was in the corner of his eyes and the tightness of his lips how badly he wanted her to be impressed. To approve. Something like rage shifted in her gut. On the screen, the reporter was listing relief organizations and religious groups. People who were trying to organize help for the refugees." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As if anyone on the planet didn't need refuge now." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Did that to me too,\" she said. Filip's expression asked the question. \"Your father. He put blood on my hands too. Made me complicit in killing people. Thought it would make me easier to control, I guess.\"\n\nIt was the wrong thing to say." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The boy flinched, drawing into himself like a snail's feeler touched with salt." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The feed changed. The dead and missing on Earth had topped two hundred million. A cheer went up all through the galley.\n\n\"Is that why you left?\" Filip asked. \"Couldn't handle doing the work?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She sat silent for a long moment. Then, \"Yes.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Better that you went, then,\" Filip said. She told herself he didn't mean it. It was just something he said to hurt her. It worked. But more than that, she felt a vast sorrow for all the things her baby boy might have been that he wasn't." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For the child she could have had in him, if there had been a way." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But she'd left her child in the hands of a monster, and the infection had spread. A family of monsters, father and mother and child.\n\nIt made it easier.\n\n\"Weighed on me,\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"All those dead people because of what I'd done. I tried to leave. Told him I wouldn't turn him in if he just let me take you and go. So instead he took you away. Said I was acting crazy, and he didn't trust me around you. That if anyone was getting turned in, it would be me.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I know,\" Filip said. Spat. \"He told me.\"\n\n\"And I was going to have to do it again. And again. And again. Kill more people for him. I tried to do it too. Tried to push through. Let them die. He tell you I tried to kill myself?\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" Filip said. She should stop." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She didn't need to put this on him. Her little boy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her little boy who'd just helped kill a world.\n\nGod, she still wanted to protect him. How stupid was that? He was a murderer now." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He needed to know." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I was at an airlock on Ceres Station. Rigged it to open. All I needed to do was step out. It was an old-style one. Blue and gray. And it smelled like fake apple. Something about the recycler there. And, anyway, I did it. I triggered it. Only the station had put in a fail-safe I didn't know about. So.\" She shrugged. \"That was when I knew.\"\n\n\"Knew what?\"\n\n\"That I couldn't save you. You could have a gone mother or a dead one. Those were all the options.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Some people aren't meant to be soldiers,\" Filip said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was meant to cut, but she was past feeling now.\n\n\"The only right you have with anyone in life is the right to walk away. I would have taken you with me if I could. But I couldn't. I would have stayed if I could. But I couldn't. I would have saved you if I could.\"\n\n\"I didn't need saving.\"\n\n\"You just killed a quarter of a billion people,\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Someone should have kept that from happening.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Filip stood, his motions wooden. For a moment, she saw what he would look like as a man. And what he had been as a boy. There was a deep pain in his eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Not like her own." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His pain was his, and she could only hope he would feel it. That he would at least learn to regret.\n\n\"Before you kill yourself,\" she said, \"come find me.\"\n\nHe pulled back a centimeter, as if she'd shouted." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Con que I do something stupid like that? Soy no coward, me.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"When it comes,\" she said, \"find me. Nothing can ever take it back, but I'll help you if I can.\"\n\n\"You're merde to me, puta,\" Filip snapped and stalked away. Around the galley, the others stared or pretended not to. Naomi shook her head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Let them look. She was past caring." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She didn't even hurt. Her heart was vast and dry and empty as a desert. For the first time since she'd taken Marco's call on Tycho, her mind was clear.\n\nShe'd almost forgotten Cyn was there until he spoke." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Harsh words for his big day.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Life's like that,\" she said. But she thought, This isn't the big day.\n\nIn her memory, Marco spoke. In order to be heard by the oppressing class, one must speak as a member of it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Not only the language, but the diction." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 5 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But he hadn't made his pronouncement yet. Not in any diction. She didn't know his plans. Likely no one but Marco knew all of them.\n\nBut whatever his grand design was, it wasn't over yet." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "expand on the story like James S. A. Corey would" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sullivan died when they were about fifteen meters up the shaft.\n\nThe plan, if you wanted to call it that, was open the elevator shaft doors, then boost up a level and pry those open. Each level could be a staging area for getting to the next, and by the time they got to where the car was stuck at the very top level, they'd have enough experience with the layout they'd maybe be able to find a way to get past it or get the guards posted in it to let them through. Anyway, it was a problem they could solve once they got there." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It took about an hour to get the first set of doors opened." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They defaulted to locked, for one thing. For another, the mass of the doors was a lot more than the usual lift gates. In the end, it had taken Amos, Sullivan, and Morris on one door and Konecheck with his modifications on the other to pry them open enough to slip through. Twice, the ground had shaken, and the second time harder than the first; the whole damned planetary mantle was ringing like a struck bell." }, { "from": "human", "value": "By the end, Amos was starting to get thirsty, but he didn't see the point in mentioning it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The shaft was in darkness, which Amos had expected. It was also wet, which he hadn't. Black drops like filthy rain pattered down from above, smearing the walls and making them slick. He couldn't tell if it was leaking through from one of the floors above them or if the building at the ground level had been sheared off." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The guards had flashlights, but all the beams showed were dirty steel walls and a recessed track that the car ran on." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A set of repeating steel access panels ran along beside the track looking like cabinets stacked one on top of the other, going up forever into the gloom.\n\n\"That's the maintenance ladder,\" Rona said, playing a circle of white light over the cabinet doors. \"The doors retract, and there's handholds.\"\n\n\"That's great,\" Amos replied, leaning out into the empty air." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The shaft went down another three meters or so." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The black soup at the bottom might have gone deeper than that, but he was hoping not to find out. The air smelled like ashes and paint. He didn't want to think too much about what was leaking into the shaft or where it was coming from. If the whole place was ass-deep in toxic crap, it didn't change what they had to do." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The gap between floors was maybe half a meter." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Craning his neck, he could see the lines of the elevator doors set flush into the wall. Not so much as a fingerhold. He thought maybe there was something way at the top of the shaft—a spot of brightness that came and went in an eyeblink.\n\n\"Can we get to the next doors?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Clarissa asked from behind him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What's it look like?\"\n\n\"It looks like we need a plan C,\" Amos said, coming back into the prison hallway.\n\nKonecheck chuckled, and Sullivan turned on the man, lifting the gun-like thing to the prisoner's head. \"You think that's funny, asshole? You think it's all so fucking amusing?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Amos ignored the homicidal tension in the air and looked at the gun." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It wasn't like anything he'd put his hands on before. The grip was hard ceramic with a contact interface running along the seam. The barrel was short and square and as wide across as his thumb. Konecheck loomed up over Sullivan, his swollen face a mask of rage and defiance, which was fine as long as it stopped there." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You going to use that, little man?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What's it shoot?\" Amos asked. \"Tell me it ain't one of those riot gear things. They give you real bullets down here, don't they?\"\n\nSullivan turned to him, the gun still trained on Konecheck. Amos smiled and very slowly, gently put his hand on the guard's arm and drew it down." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What the hell are you talking about?\" Sullivan asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Plan C,\" Amos said. \"That thing. Shoots real bullets, right? Not gel rounds or some wimpy shit like that?\"\n\n\"They're live rounds,\" Morris said. \"Why?\"\n\n\"I was just thinking about how a gun makes a shitty metal punch.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Where are you going with it?\" Clarissa asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Thinking we've got three shitty metal punches,\" Amos said. \"Maybe we can punch some metal.\"\n\nThe guns were biometrically linked to the guards in case someone like Peaches or Konecheck got hold of them, so Amos and Rona lowered themselves down into the muck instead of Amos going alone. The black sludge came up to Amos' ankle, cold and slick." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The lowest of the cabinet-like doors had its edge under the dark surface." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amos rapped on the metal with his knuckles, listening to the sound. The beam from the flashlight bounced, filling the shaft with twilight.\n\n\"Put a round here,\" Amos said, putting a daub of muck on the steel. \"And here. See if you can get us some fingerholds.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What if it ricochets?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That'll suck.\"\n\nThe first round left a hole in the steel covering maybe a centimeter wide. The second round, a little less. Amos tested the edges with his fingertips." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were sharp, but not knife-sharp." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The black rain had soaked the shoulders of his shirt, and the back of it was clinging to his spine.\n\n\"Hey, Tiny,\" he called. \"You come down here a minute?\"\n\nAfter a short silence, Konecheck's growl came down." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What'd you call me?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Tiny. Just come take a look at this. See if we've got something.\"\n\nKonecheck landed with a splash, spattering muck on Amos and Rona. That was fine. The prisoner made a big show of flexing his back muscles and stretching out his hands, then stuffed his first two fingers into the bullet holes, braced his other arm against the wall, and pulled. A normal person, it wouldn't have done a damned thing, but the Pit wasn't a place for normal people." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The metal flexed, bent, peeled back to show a line of rungs." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Curved metal with a little sandpaper texturing for grip. Konecheck grinned, the swelling of his injured face and the jutting beard making him look like something out of a sideshow. His fingertips were red and raw-looking, but as far as Amos could tell, there wasn't any blood.\n\n\"All right,\" Amos said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's ugly as hell, but we got a plan. Let's get out of here.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The ladder was narrow and rough, and spending hours hanging off it didn't make sense if they didn't have to do it. Sullivan and Konecheck went up ahead, the guard with his gun to make the fingerholds and the monster to pry away the steel. Amos sat on the concrete floor of the hallway, his legs hanging out into the shaft. Morris and Rona stood behind him with Clarissa between them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Amos' stomach growled. Ten meters up the ladder, the sharp attack of the gun came once, then again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm surprised it wasn't harder to find a way out,\" Clarissa said.\n\n\"Thing about prison,\" Amos said. \"It's not like it's supposed to keep you in all on its own, y'know? As long as it slows you down long enough for someone to shoot you, it pretty much did its job.\"\n\n\"You've spent time inside?\" Rona asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Nope,\" Amos said. \"I just know people.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Another two aftershocks came and went without knocking anyone off the ladder or collapsing the shaft. An hour later, the Klaxon stopped, the silence as sudden and unnerving as the sounding of the alarm had been. With it gone, there were noises in the distance. Voices raised in anger." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Twice, gunshots that weren't from the elevator shaft." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amos didn't know how many people were in the Pit, prisoners and guards and whoever else. Maybe a hundred. Maybe more. The prisoners were in cells, he figured. Locked down. If there were other guards, they were making their own decisions, and no one suggested they go find any of them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Two more gunshots from the shaft, a murmur of voices, and then a scream." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amos was on his feet almost before Sullivan's body fell past. He landed in the muck at the bottom of the shaft. Rona cried out wordlessly, dropping down to him while Morris turned his flashlight up the ladder. Konecheck's feet were two pale dots, his face a shadow above them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He slipped,\" Konecheck called." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The hell he did!\" Rona shouted. Her gun was in her hand, and she was going for the ladder. Amos jumped down and got in her way, his hands spread wide. \"Hey, hey, hey. Don't get crazy here. We need that guy.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Coming up on level four,\" Konecheck said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Starting to see light up top. Hear the wind. Almost there.\"\n\nSullivan lay in the muck, his leg folded unnaturally under him, and limp as a rag. He still had the gun in his fist. A yellow indicator on the side said he was out of ammunition." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sullivan had lived just long enough to stop being useful, then Konecheck had murdered him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Asshole couldn't have waited until they were all the way up.\n\n\"He slipped,\" Amos said. \"Shit like that happens. Don't do anything stupid.\"\n\nRona's teeth were chattering with rage and fear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Amos smiled and nodded at her because it seemed like the kind of thing people did to reassure folks." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He couldn't tell if it was doing any good.\n\n\"Someone going to come help?\" Konecheck called. \"Or am I doing all this on my own?\"\n\n\"Take Morris,\" Clarissa said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Two guns. One for the metal, one to guard him. It was a mistake. It won't happen twice.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And leave you unguarded?\" Morris said behind her. \"Not a chance. No one goes without a guard.\"\n\n\"I'll keep her out of trouble,\" Amos said, but the guards didn't seem to hear him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Everyone up,\" Rona said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Everyone. And if anybody does something even a little bit threatening, I swear to God I'll kill all of you.\"\n\n\"I'm a civilian,\" Amos said.\n\nRona pointed toward the rungs with her chin. \"Get climbing.\"\n\nSo they climbed up into the darkness, hand over hand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Ten meters up, maybe twelve." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Morris first, then Clarissa, then Amos, with Rona coming up last, her flashlight stuck in her belt and her gun in her hand. Konecheck wrestled the next length of ladder open, clanging and cursing and roaring in the effort. The black muck kept dripping down from above, making everything slick. Amos wondered if maybe Sullivan really had slipped, and chuckled to himself quietly enough that no one heard him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Konecheck, at the upper end of the ladder, swung to one side, letting Morris pass next to him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then two more shots and the two men switched places again. Amos wondered if the rungs had been designed to carry the weight of two men at once. But they didn't bend, so that was one good thing. He spent a lot of time looking at Clarissa's ankles, since that was pretty much what there was to look at." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were thin from atrophy, the skin pale and dusty." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He noticed when they started to tremble. If her busted hand bothered her, she didn't say so.\n\n\"You all right, Peaches?\"\n\n\"Fine,\" she said. \"Just getting tired is all.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hang on, little tomato,\" he said. \"We're almost there.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Above her, the shaft grew shorter. There was no sign of the car or the guards who'd been in it. Just a pale gray square and a growing howl of wind. Once, when they only had four or five meters still to go, Rona below him made a sound like a sob, but only once." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He didn't ask her about it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And then Konecheck was at the edge, hauling himself up with Morris scrambling after. The black rain was still falling, and it had gotten colder. Clarissa was shaking now, her whole body fluttering like she was too light, and the wind might pick her up and carry her away.\n\n\"You can do it, Peaches.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I know,\" she said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I know I can.\"\n\nShe boosted herself up, and then it was Amos' turn. The elevator shaft ended in a clean break, like the hand of God had come and swept everything away. The intake building was gone apart from shattered concrete and splintered wood strewn across the bare field." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The fence was gone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The trees on the horizon had been shaved down to stubble. For as far as he could see, there was just earth and scrub. The sky was dark and low, huge clouds scalloped from one side of the world to the other like inverted waves. The wind barreling down out of the east stank of something he couldn't quite identify." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was what he imagined the aftermath of a battle looked like. Only worse." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Come on,\" Rona said, pushing at his leg. Then, without warning, Konecheck roared and Morris shrieked. A gun went off as Amos made it up onto the ledge and got his feet under him. Konecheck was holding Morris up off the ground." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The guard's head hung slack and boneless in a way that clarified the situation." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Clarissa had collapsed at the gray-haired prisoner's feet.\n\nFor a fraction of a second, Konecheck's gaze locked with his. Amos saw a base, animal pleasure in the man. The joy of a schoolboy burning ants with his magnifying glass." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Faster than anything human, Konecheck dropped the dead guard and surged forward, his feet digging into the slick mud as he ran." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amos stepped into the attack, which wasn't what the guy had expected, and got a solid punch in under his rib cage. But then Konecheck's elbow came out of nowhere and hit Amos' ear hard enough that the world started spinning. Amos stumbled, and the other guy's grip was on his belt and arm. Amos felt himself lifted up over Konecheck's head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He looked down the shaft and saw Rona looking up at him wide-eyed and openmouthed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The black was a long way down. Amos wondered if he'd see Lydia again when he got to the bottom. Probably not, but it was pretty as a last thought.\n\nThe gunshot made Konecheck stumble and Amos twisted into the slackness of his grip, falling backward and landing hard." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Clarissa was lying over Morris' body, her two hands around the dead man's fist, taking aim again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Blood poured down Konecheck's chest, but before he could launch himself at the girl, Rona's hand came up over the edge of the shaft and grabbed his ankle. Konecheck kicked back, his muscles flickering too fast to see, and Rona yelped. But by then Amos was on his feet again, knees bent deep to keep his center of gravity low. The world was still spinning." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He couldn't trust his inner ear to tell him which way was up." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But he'd spent a lot of years in free fall. Ignoring vertigo just meant it was a day that ended in y.\n\nHe landed a straight kick in Konecheck's crotch that probably castrated him, and the man stepped back, eyes wide. He had maybe a tenth of a second to look surprised as he fell back down into the Pit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then that part was done." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amos sat down, rubbing his injured ear as Rona crawled up into the bleak half-light. She was crying and turning slowly, taking in the devastation all around them with disbelief and horror. The woman's hands flapped at her sides like she was pretending to be a penguin. Her distress would have been funny if it hadn't been so sincere." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Losing everything should at least be dignified." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Where'd it go?\" she shouted over the rushing of the wind, like anyone could answer. And then, \"Oh my God. Esme.\"\n\nClarissa had rolled onto her back, her arms spread to the filthy rain, her head resting on the dead man like he was a pillow. Her eyes were closed, but he could see her rib cage moving." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Amos squinted up at Rona." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Esme? That one of your people?\"\n\nShe nodded without looking at him.\n\n\"Yeah,\" Amos said. \"Look, if you need to go look for her, that's all right with me.\"\n\n\"The prisoner... I have to...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's all right. I'll keep Peaches out of trouble. You know. Until you get back.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The absurdity of it seemed lost on the woman. She stumbled forward, heading for a low hill on the horizon. She wasn't coming back. No one was coming back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There wasn't anything to come back to." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Clarissa's eyes were open now. As he watched, her mouth widened into a smile and she reached up, running damp hands through her hair. When she laughed, it sounded like pleasure.\n\n\"Wind,\" she said. \"Oh my God, I never thought I'd feel wind again. I never thought I'd be outside. It's so beautiful.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Amos glanced around the ruins and shrugged." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's got a lot to do with context, I guess.\"\n\nHe was hungry and thirsty. Wet. They didn't have shelter or clothes, and the only gun they had, they'd need to haul around a dead man to shoot. Until his body got cold, anyway." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well, fuck,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Where do we go from here, right?\"\n\nClarissa extended a thin arm, pointing her pale finger to the sky. There, struggling behind the clouds and stratospheric debris, a perfect, pale disk. \"Luna,\" she said. \"Staying on the planet's going to mean dying when the food runs out. And the water.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I was thinking that too.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There are yachts. I know where the family kept them. But it's a spaceport for rich people. Tons of security. We might need help breaking in.\"\n\n\"I know some people,\" Amos said. \"I mean, y'know. If they're still alive.\"\n\n\"That's a plan, then,\" she said, but didn't move." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her slur was going away, which meant she probably wasn't bleeding into her brain." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So that was one problem he didn't have. Amos shifted, lying back on the dead man's rib cage, the crown of his head touching hers. A little rest seemed like a fine thing, but they'd have to get moving soon. It was a long walk back to Baltimore." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He wondered if they could find a car." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Or, failing that, a couple of bicycles. His ear was starting to lose its angry throb. He'd probably be able to walk soon.\n\nIn the black sky, the pale circle dimmed behind a thicker roil of cloud and ash, then vanished for a moment before struggling back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's funny,\" Clarissa said." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 5 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Most of human history, going to the moon was impossible. A dream beyond anyone's imagination. And then, for a while, it was an adventure. And then it was trivial. Yesterday, it was trivial. And now, it's almost impossible again.\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" Amos said, \"well...\"\n\nHe felt her shift, tuning her head as if to see him better. \"What?\"\n\nHe gestured up toward the sky. \"Pretty sure that's the sun. I get what you're saying though.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "The user will write a bit then you need to write around 4 sentences continuing directly from the user's text. Try to mimic the style of James S. A. Corey.Produce 4 sentences using the prose and structure of James S. A. Corey every time its your turn using what the user wrote as a seed." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His head hurt. His back hurt. He couldn't feel his legs. It was all distressing until his mind came back enough for him to realize it meant he hadn't died. The medical bay chimed, something cool pumped into his arm, and his consciousness faded away again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When he woke this time, he felt almost human." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The medical bay was huge. Easily five times what they had on the Rocinante, but smaller than the full, multiunit hospital of the Behemoth. The anti-spalling coating on the walls was the soft brown of bread crusts. He tried to sit up, then reconsidered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Ah, Mister Kamal. Are you feeling better?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The doctor was a thin-faced, pale-skinned woman with eyes the color of ice. Her uniform was MCRN. He nodded to her more out of social habit than because he was feeling better.\n\n\"Am I going to be okay?\" Alex said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Depends,\" she said. \"Keep eating like you're twenty, and it'll haunt you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alex laughed and a spike of pain cut through his belly. The doctor grimaced and put a hand on his shoulder.\n\n\"You did get a little surgery while you were out. That burn you were on made your ulcer way worse.\"\n\n\"I have an ulcer?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You used to. Now you have a reconstructed stem graft, but it's still settling into place. Give it a few days, and it'll be much better.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yeah,\" Alex said, resting his head back on the pillow. \"I've been under a little stress lately. Is Bobbie okay?\"\n\n\"She's fine. They've been debriefing her. I imagine they'll want to chat with you too, now that you're back around.\"\n\n\"What about my ship?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We pulled her into the hangar. She's being refueled. You can get her back when we're clear.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That brought him back. \"Clear?\"\n\n\"Those gentlemen who were taking potshots at you? Our escort's back making sure they don't get too happy about following us. Once the relief ships actually get here, I expect you'll be on your way.\"\n\n\"You got some coming, then?\"\n\n\"Oh my, yes,\" the doctor said, with a sigh." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Half a dozen of our finest. Probably more than we need, but we're not in a place where anyone wants to take risks.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm right there with 'em on that,\" Alex said, closing his eyes. The silence felt weird. He opened them again. The doctor stood where she had been before, her smile as it had been, her hands clasped lightly in front of her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There were tears in her eyes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Some things happened while you were out,\" she said. \"You should probably know about them.\"\n\nBobbie stood up and hugged him hard as soon as he walked into the debriefing room. She wore a flight jumpsuit just like the one they'd provided him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They didn't say anything at first." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It felt strange, being enveloped in her arms. She was much larger than him and stronger besides. He would have imagined that being held like that by an attractive woman would have had some erotic element, but all he felt was a deep sense of their shared vulnerability.\n\nHe'd never been on Earth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He didn't know it there." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Until now, he wouldn't have said he had any particular connection to the place. That he was wrong about that was a revelation. A quarter billion dead between the strikes and the tsunamis. And many more soon." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Already the newsfeeds were reporting failures of infrastructure, and surface temperatures were dropping toward freezing in the springtime northern hemisphere under the vast clouds of dust and water and debris." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The major cities had fusion reactors for power, but everywhere that still relied on distributed solar was running out of battery reserves. Billions more lights going dark. The secretary-general was dead, as were an unknown number of assembly representatives. The military was calling back ships from all parts of the solar system, making a cordon around the planet in fear of further strikes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The failed coup on Tycho and the dark fleet that they'd stumbled into, it all felt like a footnote to what had happened to humanity's home world." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And the worst thing was no one knew who'd done it all. Or why.\n\nBobbie let him go and stepped back. He saw the same hollowness he felt reflected in her eyes.\n\n\"Holy shit,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yeah.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Everything about the debriefing room expressed safety, comfort. The lights were indirect and shadowless. The walls had the same warm brown as the medical bay. Crash couches surrounded a small, built-in table instead of a desk." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was the kind of space Alex associated with psychiatrists' offices in films." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bobbie looked around too, seeming to see the place anew now that Alex was there. She nodded to a small alcove opposite the door.\n\n\"You want some tea? They have tea.\"\n\n\"Sure,\" Alex said. \"Okay. Are you all right?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm fine. I mean, I'm a little shook, but they didn't put me in the med bay,\" she said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What kind do you want? They've got orange pekoe, oolong, chamomile—\"\n\n\"I don't know what any of those are.\"\n\n\"Me either. So. Okay, you get oolong.\"\n\nThe machine hissed. She handed him a bulb." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It felt warm in his hand and had a subtle smell of smoke and water." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alex sat at the table and tried a sip, but it was too hot. Bobbie sat beside him.\n\n\"That was some pretty amazing flying,\" she said. \"I'm almost sorry I wasn't there to see it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I would have warned you, but, you know. Heat of the moment.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She shook her head. \"No objections. If I'd been tensed up, I'd have probably popped open an old wound or stroked out or something. I watched the flight data. Seriously, I was in this room wearing a fresh suit and looking at recordings, and there were still a few seconds there I didn't think we were going to make it.\"\n\nThe admiration in her voice felt warmer than the tea. He was pretty sure he was blushing, and hoped it didn't show." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yeah, it was a squeaker. Good damned thing you remembered the convoy here too. I wasn't coming up with anything. Do we know who the hell those ships are?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No. Most of the escort's pulled off to cover us, and so far it looks like it's working. But no transponder signals from the bad guys. No demands or threats or anything.\"\n\n\"Creepy.\" The tea had cooled enough now. \"Any chance they'll let me send a message back to the captain?\"\n\nBobbie sighed and spread her hands." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Eventually, yeah. They've been treating us like friendlies, but it may be a while before they hand us access to the comm arrays. We're still in a fight, even if we're not at the middle of it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What did you tell them?\"\n\nBobbie's brow furrowed. \"The truth, only it doesn't come out real well.\"\n\n\"Meaning?\"\n\n\"I said we were out there looking for missing ships hiding under new transponder signals because of a tip from James Holden.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Huh. Yeah, that does sound a little ominous when you say it out loud, doesn't it?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They wanted to know how he knew to look there, and what my relationship was to Holden. I mean, they kind of knew about you, so it was more about why I was shipping with you.\"\n\n\"What was the answer for that?\"\n\n\"Old friends, and the fact that you were Navy. You know ships. I'm just a ground-pounder. But that got me into talking about looking at black market issues back at home, and you asking around on Hecate for me and the dead guy and the guys who attacked me.\"\n\n\"So the other dead guys.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well, yeah. And after that, it seemed like they were a little suspicious when I said I didn't know anything.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alex leaned forward. His body still felt weak and shaky. \"At least they don't think we're part of... you know. That.\"\n\nThe door opened softly, almost apologetically. The man who came in was older, his hair a well-crafted white." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He wore a suit instead of a uniform or jumpsuit." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He looked like a particularly avuncular lawyer. Two marines came in behind him in full armor. They didn't acknowledge Alex or Bobbie, just took positions at either side of the door. The white-haired man beamed at Alex and then Bobbie and then back at Alex again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Mr. Kamal!\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His voice matched his appearance. \"I'm so glad to see that you're up and around. I was hoping to have a word with you about this present unpleasantness, yes?\"\n\nAlex shot a glance at Bobbie. Her shrug was almost invisible." }, { "from": "human", "value": "This wasn't someone she knew." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Of course,\" Alex said. \"Anything I can do to help.\"\n\n\"Good, good, good,\" the man said, then lifted a finger. \"But first.\"\n\nHe sat down at the table, and an oddly mild scowl came over his face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alex felt like they were about to be gently chided by the head of school." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sergeant Draper, I was wanting to ask you why the government of Earth is demanding to speak with you. Have you been in contact with them?\"\n\nBobbie's face went gray and pale. Her hand went to her mouth. \"Oh, I am so sorry,\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You look so different on video. I didn't recognize you, sir. Alex, this is Prime Minister Smith.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alex hopped to his feet. \"Oh! I'm sorry, sir. With everything going on out on Ilus and such, I didn't follow the elections last time.\"\n\nOne of the guards coughed in a way that might have hidden laughter. Prime Minister Smith's scowl shifted to something slightly more authentic and nonplussed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He motioned Alex to sit back down." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, well. No harm, of course. But, to the question. Have you been working with the government of Earth?\"\n\n\"No,\" Bobbie said. \"I've had some conversations and I have a personal familiarity with one person. Chrisjen Avasarala. But that's all.\"\n\nThe prime minister nodded, his brows knitting. \"Yes, I see. With the passing of the secretary-general and disarray of the assembly, Chrisjen Avasarala is the de facto legitimate government of Earth. And she has offered to... I believe the phrase was massage my balls with a paint scraper if anything happened to you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That sounds like her,\" Alex said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, she is quite colorful. And she is also insisting that she be allowed to speak with you. I wonder what exactly it is you would tell her?\"\n\n\"Nothing I wouldn't say in front of you, sir,\" Bobbie said. \"I'm not a spy. She brought up some questions and concerns that seemed legitimate and interesting, and I followed up for my own sake. If you'd like, I'd be happy to walk you through everything I did and what I found.\"\n\n\"You are close friends with Chrisjen Avasarala. You are flying with the crew of the Rocinante. You seem to have many contacts with Earth and the Belt, Sergeant.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yessir,\" Bobbie said, her gaze forward and slightly down." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Good that we're all on the same side, then.\"\n\nThe silence was longer than Alex liked. The prime minister laced his fingers across his knee. \"I suppose it is at that,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So, why don't we all go over what exactly you've found and how we can productively include our mutual friend Chrisjen in all of this.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The debriefing lasted for hours. They had taken him to a separate room, and he'd told them the story of everything that had happened since the return from Ilus. Then another woman had come, and he'd told her. Then they'd brought him back to where Bobbie was, and asked the two of them questions that, by and large, they couldn't answer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "All in all, it had been gentle as interrogations went, and even so, it left him drained." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had quarters of his own that night. A locker, a crash couch, a screen. Even his hand terminal back. The place was a little larger than his bunk on the Roci, tiny compared to the quarters on Tycho, and a little bit better than what he'd had back before he'd mustered out of the Navy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They'd even let him record messages for Holden and Amos and Naomi, though they were vetted by the ship's system before being sent out." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After that, he promised himself that he'd keep away from the newsfeeds.\n\nIt had been years since he'd smelled the air of an MCRN ship. The astringent bite of the air recyclers brought back memories. His first tour, his last one." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A sense of growing melancholy stole over him that he didn't recognize at first. Grief. And fear." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All his anxieties over the crew of the Roci came back a hundred times over. He imagined being back on the ship without Amos. Or without Naomi. Or never seeing his ship again, never hearing Holden's voice. An hour after he'd resolved to go to sleep, he gave up, turned the lights back on, and opened a newsfeed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mars was pledging drops of food and emergency supplies." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ganymede, back in control of her own docks, was diverting crops back to Earth. A group calling itself the Acadian Front had claimed responsibility for the attacks, but were discredited almost as soon as they'd made the claim. And on Earth, the riots had begun. Looting. He turned the feed back off and got dressed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He opened a connection to Bobbie, and she accepted it almost immediately." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Wherever she was, it wasn't her bunk. The walls behind her were too far away, and the sound of her voice echoed a little. Her hair was pulled back from her face, her cheeks were flushed, and she was sweating hard.\n\n\"Hey,\" she said, lifting her chin in a sharp nod." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hey. Couldn't sleep. Thought I'd see what you were doing.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Just got done sparring. The lieutenant's going to let me drill some.\"\n\n\"They know you just got shot a little while ago, right?\"\n\n\"You think a few bullet holes gets you out of training?\" she said with a ferocity that left him wondering whether she was joking." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They're even loaning me a suit.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You been in powered armor since Io?\"\n\n\"Nope. So that'll be... I don't know. Either really cool or nightmare inducing.\"\n\nAlex chuckled, and she grinned. Her smile was like pouring water on a burn." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You heading straight for your bunk, or are you stopping by the mess first?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I could stand something to eat probably. Meet you there?\"\n\nIt was an off-time for the mess. The alpha shift's dinner was done, the beta shift's lunch still an hour away. Bobbie was sitting alone at a table by the far wall, her hand terminal open before her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A group of three men and a woman sat not far from her, casting glances at her back and talking among themselves." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alex felt an instant protective surge, like he was back in lower university and one of his friends was being laughed at by another clique.\n\nHe grabbed a cheese sandwich and bulb of water, then came and sat across from her. The remains of meatloaf and gravy she'd wolfed down were on her plate and a familiar voice was coming from her terminal.\n\n\"—going to be monitoring anything we fucking say. If you wanted to discuss menstruation at great length and detail, this is probably our best chance. He's always been squeamish about women, and no one likes a Peeping Tom, even if he is prime minister.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How is she?\" Alex asked, nodding toward the hand terminal." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bobbie turned the recording off and frowned at the newly blank screen.\n\n\"Heartsick, I think. Devastated. But she'll never let it show. This is what she always feared the most. And now it's happened, and she can't even look away, because she's the one who has to... fix it. Only it can't be fixed, can it?\"\n\n\"Naw, I guess not.\"\n\n\"They're taking us to Luna.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I figured as much,\" Alex said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Something in his voice caught Bobbie's attention.\n\n\"You don't want to?\"\n\n\"Honestly? I want to go home. Get back on the Roci with my crew, and after that, I care a whole lot less where we go. Be nice if it was somewhere they weren't shooting at us.\"\n\n\"That would be a plus,\" Bobbie said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't know where that is.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Lot of planets out there. My experience with colonies is, ah, a little checkered, but I can see the appeal of a new start.\"\n\n\"There aren't any new starts,\" Bobbie said. \"All the new ones pack the old ones along with them. If we ever really started fresh, it'd mean not having a history anymore. I don't know how to do that.\"\n\n\"Still, I can dream.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Right there with you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At the other table, two of the men rose, carrying their trays to the recycler. The man and woman who stayed glanced over at Alex and Bobbie, and then pretended they hadn't. Alex took a bite of his sandwich. The greasy cheese and fake butter were like being young again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Or else like remembering how long it had been since he was young." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Any word on the assholes who shot at us?\"\n\n\"They're still fighting with the escort ships. Withdrawing, but not retreating. The escort isn't looking to engage as long as they can keep the bastards from getting close to us.\"\n\n\"Yeah, all right.\"\n\n\"Seem weird to you too?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Little bit,\" Alex said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Seems like a pretty piss-poor ambush if you don't actually ambush anyone.\"\n\n\"It's because of us,\" Bobbie said. \"You and me. We were in the right place at the right time. We forced the bad guys to make their play too soon. If we hadn't, it wouldn't be just the secretary-general that died. Honestly, I think that's why we're getting treated this well. Smith knows it could have gone a lot worse without us.\"\n\n\"You're probably right. It's just...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You're waiting for the other shoe to drop.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yeah.\"\n\n\"Me too. We're jumpy. Why wouldn't we be? Someone just broke pretty much all of human civilization overnight.\"\n\nThe words hit Alex like a blow. He put down his sandwich." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They did, didn't they? I don't know who we are now. I don't know what this does.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Me neither. Or anyone else. But we'll figure it out. And whoever did this, we'll find them. We're not going to let them win.\"\n\n\"No matter what game they're playing.\"\n\n\"No matter what,\" Bobbie agreed.\n\nBillions were dying right now, and no way to save them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Earth was broken, and even if it survived, it would never go back to what it had been." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mars was a ghost town, the terraforming project at its heart falling to pieces. The aliens that sent the protomolecule hadn't needed to destroy humanity. They'd given humans the opportunity to destroy themselves, and as a species, they'd leaped on it. Alex pushed away an angry tear, and Bobbie pretended she hadn't seen it." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Task: Cooperative storytelling\nMy role: Provide a brief opening\nYour role: Expand upon my opening with four sentences, emulating the writing style of James S. A. Corey." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Cover for some kind of theft,\" Holden said again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I mean what the hell was that?\"\n\nFred Johnson kept walking. The gently curving corridor with its view of the construction sphere was like Tycho Station's boast that it had not been destroyed. The people they passed nodded to Fred and Holden." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Some wore green armbands in solidarity, and more than a few of those had the OPA split circle with an additional split at ninety degrees to the first." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Others had a stylized globe and the words ONE PEOPLE OPA & EARTH. The physical damage to the station was for the most part limited to the engineering and drive levels at the bottom of the sphere and Fred's office on the ring, but Holden couldn't help feeling that the deeper injury was to Tycho's story about itself. Not long ago, Tycho—like Ceres—had been one of the jewels of the outer planets. Part of a greater argument about the independence of the Belt." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Now that Belters had attacked it, it had become something else." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The sense of unity with Earth wasn't so much a real sympathy for the government that had so recently been the enemy, than a statement of separation from the OPA. Tycho Station for Tycho Station, and fuck anyone who crossed them.\n\nOr he may have been projecting, since he was feeling more than a little like that himself.\n\n\"She was being a journalist,\" Fred said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That kind of thing? It's what they do.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We just saved her life. If it wasn't for us, she'd have been carried off the station to God knows where and... I don't know. Tortured or something.\"\n\n\"That's true,\" Fred said. They reached the lift, passing through doors that opened in anticipation of them. Fred's rank still had its privileges, and first priority on lifts was one." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But we also lied to her. And she knew it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden bit back an objection because it wasn't much more than We did not and he knew that actually they did. It wasn't something he'd have done, just a few years before. Then, he'd have told the truth, the whole truth, and let the chips fall wherever they fell. He didn't know if it bothered him more that he'd changed or that he hadn't noticed it until someone else pointed it out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fred looked over to him with a weary smile." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"'Be angry at the sun for setting if these things anger you.' A poet named Jeffers said that.\"\n\n\"Yeah, but was he talking about journalists and politicians lying to each other?\"\n\n\"Matter of fact, he was.\"\n\nThe lift shifted and dropped." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fred leaned against the back wall with a groan." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We didn't have to do that,\" Holden said.\n\n\"Yes we did,\" Fred said. \"After a loss, the most important thing for a leader to do is be seen. And be seen walking under their own damned power. Sets the narrative.\"\n\n\"Still.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's something I can still do,\" Fred said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm sure as hell going to do it.\"\n\nFred's old office was still being repaired. Until its walls and floor didn't open on vacuum, Drummer had set up a space for him near the overfull brig. It was a smaller space, less comfortable and less imposing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden couldn't be in it without feeling like Fred had given himself a demotion." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Or had accepted without complaint the one the universe had handed to him.\n\nFred settled in behind his desk and rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands. \"The truth is that almost everything we do here won't even be a footnote in the history books.\"\n\n\"You don't know that. You're just feeling discouraged,\" Holden said, but Fred was already pulling up his work on the desk monitor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I had two messages last night. Well, more than that, but two that were interesting. The first was from Earth. Avasarala was on Luna when it happened, and she's putting together a response.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A response?\"\n\n\"A diplomatic conference. The Martian prime minister was already en route. She wants me to be there too. To 'represent the slightly less batshit wing of the OPA.' If humanity really rests on that woman's diplomatic skills... well, that'll be interesting.\"\n\n\"What's the worst that could happen? War?\"\n\nFred coughed out a grim laugh." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I've already talked with Drummer. She's ready to take over operation of Tycho in my absence.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're going to go, then?\"\n\n\"I don't know if I'll go there, but I won't stay here. There's something else I wanted you to see.\"\n\nFred opened a message, and gestured Holden toward it. A pale-skinned man with close-cut white hair and the wrinkles of early age competing with acne scars of long-past youth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The date stamp at the lower left corner said it had been sent from Pallas Station." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Anderson Dawes,\" Fred said. \"You've heard of him?\"\n\n\"Big mover and shaker in the OPA, isn't he?\"\n\n\"The man who reached out to me, back in the day. Made me into the inward-facing figurehead of the Belt. Instrumental in the transition of Ceres to OPA oversight. The last few years, he's been negotiating for the OPA to have a stake in Ganymede equal to Earth and Mars.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"All right,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fred started the recording, and the man came to life. His voice was gravelly and low, like he'd been punched in the throat too many times. \"Fred. I know this has got to be a hard time for you. For what it's worth, it's pretty shocking to all of us. But so it goes. History's made of surprises that seem obvious in retrospect. I want you to know, I didn't sanction any of this. But I know the men who did, and say what you will about their methods, they're true patriots.\"\n\n\"What the fuck is this?\" Holden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Wait for it,\" Fred said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm reaching out to you now to make peace within the organization. I know as well as you do how much you've sacrificed and how hard you've worked for the OPA over the years. It's not forgotten. But we're in a new age now, and it carries its own logic. I know you're enough of a man to recognize the difference between justice and the things that have to happen. I'll get you back in the fold. I swear to that. But I'm going to need a token. Something I can take to the new powers to show that you're a reasonable man. That you can negotiate. You've taken a prisoner. Not one of the people who participated in the insurrection. Even they know asking that so soon is a bridge too far. But a prisoner of yours nonetheless. His name's William Sakai. As a gesture of good faith, I'm asking that you turn him over to me at Pallas Station, in return for which I will guarantee you a seat at the table when—\"\n\nFred stopped the recording, Anderson Dawes caught with his eyes and mouth half-open.\n\n\"You have got to be kidding me,\" Holden said.\n\n\"No one's laughing.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden sat down on the edge of the desk, staring at the frozen man, his chest a welter of conflicting emotions: anger, surprise, outrage, amusement, despair." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You could tell him we already threw him out an airlock.\"\n\n\"Would that be before or after we threw him out an airlock?\"\n\n\"Either way works for me.\"\n\nFred smiled and shut down the display." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You say that, but you wouldn't do it. Even angry, you're too decent a man. And it turns out I am too.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Really?\"\n\n\"I got soft when I got old. Everything seems... delicate to me now. We're still under lockdown, and I have to open that up. Have to get some semblance of normalcy. That's not the point, though. I have invitations to two tables. The inner planets are in retreat. They're regrouping. The radicals within the OPA are becoming the new leadership.\"\n\n\"But they're crazy mass murderers.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Fred said. \"And we don't know who they are. Dawes does. I don't.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Wait a minute,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hold on. Are you about to propose that you trade Sakai to this Dawes guy so that you can feed the names of whoever's behind dropping rocks on Earth to Avasarala? How many times are you looking to change sides in one career?\"\n\n\"I never changed sides,\" Fred said. \"The sides keep changing around me. I was always the one who wanted order. Peace. Justice, even. What happened at Anderson Station opened my eyes to things I hadn't seen. Or had chosen not to see. Now this...\"\n\n\"It's done the same thing again.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't know what it's done. That's what I'm trying to decide. There have always been radicals within the OPA. The Voltaire Collective. Marco Inaros. Cassandra Lec. But they were on the margins, where we thought we could control them. Keep them in line, or if not always that, use their excesses to make the mainstream places like Ceres and Tycho seem the least of the available evils. Now, they're in charge. I don't know if the best thing is to declare against them or stand beside them and try to control the fall.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He shook his head.\n\n\"Your friend Dawes seems to be in bed with them already.\"\n\n\"His loyalty's to the Belt. When the best thing was to find a way to be respected as an equal by the inner planets, that was what he aimed for. My loyalty is to... everyone. There was a long time that meant speaking for the people who had the least voice. Then the protomolecule came and changed the game, and now, if riding beside the radicals gives me the most influence... As long as my people hold Medina, no one can ignore me. I can throw in on whichever side I think it will do the most good to be on, in the long-term.\"\n\n\"That sounds like post hoc realpolitik rationalizing bullshit,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And then a moment later, \"Sir.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It is,\" Fred said. \"But it's what I've got to work with. If I commission the Rocinante to take me to Luna and the meeting with Avasarala, will you accept the job?\"\n\n\"If we finish checking all of Sakai's work and you bring your own crew, sure. Or, better, we go pick up mine from wherever they've gotten to.\"\n\n\"And if I hire you to take me and the prisoner to Pallas?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then you can go fuck yourself.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fred chuckled and stood up, checking his sidearm. \"I do always enjoy our little chats, Captain. Take the day off. I'll get back to you when I've made a decision. Either way.\"\n\n\"Where are you going now?\"\n\n\"To talk with Sakai,\" Fred said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"See if there's anything about this I can glean from him. The prospect of not getting thrown out one of my airlocks might make him more willing to talk with me.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He looked at Holden, and his expression shifted to a strange place at the friction point between pitying and pleading. \"I try to do the right thing, Holden. But there are times when it's not obvious what that is.\"\n\n\"I agree with you,\" Holden said. \"Right up to the part where you tell me this is one of those times.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden was in a Thai restaurant eating peanut curry that was, as far as he could remember from his childhood on Earth, totally unlike anything served on a planet's surface." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A piece of not-chicken floated on top of the not-curry, and Holden was pushing it under with a chopstick and watching it pop back to the surface when two messages came through. The first was from Mother Elise. The family was all right so far. They were under an environmental watch, but no evacuation orders had come." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Not, she said with one lifted eyebrow, that there was anyplace to evacuate to better prepared and equipped than the ranch." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were sending the spare reactor down to help with the local grid at Three Forks, and waiting to hear from the Jacksons to see if they needed anything. He knew her well enough to see the depth of anxiety in all the things she didn't say. But when she said goodbye, she promised to be in touch. It was thin comfort, but it was something." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The second message was from Alex." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bobbie Draper and he were on the prime minister's ship and burning for Luna with the escort fleet watching their backs. Everyone was pretty freaked-out, but he thought they were okay for the time being. The relief ships were on their way and due in a day or two. He hadn't had any word from Naomi, wherever she was." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Or, more to the point, from Amos." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He made a joke about Amos surviving anything, and how this wasn't the first planet that had blown up on him, but the humor carried the same dread and fear that Holden felt. When Alex signed off, he replayed the whole message from the start three more times, just to hear the familiar voice.\n\nHe started to record a response, but the restaurant was too open and too public for the things he wanted to say, so he promised himself he'd get to it when he was back in his quarters. He finished as much of the curry as he could stomach and the restaurant light slowly shifted from yellow to gold, the colors of a false sunset on a planet many of the people there had never seen except on screens." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He paid the check and the waiter came, offering a variety of after-dinner desserts or drinks." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The man's gaze lingered long enough that, while it was all within the bounds of politeness, it was pretty clear that Holden could have asked for some other things too.\n\nHolden's mind shifted on most of the questions. More food, more drink, more sleep, more sex. Any sex. He was aware of a deep and oceanic cavern of want in his belly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Something that was like hunger or thirst, exhaustion or lust, but that wouldn't be satisfied." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He didn't have words for it, except that it left him quick to anger and despair. Lingering behind it all, the fear that he wouldn't ever have his crew back on his ship made him feel gut-punched.\n\nAnd then the word for it came. He was homesick, and the Rocinante, wonderful as she was, wasn't home unless Alex and Amos and Naomi were in her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He wondered how long the feeling would last if they never came back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "How long he'd wait for them, even once he knew they wouldn't return. The waiter smiled gently down at him.\n\n\"Nothing,\" Holden said. \"Thanks.\"\n\nHe walked out to the main corridor, mentally rehearsing what he'd say to Alex and how he'd say it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Anything he said was going to be examined by the Martian communications service, so he didn't want to put anything in it that was open to misinterpretation." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The problem with that being that he always knew what he meant by things, and didn't see the other readings until someone made them. Maybe he could just make a few jokes and say that he was ready to have everyone back together.\n\nWhen his hand terminal buzzed a connection request, he accepted it, his mind primed to expect Alex even though light delay made that impossible. Drummer scowled out at him from the screen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Mister Holden, I was wondering if you could stop by the auxiliary security office.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I guess,\" Holden said, suddenly wary. He still half expected Drummer to turn out to be playing some angle of her own. \"Is it something I should know about now?\"\n\nA stream of cursing came from the background, growing louder." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Drummer stepped aside and Fred lurched into the screen." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If we were talking about it on the network, you wouldn't be coming in here.\"\n\n\"Right,\" Holden said. \"On my way.\"\n\nIn the security office, Fred was pacing, his hands clasped behind his back, when Holden arrived. He nodded sharply by way of greeting." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Drummer, at her seat, was a model of the crisp professionalism designed to offer no reason for the boss to yell at you." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That was fine. Holden didn't mind being the one who got yelled at.\n\n\"What's the matter?\"\n\n\"Medina went dark,\" Fred said. \"She was supposed to report in this morning, but with everything being at loose ends, I didn't worry. She's missed two opportunities since then. And... Drummer? Show him.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The security chief pulled up a schematic of the solar system." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At scale, even Jupiter and the sun were hardly more than a bright pixel. Thousands of dots showed the traffic in-system. Ships and bases, satellites and probes and navigation buoys. All of humanity in a nutshell." }, { "from": "human", "value": "With a motion and a syllable, most of the clutter vanished." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In its place, a couple dozen green dots with the word UNDETERMINED where the identification codes should be made a rough cloud. Someone's statistics run with a small but significant correlation.\n\n\"As soon as the station went dark,\" Drummer said, \"we saw these. Twenty-five new plumes. All of them have drive signatures that match Martian military ships, and all of them are under heavy burn for the Ring.\"\n\n\"Heavy burn?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Eight to ten g to start, curving down, which means they're running at the limit of their drives.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden whistled. Fred stopped in his pacing, his expression placid in a way that spoke volumes about rage. \"Those are my people on Medina. If the station has been compromised, or if these new ships are on their way to do something violent there, it will pose a significant obstacle to my participation with the new direction within the OPA.\"\n\n\"Meaning fuck that noise?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's a long way out to Medina,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Even at those burns, it'll take them a while. But I don't think we could beat them there.\"\n\n\"We couldn't do anything if we did. If I took all the ships at my disposal, one Martian frigate could still rain hell on them. And even the Rocinante would be badly outgunned.\"\n\n\"Have to wonder where they got Martian military ships,\" Holden said.\n\n\"I'll be sure to ask Dawes about that as soon as I've told him what I think of his good faith prisoner exchange. How long before the Rocinante's ready to fly?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Put a rush on it, we could be out of here in five days.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Mister Drummer, please put all available teams on finishing the repairs and security audit for the Rocinante.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" Drummer said, and shifted her screen to show the work schedules for the construction drum. Fred looked down at his feet and then back up.\n\n\"I'm going to be busy the next few days putting Tycho in order for Drummer. I'd like you to oversee the crews on the Roci.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Wasn't going to do anything else.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Now write approximately five sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Fair enough,\" Fred said. And then, almost wistfully, \"It will be good to see Luna again.\"\n\nHolden tried to wait until he got back to his quarters, but lost patience when he reached the lift. He opened Alex's message and set up the camera to record his reply.\n\n\"Hey, Alex. So, funny thing. Looks like I'm going to be catching up with you sooner than we'd thought...\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "The user will write a bit then you need to write around four sentences continuing directly from the user's text. Try to mimic the style of James S. A. Corey.Produce four sentences using the prose and structure of James S. A. Corey every time its your turn using what the user wrote as a seed." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She'd known to expect it. Like falling back into a bad habit, the dark thoughts came: which conduits had power lines in them with enough voltage to stop a heart, which rooms were small enough to seal and evacuate, the ways the medical bays could be tricked into administering an overdose. And the airlocks. Always the airlocks. The ideas weren't compulsions, not yet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were just her brain noticing things that interested her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The worst would come later. If she let it.\n\nSo instead, she distracted herself. Not with the newsfeeds that played constantly, everywhere." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Those only made her feel more helpless." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not with the conversations with her old friends. At best, those left her feeling like she was lying. At worst, like she was becoming an earlier version of herself for whom the dark thoughts were more natural. What she did have was work." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was all simple tasks like checking inventories and swapping air filters, and always under the watchful eyes of a minder." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When she did talk, it was polite and superfluous; the kind of banter anyone crewing the same ship would make. It gave the rest of the crew the illusion that she was one of them in a way that sulking in her bunk wouldn't have. If she had any hope at all, it came from finding a way to leverage her weird non-status with the group. And with Marco.\n\nAt first, she'd tried distracting herself by thinking of her real crew." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alex and Amos. Jim." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even her best memories of them were riddled with guilt and pain now, so instead she filled her mind with technical concerns. In the mess, while the others cheered at the images of devastation, she speculated about the reactor's output, starting with the size of the galley, and then guessing at the requirements of the air and water recycling systems, and knowing the rough percentage that the Roci put into them. During her sleep shift, as she lay restless in her crash couch, the steady one-third-g burn pressing her into the gel like a hand on her chest, she ran over the power grid from the Roci, mapping how the logic of her ship would apply to this one. She thought of it as a meditation because it was too dangerous to admit—even to herself—that she was planning." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And still, small things came together." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A toolbox in the machine shop had a bent hasp and, given a few minutes, could be forced open. The Allen wrenches inside would open the access panel on the lift wall between the crew quarters and the airlock, which was where the secondary diagnostic handset for the comm array was stored. With a few uninterrupted minutes, someone could probably broadcast a message. A short one. If there was anything to say, or anyone to say it to." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She had half a dozen schemes like it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A path to sneak between the hulls and take control of a PDC. A way to use a stolen hand terminal to make copies of the engineering software. How to force-cycle an airlock by spoofing the emergency codes from the medical bay. Most of them were fantasies, possible in theory but nothing she had ever had reason to try." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A few were fairly solid." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And all of them were defeated by a simple, inescapable fact: the first layer of any security was always physical. Even if she'd found a way to take control of the whole ship using a magnet and a length of Velcro, it wouldn't matter, because Cyn or Aaman or Bastien would put a bullet through her neck before she could manage it.\n\nSo she called it meditation and kept the darkness at bay. And sometimes—by being quiet and not making waves and keeping her mind and senses sharp—she heard something she wasn't supposed to hear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Karal, her minder that shift, was talking up a woman called Sárta while Naomi scraped the crew decking nearby." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Truth was the ship was new enough it didn't need it, but it was work. Wings, who'd first hunted her back on Ceres, came out from his quarters in a Martian naval uniform. Naomi looked up from under her hair as Wings saw Karal and Sárta standing together. The flicker of jealousy that passed over him had been the same since humans came down from the trees." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hey, y'all,\" Wings said in a fake drawl." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Víse mé! Bin Marteño, sa sa? Howdy, howdy, howdy!\"\n\nKaral chuckled and Sárta looked annoyed. Wings stepped through the narrow hall with an affected bowlegged gait. Naomi shifted aside to give him room." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You got nothing better to do than play dress up?\" Sárta asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't wait underwater,\" Karal said. \"Heard we're taking prisoners first. Liano, he ran whispers to Ceres. Tightbeam. Hamechie about the prisoners.\"\n\n\"Not how I heard it,\" Wings said, too quickly and more to Sárta than Karal. \"I heard it's only one. Sakai. And even that...\" He shrugged." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Even that?\" Sárta said, and mimicked the shrug." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Wings blushed in anger.\n\n\"Everyone knows how it is,\" Wings said. \"Sometimes they tell dead men they'll live. Karal, you were there. Andrew and Chuchu? All about how help's coming and then so sorry, so sad?\"\n\n\"Esa died soldiers,\" Karal said, but the point hit home." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was in his hands and the corners of his mouth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And then, like he realized his mistake, he looked over to Naomi. She kept her expression blank and bored, her attention on the seam in the deck and the thin plastic spatula she was dragging through it. The cascade of implications couldn't reach her face.\n\nSakai had been the name of the new chief engineer on Tycho, and if this was the same man, he'd been one of Marco's." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And he'd been caught, or they wouldn't have called him a prisoner." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She blew the hair up out of her eyes, shifted over to a new seam and started again.\n\n\"Back to work, yeah?\" Karal said.\n\nWings grunted his derision, but went back to his quarters to do as he'd been told. Karal and Sárta went back to flirting, but the moment was gone, and pretty soon it was only Karal and Naomi again, passing time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "While she worked, pressing the plastic into the seams, scraping out whatever had gathered there, doing it again, she tried to fit the new information into the larger scheme of things." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Marco had hoped she would bring the Rocinante to Ceres. But Sakai had known that the ship needed repair, and must have passed that information up to leadership.\n\nShe'd thought that Marco had wanted her ship because of who and what she was. And maybe that was part of it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Or maybe what he'd really wanted was private access to a ship that would be expected and welcome at Tycho Station." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For what, she didn't know. The way he nested plans inside his plans, he might have had half a dozen uses for the Roci and for her. And more, there was a question about whether Sakai was in danger. Were they afraid Fred would execute him?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Maybe. Maybe something else." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Either way, she knew more now than she'd known before, and, like the bent hasp on the toolbox, it gave her options she hadn't had. She wondered what Jim or Amos or Alex would have done in her place, how they would have taken this one piece of information and used it. An academic question, really, because she knew what Naomi Nagata would do, and it wasn't something any of them could have done.\n\nWhen the deck was clean, she dropped the spatula into the recycler, stood, and stretched." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The thrust gravity made her knees and spine ache, and she wished that wherever they were going, they'd be in a little less of a hurry to get there. It didn't matter." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Grabbing a shower, me,\" she said. \"Tell him I want to talk.\"\n\n\"Him who?\" Karal said.\n\nNaomi hoisted an eyebrow." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Tell him the mother of his son wants to talk.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You've put him in the field?\" Naomi said. \"Is that where we are? Child soldiers?\"\n\nMarco's smile looked almost sorrowful. \"You think he's a child?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The exercise machines were empty apart from him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On the float, everyone in the crew would have been spending hours in the resistance gel or strapped into one of the mechs. On the burn, most of the crew were getting more than enough from their own weight. But Marco was there in a sheer exercise gown, straps wrapped around his hands, pulling down on wide bands that fought against him. The muscles in his back rippled with every stroke, and Naomi was certain he was aware of it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She had known many strong people in her life." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She could tell the difference between the muscles that grew from work and the kind that came from vanity.\n\n\"I think he's crowing about how he's responsible for the rock fall on Earth,\" she said. \"Like it's something to be proud of.\"\n\n\"It is. It's more than you or I could have done at his age. Filip's smart and he's a leader. Give him another twenty years, he could run the solar system. Maybe more.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Naomi walked over and turned off the exercise sequence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The wide bands in Marco's hands went slack with a barely audible hiss. \"I wasn't done,\" he said.\n\n\"Tell me that isn't why you brought me here,\" she said. \"Tell me that you didn't abduct me in order to show me what a good father you've been and how well our boy turned out. Because you betrayed him.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Marco's laugh was low and warm and rolling." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He started unwrapping his hands. It would have been so easy to hurt him while he did it that she was fairly certain he had a hidden way to defend himself. And if not, the impression that he might was defense enough. She wasn't here to kill him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She was here to push him into saying something." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Is that what you think?\" he asked.\n\n\"No,\" she said. \"I think you did it to show off. I walked away from you, and you're such a little boy that you still can't stand it. So when your big moment came, you had to have me here to see it happen.\"\n\nIt was true, as far as it went. She did see a pleasure in him that came from having power over her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Even her weird half-status in the crew was a part of that." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Locking her in a cage would have been a tacit admission she was a threat. He wanted her to see that she was powerless, to make the prison walls herself. There had been a time it would have worked. She was betting that he didn't realize that time had passed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And she was betting that it had passed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When he narrowed his eyes at her, shaking his head, she still felt the tug of humiliation in her throat, familiar as an old habit. So perhaps the truth was more complicated.\n\n\"I brought you home to the winning side because you are the mother of my son, and always will be. Anything beyond that is happy coincidence. That we have the chance to find some sense of closure between us—\"\n\n\"Bullshit. Closure? You lost. It's closed. You only say it wasn't finished because you hadn't won yet. I left. I sacrificed everything because having nothing away from you was better than having it all and being your puppet.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He lifted his hands, palms out, in a mocking gesture of peace." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It wasn't working. Not yet.\n\n\"I hear that you would have done things differently. I don't blame you for that. Not everyone has the strength to be a soldier. I thought you did. I thought I could count on you. And when the burden bore you down, yes, I took our son someplace I knew he'd be safe. You blame me for keeping him away from you. But you'd have done exactly the same to me, if you'd had the power.\"\n\n\"I would have,\" she said. \"I'd have taken him with me, and you'd never have seen either of us again.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So how different are we?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sweat dewed his skin. He took a towel from the rack, dabbing at his face and arms. She knew intellectually that he was beautiful, the way the iridescent wings of a carrion fly would be. She felt the weight of her disgust with herself for letting this man be what he was to her, and knew that was part of what he intended." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The dark thoughts stirred in her brain stem." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They didn't matter. She was here to solve a puzzle.\n\nHe put down the towel. \"Naomi—\"\n\n\"It's Holden then, isn't it? You brought me here as... what? Insurance against him?\"\n\n\"I'm not afraid of your Earther fuck buddy,\" Marco said, and Naomi heard the roughness in his voice like an animal scenting a distant fire." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I think you are,\" she said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I think you wanted him off the board before you started this, and I was supposed to lead him into the trap. Because you couldn't imagine that I would come alone. That I wouldn't bring a man to be strong for me.\"\n\nMarco chuckled, but it had more of an edge to it. He walked across the exercise mat, scooping up his dark robe and shrugging into it. \"You're trying to talk yourself into something, Knuckles.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do you know why I'm with him?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If Marco were wise, he wouldn't rise to that bait. He'd walk out, leave her alone among the machines. If she'd managed to make him angry, even just a little bit angry, though...\n\n\"I assume you have a kink for powerful men,\" Marco said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Because he is what you pretend to be.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She saw it land. She couldn't even say what it was that changed in him, but the Marco she'd seen since being brought here—the smooth, world-weary, self-assured leader of the greatest coup in human history—was gone, dropped like a mask. In his place was the rage-filled boy who'd almost destroyed her once. His laugh wasn't low or warm or rolling." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well, just wait around, and we'll see how much that does for him. Big Man Holden may think he's unkillable, but everyone bleeds.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There. That was a datapoint. It was working. It might only have been the rhetoric of the squabble, an empty threat. Or he might have just told her that his plans still involved the Rocinante.\n\n\"You can't do anything to him,\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No?\" Marco said, his teeth bared like a chimp." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, maybe you will.\"\n\nHe turned sharply, stalking out of the room. Leaving her alone the way he should have a few minutes earlier. Or else a decade and a half before." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You done?\" Cyn asked, nodding at the brick of lentil and rice half-eaten on her plate." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On the screen in the mess hall, a Martian general was pounding a table, red-faced with passion that looked a lot like fear. He was describing the cowardice of the person or persons who had committed this atrocity against not only Earth, but humanity. Every third sentence or so, someone at the end of her table would repeat the general's words in a high, quacking voice, like something from a children's cartoon.\n\nShe broke off another piece of the lentil brick and popped it in her mouth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Close enough,\" she said around it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She put her tray and the rest of the brick into the recycler and walked back toward the lift. Cyn loomed behind her. She was so locked in her own thoughts that she barely noticed he was there until he spoke.\n\n\"Heard you had it out with el jefe,\" Cyn said. \"Etwas á Filipito?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Naomi made a noncommittal sound in the back of her throat." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Cyn scratched at the scar behind his left ear. \"Es un bon coyo, your son. I know this is none of what you'd pick, but... Filipito, he heard too. Took it hard.\"\n\nThe lift stopped and she got out, Cyn close behind. \"Took it hard?\"\n\n\"No weight,\" Cyn said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Only know it. A man, our Filipito, but not so much he don't want your opinion, yeah? You're his mother.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The heartbreaking thing was that she understood. She only nodded.\n\nIn her bunk, her fingers laced behind her neck, she stared up at the blackness on the ceiling. The interface screen at her side was dead. She didn't miss it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Slowly, she put together what she knew." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Marco had made attempts on the lives of the heads of Earth, Mars, and the OPA, but only managed to kill the UN secretary-general. He had tried to get the Rocinante before any of those attempts were made. He'd unleashed the worst catastrophe on Earth since the dinosaurs went extinct. He had Martian warships and weapons but didn't show any signs of cooperating with the Martian government or Navy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "All things she'd known, nothing new." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So what was new?\n\nThree new things, and maybe only that. First, Wings thought the attempts to trade Sakai back might be more to reassure the prisoner than to actually retrieve him. Second, Marco had intimated that Holden was still in danger, and third, that she might be the one to hurt him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And also, underlying everything, her certainty that until Marco had given his speech, made himself the focus of all humanity's attention, the attack was still only half-done." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And if Sakai thought he was going to remain a prisoner, it would go wrong. That was interesting. What could Sakai know—\n\nOh.\n\nFred Johnson was alive, and Tycho Station wasn't in Marco's hands." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Continue with the same vibes as James S. A. Corey" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They moved on foot. The clouds weren't really clouds, and the rain that spat down at them was as much grit and soot as water. The stink of turned earth and rot was all around them, but the cold pushed it back to where it mostly just smelled cold. From the way the trees were all knocked down in the same direction—leaves roughly northeast, roots pointing southwest—he hoped they'd be heading toward less devastated territory." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At least until they got near the coast and the flooding." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In Baltimore, he figured the folks in the least trouble would be in the failed arcology in the middle of the city. It had been designed to hold a whole ecosystem inside its massive steel-and-ceramic walls. That it hadn't worked for shit didn't matter as much as the fact that it had been built tall and designed to last. Even if the bottom few floors went underwater, there'd be plenty of people near the top who rode out the worst of it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When Baltimore was a sea, the arcology would still be an island." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Plus, the arcology was a shit neighborhood. Erich and his thugs owned at least some of it. And so long as the rest wasn't controlled by one of the major players—Loca Griega or Golden Bough—they could probably take it in a determined push. And even if Erich hadn't made it, there'd be someone there to negotiate with." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He just hoped it wasn't Golden Bough." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Those guys, in his experience, were fucking assholes.\n\nIn the meantime, though, there were more immediate problems. Getting there was the goal, and if the idea was to put one foot in front of the other from the Pit in Bethlehem to the arcology in Baltimore, there were some holes in the plan. The expanded district put about three million people between him and where he was going if he took the straightest path." }, { "from": "human", "value": "High-density urban centers seemed like a bad idea." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was hoping that they could stay a little to the west of that and make their way around. He was pretty sure there was conservancy zone there they could trek along. Not that he'd spent much of his time on Earth camping. But it was what he had to go with." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He probably could have done it, if he'd been by himself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How're we holding together, Peaches?\"\n\nClarissa nodded. Her prison hospital gown was mud-streaked from shoulder to hem, and her hair hung long and lank. She was just too fucking skinny and pale. It made her look like a ghost." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm fine,\" she said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Which was bullshit, but what was he going to do about it? Stupid to have asked in the first place.\n\nSo they walked, tried to conserve energy, looked for places that might have fresh water. There were a couple emergency stations set up by the highway, men and women with medical armbands and generators to run the lights." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It never got more than low twilight, even at noon." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The clouds kept some of the heat from radiating out into space, but they blocked the sun too. It felt like early winter, and it should have been summer hot. Every now and then, they came across some new ruin: a gutted building, the walls blown off the steel and ceramic girders, a high-speed train on its side like a dead caterpillar. The bodies they found on the roadside looked like they'd gone in the initial blast." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Most of the dead-eyed, shell-shocked refugees on the roads seemed to be heading for the stations, but Amos tried to steer away from them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For one thing, Peaches was pretty clearly not supposed to be walking free among the law-abiding citizens of Earth, and Amos didn't really feel like having any long conversations about what laws still applied, post-apocalypse. And anyway, the stuff they really needed they couldn't get there. So he kept his eyes open and headed northeast.\n\nStill, it was three days before he found what he was looking for." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The tent was back off the road about seven meters." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It wasn't a real tent so much as a tarp strung over a line between a power station pole and a pale sapling. There was a fire outside it though, with a man hunched over it feeding twigs and sticks into the smoky flames. An electric motorcycle leaned against the power station pole, its display dark either because it was conserving power or it was dead. Amos walked over, making sure his hands were always where the other guy could see them, and stopped about four meters away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Peaches stumbled along at his side." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He figured that to anyone who didn't know her or who she was, she probably didn't look real threatening.\n\n\"Hey there,\" Amos said.\n\nAfter a long moment, the other guy nodded. \"Hey.\"\n\n\"Which way you heading?\" Amos asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"West,\" the guy said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Everything's fucked east from here to the coast. Maybe south too. See if I can get someplace warm.\"\n\n\"Yeah, things are shit all over,\" Amos said like they were at a coffee kiosk and chatting about the weather. \"We're heading northeast. Baltimore area.\"\n\n\"Whatever's left of it,\" the guy said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No offense, but I think your plan sucks.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's okay. I was thinking the same about yours.\"\n\nThe man smiled and didn't go for a gun. If he had one. Not so many guns among the law-abiding Earth populace as there were in the Belt." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And if the guy was willing to just shoot the shit this long without anyone escalating or making a play, probably he wasn't a predator." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Just another accountant or medical technician still figuring out how little his degree was worth now.\n\n\"I'd offer to share,\" Amos said, \"but we ain't got shit.\"\n\n\"I'd help, but the tent's only big enough for one.\"\n\n\"I'm small,\" Peaches joked, but only sort of." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Skinny as she was, she had to be feeling the cold worse, and when he paid attention to it, Amos had to agree it was getting pretty damn brisk." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Word of warning? Head north a few klicks before you cut any farther east,\" the man said.\n\n\"Why?\" Amos asked.\n\n\"Militia motherfucker. NO TRESPASSING signs and everything. Took a potshot at me when I went to ask for some water. Kind of asshole that's probably pissing himself with glee that the world went to shit and made his stashed guns and paranoia pay off.\"\n\nAmos felt something in his chest go loose and warm and thought it might have been relief." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Good to know. Take care then.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Peace be with you.\"\n\n\"And also with you,\" Peaches said. Amos nodded and turned north, trudging back along the road. About half a klick later, he stopped, squatting down by a tree, and watched the path they'd just walked down." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Peaches huddled beside him, shivering." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What are we doing?\"\n\n\"Seeing if he follows us,\" Amos said. \"You know. In case.\"\n\n\"You think he will?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Amos shrugged. \"Don't know. Thing about civilization, it's what keeps people civil. You get rid of one, you can't count on the other.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She smiled. She really wasn't looking that good. He wondered in passing what he'd do if she died. Figure something else out, probably. \"You sound like you've done this before,\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Shit, I grew up like this. All these folks are just playing catch-up. Thing is, we're humans. We're tribal. More settled things are, the bigger your tribe is. All the people in your gang, or all the people in your country. All the ones on your planet. Then the churn comes, and the tribe gets small again.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He waved a hand at the dark gray landscape. This far out, the trees weren't knocked over, but the weeds and bushes were starting to die from the dark and the cold.\n\n\"Right now,\" he said, \"I figure our tribe at about two.\"\n\nEither she shuddered at the idea or else the cold was getting to her worse." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He stood up, squinting down the road." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The tent guy wasn't coming. That was good.\n\n\"All right, Peaches. Let's get going. We're going to have to head off the road for a bit.\"\n\nShe looked north, up the road, confused. \"Where are we going?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"East.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You mean where we aren't supposed to go because of some crazy asshole shooting at people?\"\n\n\"Yup.\"\n\nThe town had been a decent size last week. Cheap little houses on narrow streets, solar panels on all the roofs sucking in the sunlight, back when there had been some." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There were still people here and there." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Maybe one house in five or six where the tenants were waiting for help to come to them or so deep in denial that they thought staying put was an option. Or they'd just decided they'd rather die at home. As rational a decision as any other, things being what they were.\n\nThey walked on the sidewalks even though there weren't many cars." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A police van skidded by a few blocks ahead once." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A sedan with an old woman hunched in the front seat who carefully ignored them as she passed. When the batteries ran dry there was no power grid to charge them back up, so all the trips were either short or one-way. One house had words painted across the front: EVERYTHING IN THIS HOUSE IS THE PROPERTY OF THE TRAVIS FAMILY. LOOTERS WILL BE HUNTED DOWN AND KILLED." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That left him laughing for a couple of blocks." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The supermarket at the center of town was dark, and stripped down to the shelves. So somebody in the place had understood the gravity of their situation.\n\nThe compound was on the eastern edge of town. He'd been worried they might walk by it without noticing, but it hugged the road and the signage was clear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "PRIVATE PROPERTY. NO TRESPASSING." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "ARMED SECURITY ON SITE. His personal favorite was NO RELIEF SERVICES.\n\nA wide, flat field of a yard led up to a white modular house. The transport parked in front of it looked like something manufactured to imitate military equipment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Amos had lived in an actual military design long enough to recognize the difference." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He put Peaches in place at the edge of the property first, then walked the perimeter once, taking it all in. The fence had barbed wire all the way around, but nothing electrified. He was about fifty-fifty that there was a sniper's nest in the attic, but it might have just been a bird. Easy to forget that even with the massive burden of humanity, there was still wildlife on Earth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The house itself was prefabbed or else printed in place." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hard to say which. He also saw three tubes coming up out of the ground that looked like they could be ventilation. There were bullet holes in the bark of the trees at the property's edge, and one place where it looked like there was blood on the leaves of the dying bushes.\n\nThis was where he wanted to be." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He started by standing at the edge of the property, cupping his hands around his mouth and shouting." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hey! In the house! You there?\"\n\nHe waited a long minute, alert for signs of movement. Something behind the curtains of the front window. Nothing in the sniper's nest." }, { "from": "human", "value": "So maybe it was just sparrows after all." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hey! In the house! My name is Amos Burton, and I'm looking to trade!\"\n\nA man's voice came, shrill and angry. \"This is private property!\"\n\n\"That's why I'm out here fucking my throat up instead of ringing the goddamn doorbell. I heard you were prepped for this shit. I got caught with my pants down. Looking to trade for guns.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was a long silence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hopefully the bastard wouldn't just shoot him, but maybe. Life was risk.\n\n\"What're you offering?\"\n\n\"Water recycler,\" Amos shouted. \"It's on the back of my rig.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I've got one.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"May need another. Don't think they'll be making more anytime soon.\" He waited to the count of ten. \"I'm going to come up to the house so we can talk.\"\n\n\"This is private property! Don't cross the line!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Amos opened the gate, smiling his biggest goofiest smile." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's okay! If I was armed, I wouldn't be trading for guns, right? Don't shoot me, I'm just here to talk.\"\n\nHe crossed the line, leaving the gate open behind him. He kept his hands in the air, fingers spread. He could see his breath ghosting before him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It really had gotten cold." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That wasn't getting better soon. He wondered if he maybe should have said he had a heater.\n\nThe front door opened and the man came out. He was tall and thin with a stupid, cruel face and a long-barreled assault rifle aimed at the center of Amos' chest." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It had to be illegal as shit under UN gun laws." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hey!\" he said with a wave. \"My name's Amos.\"\n\n\"You said.\"\n\n\"Didn't get yours.\"\n\n\"Didn't say it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The man walked forward to take cover behind his pretend military transport." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Nice rifle,\" Amos said, keeping his hands up.\n\n\"Works too,\" the man said. \"Strip.\"\n\n\"Come again?\"\n\n\"You heard me. You want to trade with me, prove you're not hiding any weapons. Strip!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Well, that was unforeseen, but what the hell." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Wouldn't be the first guy he'd ever met who got off on feeling powerful. Amos shrugged off his shirt and heeled off his shoes one at a time, then dropped his pants and stepped out of them. The cold air bit his skin.\n\n\"Okay!\" Amos said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Unless I've got a pistol up my ass, we can agree I'm not carrying, yeah?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Agreed,\" the man said.\n\n\"Look, if you're still worried about it, you can get someone to come out, look through the clothes here. You keep the gun on me, make sure I don't try anything.\"\n\n\"Don't tell me what to do.\"\n\nThat was a good sign." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Made it seem more likely that the fella was on his own here." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He glanced up at the attic. If there were a second person, that would be the place to put them. Tiny gray-brown wings fluttered into the attic like the answer to a question.\n\n\"Where's this cycler?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"About three miles down the road,\" Amos said, pointing with his thumb." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I can have it here in an hour, easy.\"\n\n\"That's okay,\" the man said, lifting the rifle to his shoulder and sighting on Amos. The end of the barrel looked as big as a cave. \"I can get it myself.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Before he could pull the trigger, something moved through the field of his yard like a gust of wind." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Only this wind had teeth. The man staggered back, then yawped in confusion and pain. With her chemical hormone blockers having faded in the days since they left the Pit, Peaches moved too quickly for Amos' eye to follow. It was like she'd become an angry hummingbird." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The man fell to his knees, his assault rifle suddenly gone and one of his fingers broken and bleeding." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As he curled to grasp his broken hand, the gun stuttered, opening the man's chest along the side.\n\nAnd then Peaches went still, her prison gown flapping around her in the breeze, blood spattered down the length of her body, the assault rifle held in one hand. Slowly, she sank to the ground. By the time Amos had his pants back on and got over to her, her eyes had rolled back and she was vomiting." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He put his shirt over her and waited until the fit passed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It wasn't more than about five minutes, and since no one else had come out of the house to investigate or take revenge, Amos was feeling pretty confident the dead man had been a bachelor.\n\nShe shuddered once, went still, and then the blankness left her eyes.\n\n\"Hey,\" she said. \"Did we win?\"\n\n\"First round,\" Amos said, nodding to her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It like that every time?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yup,\" she said. \"It's really not a great design.\"\n\n\"Useful when it's useful, though.\"\n\n\"Is that. Are you okay?\"\n\n\"Little chilly,\" Amos said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Won't kill me. You stay here for a bit, okay? I'm gonna go see what we're looking at inside.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll come with you,\" she said, trying to sit up. He put a hand on her shoulder. He didn't have to push to keep her down.\n\n\"I'll go first. I'd be surprised if it wasn't booby-trapped.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Okay,\" she breathed. \"I'll just wait here, then.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Good plan.\"\n\nThe next morning, they set off from the little compound at dawn. They both had professional-grade thermal suits, even if his was a little snug and she had to roll up the cuffs. The bunker under the house had supplies enough to last for a year or two: survival gear, weapons, ammunition, high-calorie rations, a stack of surprisingly boring pornography, and a collection of beautiful hand-carved chess sets." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The best find hadn't been in the bunker, though." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The garage had a half-dozen unused but well-maintained bicycles, complete with saddlebags. Even with long rifles strapped over their shoulders and their packs weighed down with water and food, they covered the distance from the compound, through the town, and out to the highway in half an hour. By noon, they'd gone farther than three days' walking would have taken them. It was probably seven hundred klicks from the Pit to Erich's office." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They'd been able to cover just under thirty on foot." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With the bikes, they'd more than double that. Baltimore was maybe nine days away, assuming nothing went wrong. Which, given the context, seemed like a lot to ask. But still.\n\nThey stopped for lunch at noon." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was dim enough it could have been the hours just before dawn." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His breath was pluming in the air now, but between the exercise and the thermal suit, Amos didn't feel the cold. Peaches seemed about a thousand times better too. She was smiling, and there was color in her cheeks. They sat on an old bench beside the road, looking east." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The view was mud and a scattering of debris." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And still on the horizon, the glow of something huge—a city or a fire—lit the clouds from below, gold on gray. So maybe even the end of the world had its moments of beauty.\n\nPeaches took a bite of her ration bar and sipped the water from her self-purifying canteen. \"Is it bothering you?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What we did.\"\n\n\"Not sure what that was, Peaches.\"\n\nShe looked at him, her eyes narrowed like she was trying to decide if he was joking. \"We invaded a man's home, killed him, and took his stuff. If we hadn't come through, he might have made it. Lived until the sun came back. Survived.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He was gonna shoot me for no reason except that I had something he wanted.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He wouldn't have done it if we hadn't gone there. And we lied to him about wanting to trade.\"\n\n\"Seems like you have a point to make, Peaches.\"\n\n\"If he hadn't been ready to pull the trigger, would you have let it go? Or would we still be here, with these guns and this food?\"\n\n\"Oh, we were taking his shit. I'm just pointing out both sides of the argument had the same plan.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then we're not exactly the good guys, are we?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 5 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amos scowled. It wasn't a question that had even crossed his mind until she said it. It bothered him that it didn't bother him more. He scratched his chest and tried to imagine Holden doing what they'd done. Or Naomi. Or Lydia.\n\n\"Yeah,\" he said. \"I should really get back to the ship soon.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "The user will write a bit then you need to write around 4 sentences continuing directly from the user's text. Try to mimic the style of James S. A. Corey.Produce 4 sentences using the prose and structure of James S. A. Corey every time its your turn using what the user wrote as a seed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You're in a good mood,\" Bobbie said as Alex sat down across from her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her breakfast was oatmeal with an egg-like protein crumble, sausages, and hot sauce. Her hair, pulled back in a tight ponytail, was wet with sweat, and her cheeks were flushed from recent exertion. Just looking at her made him feel out of shape. But she was right." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was in a good mood." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Captain's bringing my girl to Luna.\"\n\nBobbie frowned. \"Your... girl?\"\n\n\"The Roci.\"\n\n\"Oh. Right,\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"For a second, I just thought... Yeah. It'll be good to see Holden too. And Avasarala.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Be good to be on my own damn ship,\" Alex said, tapping pepper onto his plate of reconstituted eggs. \"Now if we can just get Amos and Naomi back. Whoa. Did I say something?\"\n\nThe shadow that had come over Bobbie's expression vanished again and she shook her head. \"Nothing. Just... I don't know. Envy, I guess. It's been a while since I had people.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She stabbed one of the sausages with a fork and glanced around the mess hall as she ate it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alex's eggs were chalky and tasted more of yeast than something that came from a chicken, and it brought decades of memory with it. \"Being back around active-duty folks making it hard to look forward to civilian life?\"\n\n\"Sort of.\"\n\n\"Things change,\" Alex said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And they don't change back,\" she said, quoting him back to himself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alex broke off a piece of toast, popped it in his mouth, and talked around the crust. \"We still talking about the service?\"\n\nBobbie smiled. \"No, I guess we're not. I still can't really get my head around it. Earth's never going to be Earth again. Not like it was.\"\n\n\"No, it won't.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Mars either,\" Bobbie said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I think about my nephew. Smart kid. Book smart, I mean. He hasn't really been in the world except for going through university and then the terraforming project. That's his whole life. He was one of the first people I knew to really get what off-world colonies meant for everything back here.\"\n\n\"Yeah. It makes everything different,\" Alex said.\n\n\"Except how we deal with it,\" she said, then racked an imaginary shotgun and fired it off with a popping sound.\n\n\"Amazing how much we've managed to do, considering how we're doing it all with jumped-up social primates and evolutionary behaviors from the Pleistocene.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bobbie chuckled, and he was glad to hear the sound." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was something about making the people around him feel better that left him feeling lighter himself. Like if the others on his crew could be upbeat, whatever it was couldn't be that bad. He understood the flaw in that logic: if comforting them comforted him, maybe comforting him comforted them, and they could all drive the ship into a rock while they smiled at each other.\n\n\"I heard the relief ships are here,\" Alex said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yeah, that may not be as good as we'd hoped,\" Bobbie said around a mouthful of sausage." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They were talking about it at training this morning. The relief ships should be getting in operational range right around now, but the scuttlebutt is the crews are all green as hell. Like first-mission green.\"\n\n\"All of them?\" Alex said.\n\n\"The good crews are all back at Hungaria covering our six.\"\n\n\"Well. Better a bunch of teenagers flying with us than just the two frigates,\" Alex said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But you'll excuse me if I'd hoped the cavalry coming over the hill was a little more experienced.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They probably said the same thing about us when we started up.\"\n\n\"You know they did. First mission I flew solo, I almost dumped core by mistake.\"\n\n\"Seriously?\"\n\n\"Got flustered.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's military-grade flustered, all right,\" Bobbie said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, hopefully, this'll be a milk run to Luna.\"\n\nAlex nodded and took a sip of coffee from his bulb. \"You think that'll happen? You really think it's over?\"\n\nBobbie's silence was an answer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They spent the rest of the meal on less fraught subjects: how training for marines and Navy were different and which one was better; Alex's stories from Ilus and the slow zone; speculation about what exactly Avasarala was going to do once they got the prime minister to Luna." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was all shop talk, and Alex found it easy and pleasant. He hadn't crewed with her in years, but she was good to talk to, good to be around. In another life, he could imagine shipping with her. Well, in the military anyway." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He couldn't quite place her on a water hauler like the Canterbury, and he wondered what it would have done to have her on the Roci." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Part of what made the Rocinante home was that the crew was so small, and had so much shared context. There was an intimacy that living in quarters with the same handful of people for so long gave. Anyone coming in—even someone as competent and smart and easygoing as Bobbie—would have had to contend with that, and there was nothing that screwed up a crew like having one person who felt excluded.\n\nHe was still thinking about that, chewing the next-to-last mouthful of so-called eggs and listening to Bobbie tell a story about free-climbing on the Martian surface, when the Klaxons went off." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"All hands to battle stations,\" the calm, crisp voice said between whoops of the alarm." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This is not a drill.\"\n\nAlex was up and heading toward his crash couch before he fully registered what was going on. Bobbie was beside him. They both threw their breakfast trays and drink bulbs into the recycler on the way out, long training identifying anything that wasn't bolted down as a potential projectile if the ship's vector changed too suddenly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The staccato vibration of the PDCs was already ringing in the decks, but Alex couldn't imagine what could have gotten near enough for that kind of close combat without being noticed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The alarms were still going off when they reached the corridor and one of the marines—Sergeant Park, his name was—gathered them up.\n\n\"No time to get you to your quarters. There are some spare couches we can put you up in over here.\"\n\n\"What's going on?\" Alex said, trotting to keep up.\n\n\"The relief ships are firing on us,\" Park said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What?\" Bobbie snapped." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Park didn't break stride, opening a hatch into an empty meeting room and ushering them in. Alex dropped into the embrace of a crash couch, strapping himself down with an efficiency of long habit and deep training. His mind was tripping over itself.\n\n\"Someone faked military transponder codes?\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Nope, they're our birds,\" Park said, checking Alex's straps." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then how—\"\n\n\"We hope to beat that answer out of them when the time comes, sir,\" Park said. He switched to Bobbie's chair and checked her straps too while he spoke. \"Please remain in your couches until we signal that it's safe to get out. Not sure what we're looking at, but I expect this may get—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The ship lurched hard, snapping the gimbals of the couches forty-five degrees to the deck." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Park shifted, bracing just before he hit the wall.\n\n\"Park!\" Bobbie shouted, reaching for the straps that held her in. \"Report!\"\n\n\"Remain in your couch!\" the marine shouted from behind Alex and below him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The press of thrust gravity sank him deep into the gel." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A needle slid into his leg, pumping a cocktail of drugs into his bloodstream that would lessen the danger of stroke. Jesus, this was more serious than he thought.\n\n\"Park!\" Bobbie said again, and then a string of obscenities as the marine stumbled out the door and into the corridor, leaving them behind. \"This is fucked. This is so fucked.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Can you get anything?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alex shouted, even though she was only a meter and a half away. \"My control panel's locked out.\"\n\nHe heard the sound of her breath over the distant vibrations of the PDCs, the deeper tones of missiles launching. \"No, Alex. I'm getting the stand-by screen.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "A loud fluting groan passed through the deck, rattling the couches as they shifted again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Whoever was at the helm, they were putting the ship through its paces. Along with the deep, recognizable reports of the ship's weapons, there were other sounds, less familiar ones. Alex's mind turned all of them into damage from the enemy, and at least some of the time, he was sure he was right. His throat was tight, and his gut hurt." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He kept waiting for a gauss round to pass through the ship, and every second it didn't happen made it feel more likely that it would." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You doing all right?\" Bobbie said.\n\n\"Just wish I could see what was going on. Or do somethin' about it. Don't mind fighting, but I hate being spam in a can.\"\n\nHis stomach lurched, and for a long moment, he mistook the sudden weightlessness for nausea. His crash couch shifted to his left, Bobbie's to her right, until they could almost see each other." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well,\" Bobbie said. \"They got the drive.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yup. So that thing where you and Avasarala thought maybe someone was appropriating MCRN ships and supplies?\"\n\n\"Look pretty smart now, don't we?\"\n\nThe couches shifted again as maneuvering thrusters on the ship's skin fought against the massive inertia of steel and ceramic. The throbbing of PDCs and report of missile launches made a rough background music, but it was a quiet that caught Alex's attention." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The bad guys,\" he said. \"They stopped shooting.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Huh,\" Bobbie said. Then a moment later, \"Boarding action, then?\"\n\n\"What I was thinking.\"\n\n\"Well. How long do you want to stay in these couches before we go try to scare up some weapons?\"\n\n\"Five minutes?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Works for me,\" Bobbie said, taking out her hand terminal." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll set a timer.\"\n\nThe door of the meeting room cycled open at three minutes, twenty-five seconds. Three marines floated through in light battle armor, bracing against the doorframe and holding assault rifles at their sides. The first one—a thin-faced man with a scar running down the side of his nose—moved forward." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It struck Alex that if the bad guys, whoever they were, had Martian warships, they probably also had Martian armor, but the thin-faced man steadied himself against the desk." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Mister Kamal. Sergeant Draper. My name's Lieutenant de Haan. The ship's going to be maneuvering, so we'll need to be careful, but I need you to come with me now.\"\n\n\"Roger that, sir,\" Bobbie said, popping the straps on her couch loose and shifting to launch for the door. Alex was only a beat behind her.\n\nThe marines moved through the weightless halls with practiced efficiency, cover to cover with one always in firing position at the back, another at the front, and Bobbie and Alex in the center of the formation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Twice, the ship lurched with Alex in the middle of a jump from one handhold to the next." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The first time, he caught himself on a different support, but the second, he bounced off a bare length of deck, spinning through the air until one of the marines grabbed him and hauled him to safety. The one-sided sounds of battle grew first louder and then more distant. One bulkhead failed to open, reporting vacuum on the other side, and they had to backtrack. Like a restless dream, the journey seemed to go on forever and also be over almost as soon as it had begun." }, { "from": "human", "value": "On the bridge, the captain was strapped into her couch, the prime minister in the couch beside her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All around, the crewmen at their stations were rattling information to one another, and Alex caught bits of it, his mind forming a picture of their situation almost without knowing what exactly he'd heard to inform it. The main drive was down. The comm array was unable to transmit either broadcast or tightbeam. There were hull breaches near engineering, the armory, and aft storage." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Missiles could still be fired, but the guidance systems were down." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No one mentioned the two frigates that had been flying with the ship since the main escort had been pulled away. Alex figured that meant they were dead.\n\n\"We are under attack and being boarded,\" the captain said, her voice remarkably calm. \"The original escort force is also now under concentrated attack, and will be unable to come to our relief. We have put out a broad distress call, but it seems unlikely in the extreme that anyone could make it here in time to affect the outcome of the conflict. We are preparing to offer a vigorous defense, but if we are unable to assure your safety, it may become necessary for you to evacuate.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Into the middle of a firefight?\" Alex said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It isn't optimal,\" the captain said. \"With respect, my first priority has to be the safety of the prime minister.\"\n\n\"Of course, Skipper,\" Bobbie said at the same time that Alex said, \"That's sounding a mite ominous.\" The captain ignored both of them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We have half a dozen rescue pods prepped. Protocol is to give each of you an armed escort in the pod, and release them all at once, in hopes of distributing enemy attention and giving each of you the best possible chance of being overlooked.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's a shitty plan,\" Alex said to the captain, then turned to the prime minister. \"You know that's a shitty plan, don't you, sir?\"\n\nSmith nodded. His face was flushed, and a thin sheen of sweat danced across his neck and jowls, surface tension adhering it to his skin.\n\n\"Yeah,\" Bobbie said. \"Pods don't have an Epstein. You'd be dropping us out there to get shot. And we have a racing yacht right here. The Razorback's built for speed.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The captain raised her hand, demanding silence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What I was going to say? We can commandeer the Razorback for the prime minister, give her a pilot and an escort guard, but that means I'm still dropping two civilians into a meat grinder.\"\n\n\"Why the hell would you do that?\" Bobbie interrupted. \"We've got a pilot and an escort right here. Don't we? We can put Prime Minister Smith in the bunk and take the couches. Alex has more experience piloting that ship than any of you, and—all respect to Lieutenant de Haan—I can shoot as straight as anyone you've got. It'll be tight, but it's totally possible.\"\n\n\"That's where I was going, yes,\" the captain said, her voice buzzing with annoyance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"In addition, the prime minister has made it clear that for political reasons, the presence of Sergeant Draper is required on Luna, so—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They said yes, Captain Choudhary,\" the prime minister snapped. \"Take yes for an answer.\"\n\n\"Lieutenant?\" Bobbie said. \"If I'm acting escort on this mission, I'd really like to have a weapon.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The thin-faced man smiled, his eyes glinting and cold." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I can arrange that, Gunny. Captain?\"\n\nThe captain nodded sharply, and Lieutenant de Haan launched for the lift, Bobbie close behind him. Alex's heart was beating double-time, but the fear was tempered by a growing excitement. Yes, he was in danger of losing his life." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yes, an unknown enemy had them surrounded and were likely about to storm the ship itself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But he was going to get to fly in battle again, and some immature, juvenile part of his soul could hardly wait.\n\n\"We will use our PDCs to cover you as long as we can,\" the captain said, and Alex interrupted her again.\n\n\"Not going to be enough. If we're burnin' all the way to Earth... we can probably outrun the enemy ships, but their missiles don't have to worry about keeping anyone inside from getting squished by thrust. And it ain't like there's anything out here to hide behind.\"\n\n\"You'll have to think of something,\" the captain said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"All right,\" Alex said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Set a bunch of missiles to match the frequency of the Razorback's comm laser. Launch as many as you can with us when we go, and Bobbie can use our laser to target incoming fire. We'll outrun their ships and shoot down their missiles. Unless there's someone between here and Luna or we run out of missiles, we should be fine.\"\n\nAs long as we don't get shot the second we launch, he didn't add.\n\nThe captain blinked and shot a glance at the prime minister. There was a question in the politician's eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Captain Choudhary shrugged. \"He thought of something.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You mean—\"\n\n\"No,\" the captain said, \"that might... that might work.\"\n\n\"Captain!\" A voice came from behind them. \"We have confirmed enemy contact at decks seven and thirteen. Permission to use heavy weapons?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Permission granted,\" the captain said, then turned to Alex." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I think that's your cue to head out, Mister Kamal.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Captain,\" Alex said. \"I'll make this work if I can.\"\n\nThe prime minister unstrapped and floated up out of his couch until one of the two remaining marines grabbed him and pulled him back into orientation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The prime minister and the captain shook hands as another voice interrupted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Captain, we're getting a message from the attacking force. From the Pella.\"\n\n\"Their command ship,\" the prime minister said to Alex.\n\n\"More demands of surrender?\" the captain asked.\n\n\"No, sir. It's broadcast, not tightbeam. It's... well, holy shit.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Give it to me, Mister Chou,\" the captain said. \"From the start.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "An audio feed clicked on. Thick static crackled, vanished, then crackled again. Someone grunted, and it sounded like pain. When the voice finally came, it was focused and serious." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And it hit Alex like a kick to the belly." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your next one should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If you receive this, please retransmit. This is Naomi Nagata of the Rocinante...\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Expand the story by adding 4 sentences." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She knew it was coming before it came. Before she even knew what it would be. The feeling of the ship changed without any of the details shifting, at least not at first. The crew still watched the newsfeeds and cheered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She was still under constant guard and treated like a mascot: James Holden's tame girlfriend brought back to the cage where she belonged." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Marco was polite to her, and Filip was caught between approaching and avoiding her. But there was a difference. A tension had come into the ship, and she didn't know yet if they were all anticipating news of another atrocity or something more personal and concrete. All she was sure of at first was that it made it harder for her to sleep or eat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The dread in her gut was too heavy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No one told her anything, and there was no single moment when she drew her conclusions. Instead, she looked back, and details filtered through from her days in captivity. A few remained, trapped by a nearly occult sense of importance. Wings showing off in his Martian uniform, a broad-shouldered girl hardly older than Filip exercising with the steady focus of someone preparing for something she knew she wasn't prepared for, Karal steering her own inventory busywork toward the armory and its store of powered armor, the seriousness with which Cyn tried the weight of each of the guns in his hands." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Like the sediments of dust that built up in a badly maintained duct, the small things came together over time into a shape that was almost the same as knowledge." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were going into battle. And more than that, they were ambushing a Martian force.\n\nWhen she found Miral and Aaman sitting knee-to-knee in the corridor outside the medical bay, she knew the moment was almost on her, and the hope she'd been hiding even from herself bloomed up in her throat, as wild as anger.\n\n\"This is the Pella,\" Miral said, concentrating on each syllable. \"Confermé course match.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Confirming,\" Aaman said gently." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miral balled his hands into fists and tapped the deck with them. \"Fuck. What did I say?\"\n\n\"Confermé. You want confirming.\"\n\n\"Again,\" Miral said, then cleared his throat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"This is the Pella. Confirming course match.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Aaman grinned. \"Course match confirmed, Pella.\"\n\nMiral looked up, noticed Naomi and Cyn approaching, and grimaced. Naomi shook her head. \"You sound great,\" she said. \"Very Martian.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miral hesitated, caught, she guessed, in the uncertainty of what she knew and was supposed to know." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When he smiled, it was almost sheepish. Naomi smiled back and kept walking, pretending that she was one of them. That she belonged. Cyn, beside her, made no comment but watched her from the corners of his eyes.\n\nThe mid-shift meal was refried noodles and beer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The newsfeed was set to a system-wide report, and she watched it avidly for the first time, not for what it said, but what it didn't." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Food and water reserves were running out in North America and Asia, with Europe only a few days better. Relief efforts from the southern hemisphere were hampered by a growing need for supplies locally. She didn't care. It wasn't Jim. Medina Station had gone dark; the basic carrier signal remained, but all queries were being ignored, and she didn't care." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Martian minority speaker of parliament back in Londres Nova was calling for the prime minister to return immediately to Mars, and she only cared a little." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Every story that wasn't about a ship blowing up at Tycho Station was a victory. She ate fast, sucking down the sweet, pale noodles and slamming back the beer, as if by hurrying her meal, she could rush the ship, the attack.\n\nHer opportunity.\n\nShe and Cyn spent the next half shift going through engineering and the machine shop, making sure everything was locked down." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In a ship full of Belters, she had no doubt it all would be, and it was." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The ritual of it was reassuring, though. The sense of order and control over a ship's environment was a synonym for safety. Belters who didn't triple-check everything had been weeded out of the gene pool fast, and seeing the regularity of the shop gave her an almost atavistic sense of comfort. And also, without being obvious, she checked the location of the flawed toolbox with its misshapen hasp and then carefully didn't look at it again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She felt obvious, sure that by so clearly cutting the box out of her awareness, she was actually calling Cyn's attention to it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The relationship between the dark thoughts and the nearly unbearable swelling of excitement in her heart didn't occur to her until Cyn's hand terminal chimed and he called the work to a halt.\n\n\"Wrócic´ do tu crash couch, yeah,\" he said, touching her shoulder. His hand was gentle but strong. She didn't pretend ignorance, didn't try to disguise her anxiety." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It would just read as being scared of the battle anyway." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When they got to her quarters, she strapped in and Cyn checked her. Then, to her surprise, he sat by her side for a moment, his mass shifting the balance of the couch. His muscles rippled under the skin with even his smallest movements, but he still managed to seem boyish and shy, like his body was a costume. \"Zuchtig tu, sa sa?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Naomi smiled the way she imagined she would have if she'd meant it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Of course I'll be careful,\" she said. \"Always am.\"\n\n\"La, not always, you,\" Cyn said. He struggled with something. She didn't know what." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Close quarters, means a lot of maneuvering. Don't have a couch to catch you, then you get a wall, yeah? Maybe a corner.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fear flooded her mouth with the taste of copper. Did he know? Had he guessed? Cyn flexed his hands, not able to meet her gaze.\n\n\"En buenas mood, you. Happy, ever since you and Marco. So I'm thinking maybe you think there's something to be happy for, yeah? Maybe a way out don't have doors.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Suicide, she thought. He's talking about suicide." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He thinks I'm going to unstrap in the middle of the battle and let the ship beat me to death. While she hadn't consciously considered it before, it was the kind of thing the dark thoughts would have brought her. And worse, the thought brought no surprise with it, but only a sense of warmth. Almost of comfort. She wondered whether that had been in her mind, whether the danger inherent in her plan was its drawback or a covert way for the bad thoughts to find their expression." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That she wasn't sure unnerved her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I plan to be here when this is over,\" she said, biting the words as if to convince herself as much as her guard.\n\nCyn nodded. The ship's system sounded the maneuvers warning, but the big man didn't get off the couch. Not yet. \"Esá? Hard for us and you both. We come through, yeah? All of us, and you too.\" He was staring at his hands now like something might be written there." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Mi familia,\" he said at last." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Remember that. Alles lá son family, y tu bist also.\"\n\n\"Go strap in, big guy,\" Naomi said. \"We can finish this after.\"\n\n\"After,\" Cyn said, shot a smile at her, and rose." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The second warning came, and Naomi leaned back into the gel, just as if she meant to stay in its cool embrace." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On the bridge, Marco was no doubt being smooth and calm, playing the part of the Martian captain, reassuring everyone he could that everything was under control now that he was there. They'd believe him too. He was in a Martian ship with a solid, known transponder. He was probably using Martian military encryption." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That he could be anything other than what he seemed would be as inconceivable to them as it was obvious to her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She wanted to care, but she didn't. She didn't have time.\n\nThe sound of missiles firing and the mutter of PDCs came as the room lurched thirty degrees to the left, her couch hissing on its gimbals. She popped the straps loose and sat up, pulling her leg away from the needle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If she'd been sure it wasn't a sedative, she'd have waited for the injections." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Too late. The couch shifted back to neutral position. She hopped down to the floor and walked quickly and steadily for the corridor. She kept her arms wide, fingertips against the walls on either side, and slid her feet across the deck. Knees bent, center of gravity low, she told herself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Be ready for the change when it comes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The ship twitched around her. The walls and deck showed nothing, her eyes promising her that everything was solid, quiet, and stable as her own mass pushed her, falling toward one wall and then the next, and then—worst—forward where there was nothing to catch herself against. It was worse than weightlessness. The struggles of a mind to interpret up and down in the absence of gravity could be disorienting, but this was something else." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She rattled down the hallway like dice in a cup, moving forward when she could, bracing herself against the walls when the motion was too violent." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the lift, she selected the machine shop and gripped the handholds as the mechanism dropped her down the body of the ship. A concussion rattled her. The Martians fighting back. That was fine. Let them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She couldn't give that struggle her attention." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not until hers was done.\n\nThe machine shop was empty, all the tools locked in place, but with enough tolerance that when the ship lurched, they all rattled: metal against metal like the ship itself was learning to talk. She went for the compromised toolbox, but the deck fell away under her. She stumbled, her head crashing against the metal shelves." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For a few seconds, the rattling seemed to recede." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She shook her head, and drops of blood pattered on the wall and the deck.\n\nNot a big deal, she told herself. Head wounds always bleed a lot. It doesn't mean it's serious. Keep moving." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The PDCs chattered, the sound moving through the body of the ship." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She found the toolbox, popped open the restraint, pulled it out, and sat on the deck, cradling it. For a long, sick second, she thought the lock was different, solid, unapproachable, but that was wrong. A trick of the mind. It was fine. She pulled at the latch, worked her fingertips into the crevice that shouldn't have been there, then pulled it wider, and pushed in again, driving her own skin and bone into it like a wedge." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It hurt like hell, but she ignored it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The pressure of her body against the deck suddenly grew terrible. They were accelerating. She didn't know why. Her back ached. It had been years since her spine had been asked to support her body during a heavy burn. Usually, she was lying on her back in gel around now." }, { "from": "human", "value": "With an indignant pop, the latch gave." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The toolbox flew open, but nothing spilled. All the wrenches, epoxy welders, voltage meters, and cans of air and lubricant were strapped in place. She flipped through the close-packed layers to a line of Allen wrenches and plucked out the 10 mm. It was one of the advantages she had over Marco and his crew." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She'd been living in a Martian ship for years." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Knowing what tools opened which access panels was like recognizing the back of her own hand. She gathered up a voltage tester, a wiring crimp, and a light-duty soldering iron and stuffed them in her pockets. With any luck, she'd only need the wrench, but—\n\nThe deck drifted away under her, gravity suddenly gone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She couldn't tell if she was spinning through the air or the ship was turning around her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She reached for the deck, the walls, but nothing was within reach besides the floating toolbox. That was good enough. She grabbed it in close to her belly, then pushed it away as reaction mass, and twisted to grab the workbench. Down came back, and the toolbox crashed down behind her as she stumbled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Another low boom rattled the ship." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Knees and spine aching, she ran for the lift.\n\nGravity vanished again as she got into it. The PDCs were still chattering, but less now. She didn't remember the last time she'd heard a missile fire." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The battle was winding down." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She willed the lift to travel faster. If the all clear sounded and other people got out of their couches before she was done, then Holden and the Rocinante and possibly a fair percentage of Tycho Station would die. With every slow meter the lift took her, she imagined it: the drive cycling up and then spilling out, a fire brighter than light that ate everything. The ship moved, slamming her against the wall hard enough to bruise, then released her to float free again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She killed the lift between the crew quarters and the airlock, bracing herself so that the deceleration didn't leave her trapped in the middle of empty air." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The access panel was fifteen centimeters high and forty wide and opened on the major electrical routing through the center of the ship. If she'd cut through all the cables there with a welding torch, all the traffic would have rerouted instantly to other channels. Apart from a few warning indicators, nothing would happen. That was fine. She didn't want to break the ship." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She wanted to use it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Braced with both feet and one hand in the wall handholds, she worked the Allen wrench. The screws were integral to the plate and didn't come free, but she felt it when the metal threads lost their grip. Three connections came off. Four. Five." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Six." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She could see the handset through the gap where the plate was beginning to come free. The ship shuddered under her, turning. She squeezed the wrench in her fist, seeing it fall away down the shaft even though it wasn't happening. A thick red-black clot of blood slipped free of her hair, smearing itself across the pale wall." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She ignored it. Seven connectors were loose. Eight." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She heard voices from the crew quarters. A woman saying something she couldn't make out, and a man answering no. Nine. Ten.\n\nThe plate came free." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She scooped up the handset, checking its charge." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The batteries were nearly full. Connection read good. She didn't know which circuit was the broadcast and the first one she tried threw an error code. Cursing musically under her breath, she set it to diagnostic mode and started querying. It seemed to take forever before it came back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She cycled through the report with her thumb until she found it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Channel eighteen was a comm array using the D4/L4 protocols that the Rocinante did for broadcast. She thumbed in the override code that would let her send thirty seconds of diagnostic tones out, then deleted the file that held the tones. When the error came up, she told it to override to manual. She was almost weeping now." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her right foot slipped, and she grabbed for the open access panel." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her knuckles scraped something sharp and toothy. She grunted in pain and put her annoyance aside. No time.\n\n\"If you receive this,\" she said, pressing the handset close to her lips, \"please retransmit. This is Naomi Nagata of the Rocinante. Message is for James Holden. The software controlling the magnetic bottle has been sabotaged. Do not start the reactor without reloading the hardware drivers from a known good source. If you hear this message, please retransmit.\"\n\nHalfway through the last word, the handset chirped that the thirty seconds were up and returned to the base menu." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She let the handset go, let herself go, floated back from the wall." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She spread her arms wide and let the Allen wrench go. She hoped it had worked. It was the middle of a battle. There could be jamming to contend with if Marco wanted to keep what was happening unclear, but it was just as likely he was enjoying being a spectacle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And if she was right, if they were going after the Martian prime minister, the data coming off the battle would be gone over by the best intelligence services that still existed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jim wasn't safe, not yet. She knew it, but for a moment, she didn't feel it. The darkness would come back; the bone-crushing anxiety, and the guilt and the fear. She didn't doubt that, but now, right now, she felt only light." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She'd made her plan, and it had worked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her warning would reach him or it wouldn't. Either way, there was nothing more she could do. And on the bridge, right now, Marco was figuring out what exactly she'd done. The laughter that came boiling out of her throat felt like victory." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The voices from the crew quarters grew louder, more confused." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even though the all clear hadn't been called, she heard people moving around. She recognized Cyn's voice, raised in alarm. Her leg brushed against the wall, and she reached out to hook her wrist into the handhold. No point bothering with the lift." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hand over hand, she pulled herself along the shaft and then into the corridors." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The faces that peered from the doorways were wide-eyed. One man started back when he caught sight of her. Naomi launched herself along the hallway with a kick and flew straight as an arrow, not even touching the handholds along the way to steady herself. Her shoulder ached. The wound on her scalp was bleeding again. She felt serene." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Cyn hauled himself around a corner, then braced and watched her, his jaw slack, his eyes round." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She lifted a fist in greeting as she floated by.\n\n\"Anyone needs me,\" she said, \"I'll be in my quarters, yeah?\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Write four sentences sentences in the style of James S. A. Corey spawning from what the user wrote." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Most of human history had static maps." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even in times of change and chaos, when civilizations had fallen in the course of a single night, the places remained more or less the same. The distance between Africa and South America was going to stay what it had always been, at least over the span of human evolution. And whether you called it France or the Common European Interest Zone, Paris was closer to Orléans than Nice. It was only when they moved out to Mars and then the Belt and the worlds beyond it that the distance between the great centers of human life became a function of time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "From Tycho Station, Earth and Luna were almost on the far side of the sun." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mars was closer, but retreating with every hour. Saturn was closer than either and the Jovian moons farther away. That everything came closer and then farther apart was a given in Holden's life; uncommented and unremarkable. It was only times like this that facts of orbital periodicity started to seem like a metaphor for something deeper." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As soon as Fred made the decision to go to Luna, Holden had moved his things back to the Rocinante." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And then the rest of the crew's possessions too. He'd found Amos' clothes neatly folded and regimented in a rough canvas bag. Alex's had been thrown haphazardly in a case, half in a mesh bag and half not, though which set was clean and which bound for the laundry, Holden couldn't tell. Naomi's things had been in his suite." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A spare pair of boots, an unpaired sock, underwear." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She'd left a model of a Martian combat mech—bright red and flat black and no bigger than his thumb—on the bathroom counter. He didn't know if it held some special meaning to her or if she would even remember where she'd gotten it from. He was careful to take it with him, though. Careful to wrap it and put it in a cushioned box." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was the closest thing he had to taking care of the woman it belonged to, so that was what he did." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Being back in the Rocinante was like coming home, except that it was too empty. The narrow corridors of the crew deck seemed too wide. The occasional ticking and popping of the expansion joints adjusting to shifts in temperature were like the knocking of ghosts. When the repair team were somewhere he could hear them, Holden resented the voices and footsteps that weren't his crew's." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When they were gone, the silence oppressed him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He told himself it was temporary. That before long, he'd have Alex back in the cockpit and Amos down in engineering. Naomi beside him, telling him gently what he was screwing up and how to do it better. He'd go to Luna, and they'd be there." }, { "from": "human", "value": "All of them. Somehow." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Except he still hadn't heard from Naomi. He'd gotten a short text-only message from Mother Tamara that his parents were all right for now, but that ash was falling on the ranch like snow in winter. And nothing from Amos.\n\nSometimes people knew when they were saying their last goodbyes, but not always." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Not often. Most people's last parting of ways were so small, the people involved didn't even notice them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now, in the darkness of the command deck with a half-liter bulb of bourbon floating beside him and the audio system playing twelve-bar blues, Holden was pretty sure he'd said a couple of his own final goodbyes and not known it. He replayed everything in his head, his memories becoming less authentic and more painful every time he did.\n\n\"We're all that's left,\" he said to the ship. \"You're all I've got.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Rocinante didn't answer for a long moment, and then, weirdly, it did." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A bright yellow incoming request alert appeared on his console. Holden wiped his teary eyes with a sleeve and accepted it. Fred Johnson appeared in a window, his brows furrowed.\n\n\"Holden?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Fred?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Are you all right?\"\n\n\"Ah. Yes?\"\n\nFred leaned forward, his head growing massive on the screen. \"I've been trying to reach your hand terminal for the past fifteen minutes.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden looked around the command deck, then nodded." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I may have left it in my pants. In my quarters. I think I did.\"\n\n\"Are you drunk?\"\n\n\"I think I am.\" He had to concentrate not to slur." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And you're not wearing pants?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm not ready to take our relationship there yet.\"\n\n\"Well, have the med bay give you something to sober you up and get your ass covered. I'm sending the flight crew over.\"\n\nHolden turned up the lights and killed the music feed. \"What's going on?\"\n\n\"We're getting reports. The Martian prime minister's under attack. The ships your man Alex found were decoys to draw off the escort.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But,\" Holden said, \"the new escort ships—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Are the ones shooting at him.\"\n\nHolden cursed under his breath. \"Alex is on that ship. Did we hear from Alex?\"\n\n\"We haven't heard from anybody. I was keeping some radio telescopes pointed that direction, and this is what they're getting. I checked with Drummer and the engineering staff. They said the Roci's got a clean bill of health, and I'm less and less interested in sitting around here waiting for whoever's behind all this to take another swing at me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden undid the straps on his couch, floating forward." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His head was a little swimmy. He looked around at the command deck. It was like some part of his brain was still expecting to see Alex and Naomi and Amos there with him. He hadn't realized it was a habit, to look for his people before the Roci got under way." }, { "from": "human", "value": "This, he realized, was the first time ever that they wouldn't be there." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It felt like a bad omen.\n\n\"Okay,\" he said. \"I'll clean up for company. When are you looking to go?\"\n\n\"How soon is as soon as possible?\"\n\n\"The reactor's cold, and we'd want to top up the air and water,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The alcohol fumes seemed to be burning away already, but he wasn't entirely sure if that was true or if it just felt that way." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Plus I'm reliably informed that I need to get something from the med bay to sober me up and get my ass covered.\"\n\n\"Glad you were paying attention,\" Fred said. \"So two hours?\"\n\n\"I think we can manage that.\"\n\n\"Let's do.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden pulled himself down the lift shaft hand over hand." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A new crew coming onto his Rocinante. It was the obvious thing, of course. It had always been the plan, but now the prospect filled him with dread. Unfamiliar faces at the controls and in the crew quarters." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Voices in the ship that weren't the ones he'd gotten used to in the years since the Donnager." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even when they'd been carrying passengers, his crew had been at the heart of the ship. This was something else, and he didn't like it.\n\nHe stopped at the med bay on the way to his quarters. Sober, the symbolic implications of a new temporary crew for the trip to Luna didn't seem quite as ominous, but the thought stayed at the back of his mind: without Naomi—without all his crew—the Rocinante wasn't going to be what she had been." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When he checked his hand terminal, the only messages were from Fred." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alex's silence didn't help.\n\nThe transport tube's connection to the airlock was a gentle thump, like Tycho Station clearing its throat. Holden was at the airlock to let them in. Eight people—six Belters, and two who looked like they'd come from Earth, all wearing Tycho Station flight suits and hauling small personal kits—floated into the space among the lockers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Drummer was with them, wearing her security uniform." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Captain Holden?\" Drummer said. \"I'd like to introduce Captain Foster Sales and his crew.\"\n\nThe man who floated up, arms braced, looked too young to be a captain. Close-cropped black hair transitioned into a glossy beard that tried and failed to lend the boyish features some gravitas." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was introduced to the others—pilots Arnold Mfume and Chava Lombaugh, engineers Sandra Ip and Zach Kazantzakis, weapons technicians Gor Droga and Sun-yi Steinberg, communications specialist Maura Patel." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "By the end of the little ceremony, Holden was pretty sure he'd already forgotten all of their names.\n\nDrummer seemed to read his unease, because when the crew broke to their stations, she lingered and drew him aside. \"They're good people, Captain. I vetted all of them myself. None of them are the bad guys.\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" Holden said. \"That's good.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her smile was weirdly gentle." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's weird for me too.\"\n\n\"Yeah?\" he said.\n\n\"On my watch, they broke into the station, stole the fucking protomolecule. They tried to kill the boss. I'm spending all day projecting an attitude of calm and control, and come sleep shift, I'm grinding my teeth and staring at the wall. Now the old man's leaving? Honest to God, I'm shitting bricks here.\"\n\nHolden blew out a long breath. \"Thanks for that.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Anytime, sir. Everyone you meet's fighting a hard battle.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Should I know anything about...\" He nodded toward the door. Drummer briefed him in quick, simple sentences. Ip's roommate had been one of the turncoats, and she still felt betrayed. Steinberg and Mfume both had a hard time losing face, and while it wasn't usually a problem, if they got into a spat, someone would have to step in and deescalate." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Droga had family on Earth, and he was worried and angry and grieving." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden made a note to speak to the man if he had a chance. With every small detail, every fault and vulnerability, every strength and peculiar virtue, Holden felt something in his chest grow calmer.\n\nOkay, these men and women weren't his family, but they were his crew. They wouldn't ever mean what Alex and Amos and Naomi meant, but for the next weeks, he was their captain." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And that was enough." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For now, that was enough.\n\nWhen Fred came through the airlock, Drummer was just finishing her rundown of Maura Patel's insomnia problem. Fred landed feetfirst on the wall, ankles hooked into the handholds like he'd been born in the Belt. He stood at ninety degrees to them, a rough smile on his face and a small personal kit strapped to his back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well, what are you two doing?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Drummer is very gently telling me how to put on my big-boy pants,\" Holden said.\n\n\"Really?\" Fred asked.\n\n\"It's possible I was getting a little maudlin.\"\n\nFred nodded. \"Happens to the best of us from time to time. Where do we stand?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Drummer answered. \"The crew's initiating the warm-up. We haven't had anyone reporting trouble, so you should be good to go on schedule.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Excellent,\" Fred said. \"Of course, they've probably taken all the good bunks by now.\"\n\n\"All the bunks are the same,\" Holden said. \"Except mine. You can't have mine.\"\n\n\"Wouldn't think of it, Captain,\" Fred said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The Martian convoy's put out a distress call. The original escort's trying to burn back toward them, but the mystery ships are engaging in force now. As ambushes go, this one's looking pretty effective.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sorry to hear that,\" Holden said. \"Still nothing from Alex.\"\n\n\"Well. We can hope for the best,\" Fred said. \"Latest intel shows the attackers have stopped firing. So that makes it look like a boarding action.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden's blood went cold." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Protocol is they blow the ship if boarders get close to taking engineering or the CIC.\"\n\n\"That's so that the enemy doesn't compromise your codes,\" Drummer said. \"They rode in on Martian naval ships. That damage is already done.\"\n\nThe three were silent for a moment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When Fred spoke, his voice was low and mordant." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, that's cheerful. You coming to help this along, Captain?\"\n\nHolden looked at Drummer. She held herself professionally at attention, but he thought he saw a glimmer of unease in her eyes. Fred Johnson had run Tycho Station for almost two decades, and now he was leaving." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He might not come back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And Holden might not either.\n\nEveryone you meet is fighting a hard battle.\n\n\"Let's give this part to Foster,\" Holden said. \"Let him get a feel for the ship. There's something I need to take care of on the station before we go.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Monica was in new rooms." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To look at her, sitting on the couch, it was like she was meeting him for the first time. The months they'd spent—her crew and his—shipping out to the Ring, the desperate work she'd done on the Behemoth back before it became Medina Station, her abduction and his rescue of her. All of it was gone. Her expression was polite, and it was closed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So,\" Holden said. \"I'm about to take off. I'm not sure when or even if I'll see you again. And I feel like we're not good.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why do you feel like that?\"\n\n\"Off the record?\"\n\nThe silence cooled the room, then Monica took her new hand terminal out of her pocket and tapped it twice. It chimed and she rested it on her thigh." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Fine. Off the record.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Because I lied to you, and you know it. And you're angry about it. And because you tried to get me to talk about things I didn't want to talk about by springing questions on me in the middle of an interview, and I'm angry with you about that.\"\n\nMonica sighed, but her face softened. She looked older now than when they'd first met. Still camera-ready and perfect at all times, but worn by the universe." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What happened to you, Holden? You used to be the man who didn't hide anything. You were the one voice everyone could trust, because even if you didn't know all of it, you'd at least tell the truth you did know. This reading the press release thing? It's not you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Fred asked me not to say that he'd been targeted.\"\n\n\"Or that they got away with the protomolecule sample,\" Monica said, then held up her hand terminal. \"We're off the record. Do me the courtesy of not lying to me now too.\"\n\n\"And that they got away with the protomolecule,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Monica's face softened. She scratched her arm, fingernails hissing against the cloth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's critical. That's the scariest thing that's happened since this all started. Don't you think that people have a right to know the danger they're in?\"\n\n\"Fred knows. He's told Avasarala and Smith. Earth and Mars know. The OPA knows. Panicking people for no reason—\"\n\n\"Panicking at this point isn't unreasonable,\" Monica said. \"And deciding for people what they should get to know so they do what you think they should do? That isn't how the good guys act, and you know it. It's paternalistic, it's condescending, and it's beneath you. Maybe not them. The political movers and shakers. But it's beneath you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden felt a warmth rising in his chest." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Shame or anger or something more complicated, he couldn't say. He remembered Mother Tamara saying It hurts most if there's something true in it. He wanted to say something mean. To hit back. He laced his fingers together." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Does what you do matter?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What?\"\n\n\"Reporting? Telling things to people. Does it have any power?\"\n\n\"Of course it does.\"\n\n\"Then how you use that power matters too. I'm not saying that we were right to put the protomolecule thing under the rug. I'm saying that telling everyone about it—especially right now while whatever the hell this is is still going on—is worse. When we were in the slow zone, you were the voice that pulled us all together. You gave a shape to that moment of chaos. And it made people safer and calmer and more rational. More civilized. We need that again. I need that again.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How can you say—\" Monica began, and her hand terminal buzzed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She looked down at it in annoyance, then did a double take. She lifted a finger to him. Just a second.\n\n\"What is it?\" Holden said, but she was reading her terminal, her eyes getting wider. \"Monica? If this is some kind of object lesson about how shitty it is to withhold information, I admit it's weirdly elegant. But if you could stop it now—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The attack ships. The ones going after the Martian prime minister. The command ship put out a message.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She looked up at him. \"It's for you.\"\n\nNaomi's voice on the hand terminal was thin and tinny and like waking up from a nightmare into something worse. \"If you receive this, please retransmit. This is Naomi Nagata of the Rocinante. Message is for James Holden. The software controlling the magnetic bottle has been sabotaged. Do not start the reactor—\"\n\nShe kept talking, but Holden already had his hand terminal up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His knuckles ached, and he had to force himself to stop squeezing the device." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He put out a connection request to Drummer. His heart beat against his ribs and he felt like he was falling, like he'd stepped off a tower and hadn't quite caught the ledge on the way down. Monica was cursing quietly under her breath. It sounded like prayer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It the reactor came up and the bottle failed, the Rocinante would die in a fraction of a second." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tycho Station might survive. Some of it, anyway.\n\n\"Drummer here,\" his hand terminal said. \"How can I help you, Captain?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Have you started the reactor?\" Holden said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Drummer went silent for maybe half a second. It felt like years. \"Yes, sir. We're at sixty percent, and looking great.\"\n\n\"Shut it down,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Shut it down right now.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Now write approximately five sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was a moment of silence. Don't ask me why, Holden thought. Don't argue or ask me to explain. Please don't.\n\n\"Done. The core is down,\" Drummer said. \"So can I ask what this is about?\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "The user will write a bit then you need to write around 4 sentences continuing directly from the user's text. Try to mimic the style of James S. A. Corey.Produce 4 sentences using the prose and structure of James S. A. Corey every time its your turn using what the user wrote as a seed." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"...Do not start the reactor without reloading the hardware drivers from a known good source. If you hear this message, please retr—\"\n\nThe message cut off.\n\n\"We have to get this out,\" Alex said. \"We have to get that to Holden.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'll take care of it,\" the captain said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You and the prime minister need to evacuate. Right now.\"\n\nAlex looked at her, confused. Naomi was on the attack ships. The Roci had been sabotaged." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He felt like the moment of stillness between being hit in the head and the bloom of pain." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His first semi-coherent, irrational thought was If Naomi's with them, maybe they're not so bad.\n\n\"Mister Kamal?\"\n\n\"No, I'm fine. It's just—\"\n\nPrime Minister Smith looked at him, the man's gentle, innocuous eyes seeming utterly out of place." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Does this change anything for us?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No,\" Alex said. \"I just... No. No, we should go. Wait. Bobbie...\"\n\n\"Gunny Draper knows where you're going,\" Captain Choudhary said. \"I'll see she doesn't get lost.\"\n\nThey moved to the lift, the two marines before and behind them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The lift car gave Alex a moment of orientation as it pushed them down into the heart of the ship." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It only took a few seconds to match velocity and go back to floating, but it was enough of a cue that his mind made one direction into down, the other into up. The lift car was wide enough for three times the load. The marines took stations at the door, ready to face danger if there was any. The prime minister took a place at the side near the front, where there was a little cover." }, { "from": "human", "value": "No one commented on it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was just a thing that happened. The dynamics of political power as positions in an elevator.\n\nNaomi was here. Right here. Maybe less than ten thousand kilometers away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was like he'd turned a corner and she was there." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Except, of course, that she wasn't. Even close-quarters battle meant distances that were vast in any other context. If the ship had been transparent, the enemy vessels would only have been visible by their drive plumes—dots of light in a sky filled with them. The Pella could be as far from him right now as Boston was from Sri Lanka, and it would still be almost intimate in the vast scale of the solar system." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You're thinking of your friend,\" Smith said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, sir,\" Alex said.\n\n\"Do you know why she would be on the Pella?\"\n\n\"I don't know why she wouldn't be on the Rocinante. And no offense, but I'm wondering why I ever got off my ship too. Longer I'm away, the worse an idea leaving it turns out to have been.\"\n\n\"I was thinking the same about my house,\" Smith said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One of the Marines—taller, and with a slushy accent that Alex couldn't place—nodded." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You should take cover, sir. We're going to have to pass through some territory we might not control.\"\n\nHe meant that the enemy had already cut off the path between them and the hangar. Alex pressed himself against the wall that the prime minister hadn't claimed and braced. The lift slowed, what had been down became up, then even that gentle gravity went away again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The marines stepped back, raised their weapons, and the doors opened." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "An eternal half second later, they moved out into the corridor, Alex and the prime minister following.\n\nThe corridors of the ship were empty, the crew strapped in their couches for the battle or else on the move elsewhere, keeping these halls safe while the four of them moved down them. The marines took turns moving forward from doorway to intersection to doorway. The distance behind them grew greater with every little jump, and Alex was deeply aware of the doors they'd passed that could open without any guards between him and whoever came out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The marines didn't seem worried, so he tried to take comfort in that." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The halls had the same anti-spalling covering that the bridge and the mess had had, but marked with location codes and colored strips that would help navigate the ship. One line was deep red with HANGAR BAY written in yellow Hindi, English, Bengali, Farsi, and Chinese. Where the red line went, they followed.\n\nThey went quickly and quietly and Alex was almost thinking they'd make it to the bay without trouble when the enemy found them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The ambush was professional." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The slushy-voiced marine had just launched forward when the firing started. Alex couldn't see where it was coming from at first, but he braced automatically and risked looking forward. At the intersection ahead of them, he caught the flare of muzzle flashes and the small circle of helmets. The attackers were standing on a bulkhead looking up the corridor, like they were shooting into a well." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Even if he'd had a gun, there was a very small area to target." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We're taking fire,\" the other marine said, and it took Alex a quarter second to understand he wasn't talking to them. \"Tollivsen's shot.\"\n\n\"Still in the fight,\" the slushy accent shouted.\n\nAcross the corridor from Alex, Prime Minister Smith was huddled behind the lip of a doorway. Most civilians tried to press against the wall and ended up launching themselves into the middle of the firing lines." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Smith hadn't done that." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So score one for training.\n\nAnother burst of fire sang past, tearing long black strips from the walls and deck and filling the air with the smell of cordite.\n\n\"Oyé,\" one of the attackers called. \"Hand up Smith y we let you go, sa sa?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The first marine fired three rounds in fast succession, and the attackers' laughter followed it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alex couldn't be sure, but he thought the people firing at him were wearing Martian military uniforms and light armor.\n\n\"Hey!\" Alex called. \"We're not going to be any good to you dead, right?\"\n\nThere was a lull, like a moment of surprise." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hoy, bist tu Kamal?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Um,\" Alex said. \"My name's Kamal.\"\n\n\"Knuckles' pilot, yeah?\"\n\n\"Who's Knuckles?\"\n\n\"Pinché traitor's who,\" the voice said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You get to hell, tell her Salo sent you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Grenade incoming,\" the slushy-voiced marine said, his voice weirdly calm. \"Employing countermeasures.\"\n\nAlex turned his face to the wall and pressed his hands to his ears. The shock of the explosion was like being slapped all across his side. He fought to breathe." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Flecks of something like snow swirled through the air, and the stink of plastic and spent explosive was thick enough to choke." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The stutter of gunfire seemed to come from far away.\n\n\"Grenade mitigated,\" the marine shouted. \"But we could use some backup here.\"\n\nThe prime minister had a bright line of red across the backs of his hands, blood soaking into the white of his cuffs and floating in tiny dots through the air of the hallway." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alex felt the wall shudder under his hand as something on the ship detonated too far away to hear." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Someone at the head of the corridor was laughing and whooping something in Belter chatter too fast to follow. Alex ducked his head out and back again, trying to get a glimpse of the corridor ahead. A crackle of gunfire drove him back into his shallow cover.\n\nThe laughter ahead of them turned to screams, the sharp, flat reports of gunfire into something deeper and more threatening." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The marines opened fire, and the corridor rose to pandemonium." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A body cartwheeled by, limp and dead, its uniform sopping up blood from a dozen wounds. Alex couldn't tell which side the fighter had belonged to.\n\nThe gunfire stopped. Alex waited a long moment, ducked his head out and back again. Then leaned out for a longer look." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The intersection where the enemy had been was misty with smoke and blood and the anti-grenade countermeasure." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Two bodies floated in the middle space, one dead in light combat armor, the other in full marine recon gear. The power-armored figure lifted its hand in the sign for all clear.\n\n\"We cleaned that up for you,\" Bobbie called, her voice seeming to come from miles away and with all the treble stripped out. \"You can come on up. Might want to hold your breath through here, though. There's some particulates.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alex pulled himself forward, the prime minister following close behind." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They passed Bobbie and four new marines that swelled their escort to six. He hadn't seen Bobbie in armor since the fight on Io. With the other marines around her, the massive armor adding to her normal bulk, she seemed at home. And more than that, she seemed wistful, knowing that it was an illusion." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Looks good on you, Draper,\" Alex called as he passed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Half-deafened by the firefight, he only felt the words in his throat. Bobbie's smile told him that she'd heard them.\n\nIn the hangar, the Razorback hung in clamps built to accommodate ships much larger than she was. It was like seeing an industrial lathe with a toothpick in it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The flight crew hung on to handholds around it, gesturing Alex and Bobbie and the prime minister on." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "By the time Alex got to the ship, the massive hangar doors were already starting their opening cycle. The flight chief was pushing a vacuum suit at him and shouting so he could hear her.\n\n\"We're coordinating with fire control. The PDCs'll try to get you a clear run, but be careful. You run into our own rounds, and that'd just be sad.\"\n\n\"Understood,\" Alex said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She gestured toward the hangar doors with her chin." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We're not taking the time to evacuate the bay completely, but we'll get you down to maybe half an atmosphere. Little bit of a pop, but you shouldn't spring a leak.\"\n\n\"And if I do?\"\n\nShe held out the environment suit again. \"You'll have some bottled air to suck on while you figure something out.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well, not a great plan, but it's a plan.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Imperfect circumstances,\" the flight chief agreed.\n\nAlex shrugged the suit on as the prime minister, already wearing his, slipped into the pinnace and toward the back bunk. The Razorback was a yacht. A hot rod, made for zipping around outside an atmosphere, the philosophical descendant of ships that didn't lose sight of the shore." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And more than that, she was old." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The girl who'd first flown her had been dead or something stranger for years, and the ship had been old before she went. Now they were going to fly it through an active battle zone.\n\nHe checked the last of the seals on his suit, and started for the Razorback. Bobbie was in the entry, looking in." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When she spoke, it was through the suit radio." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We've got a little problem, Alex.\"\n\nHe squeezed in beside her. Even before she'd been in combat armor, Bobbie had made the interior of the ship seem a little undersized. Looking from her to the second couch now, she made it look ridiculous." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was no way she was going to fit." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll have them stop the launch sequence,\" Alex said. \"We can get you in a normal EVA suit.\"\n\n\"There are boarders on the ship. Looking for us. For him,\" Bobbie said. \"There isn't time.\" She turned to look at him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "On the other side of the helmet, her expression was rueful." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm only seeing one option here.\"\n\n\"No,\" Alex said. \"You're not staying. I don't give a shit. I'm not leaving you behind.\"\n\nBobbie shifted, her eyes wide. \"What? No, I meant take out the couch and use the suit motors to brace me. Did you think I was—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That. Do that. Now,\" Alex said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bobbie leaned forward, the magnetic boots locking onto the deck of the Razorback, and one hand clamped against the frame. With the other, she gripped the base of the crash couch and lifted. The bolts sheared off like she was tearing paper, and she tossed the couch out into the hangar. The gimbals shifted and turned under the spin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bobbie scuttled in, pressing hands and feet against the walls and deck and pushing until the suit was wedged in as solidly as if it had been part of the superstructure." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Okay,\" she said. \"I'm good.\"\n\nAlex turned back to the flight chief. The woman saluted him, and with his heart in his throat he returned it. The marines who'd escorted them—who'd risked their lives to get them this far—had already gone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alex wished he'd thought to thank them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll get to my station, and then we'll get you out,\" the flight chief said. \"You be careful out there.\"\n\n\"Thank you,\" Alex said. He pulled himself into the ship, closed the hatch, and started running through the checklist." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The reactor was hot, the Epstein drive showing green across the board." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Air and water were at capacity, and the recyclers ready. \"You in place back there, sir?\"\n\n\"Ready as I'm likely to get,\" the man replied.\n\n\"You hang on tight,\" Alex said to Bobbie." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"This might get rough, and you're not in a crash couch.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yeah I am,\" she said, and he could hear the mischievous grin in her voice. \"I'm wearing mine.\"\n\n\"Well,\" Alex said softly. \"Okay, then.\"\n\nThe clamp lights went from engaged to warning to open, and the Razorback was on the float. Emergency Klaxons sounded, the noise softened by the thinned atmosphere, and the massive hangar door began to open." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The change in exterior pressure rang the pinnace like a hammer blow." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alex aimed for the widening gap full of darkness and stars, and hit it. The Razorback leaped out into the vacuum, eager and hungry. The display marked a dozen ships too small for his naked eye to see, and the long, curving shapes of PDC fire like tentacles waving through the void.\n\n\"Taking control of the comm laser,\" Bobbie said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Roger that,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This is going to get bumpy.\"\n\nHe threw the Razorback out the hangar doors at full speed and into the narrow lane between the battleship's PDCs firing on full auto. He spun the pinnace between the lines of high-velocity tungsten, hoping they were enough to stop any missiles the ambushing ships fired at them from point-blank range. And then, from behind them, fast-moving bogies in wave after wave." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Razorback's display turned into a solid mass, the density of the missile swarm too much for the screen to differentiate between them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The entire arsenal of the battleship launched all at once, and keyed to target on the pinnace's comm laser frequency.\n\n\"We've got our escort,\" Alex said. \"Let's get out of here. How many gs can you take back there, Draper?\"\n\n\"If I break a rib, I'll let you know.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alex grinned, spun the pinnace toward the sun, and accelerated—two g, three, four, four and a half—until the system started complaining that it couldn't inject him with anything through the EVA suit." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He hit the suit's crude helmet controls with his chin and injected himself with all the amphetamine it had in its tiny emergency pack. The enemy ships seemed unsure what had just happened, but then they began to turn, thin red triangles on the display. Exhaust plumes competed with the stars behind him as he fell toward the sun, toward Earth and Luna and the rattled remnants of the UN fleet. Alex felt a bloom of joy welling up in his chest, like shrugging off a weight." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You can't take the Razorback,\" he said to the tiny red triangles." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We are gone and gone and gone.\" He switched the radio to general. \"How's everyone doing back there?\"\n\n\"Fine,\" the prime minister gasped." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But will we be accelerating like this for much longer?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Bit longer, yes, sir,\" Alex said. \"Once we get some breathing room, I'll cut us back to just a g.\"\n\n\"Breathing room,\" the prime minister said, the words labored. \"That's funny.\"\n\n\"Five by five here, Alex,\" Bobbie said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Is it safe to pop my helmet? I'd rather not run through all my bottled air when there's fresh in the ship.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yeah, that's fine. Same back there, Mister Prime Minister.\"\n\n\"Please. Call me Nathan.\"\n\n\"You got it, Nate,\" Alex said. The sun was a sphere of white." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He pulled up the nav computer and started plotting in paths to Luna." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The fastest would take them inside the orbit of Mercury, but the pinnace wasn't rated for more than half an AU from the coronal surface. So that was going to be a little tricky. And Venus wasn't anyplace that he could gracefully use to slingshot. But if Avasarala was sending out an escort to meet them, she might be able to get a boost off the planet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "So heading that direction might make sense." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Alex?\" Bobbie said.\n\n\"I'm here.\"\n\n\"That thing about not leaving me behind? You really meant that, didn't you?\"\n\n\"Of course I did.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Thank you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He felt a blush rising even against the pressure of the burn. \"Welcome,\" he said. \"I figure you're crew now, right? We look out for each other.\"\n\n\"No soldier left behind,\" she said. It might have been the gs, but something about her tone made it sound like she meant something deeper by the words." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Like she'd made a promise." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She grunted. \"Alex, we've got fast-movers coming in. I think the bad guys are throwing missiles at us.\"\n\n\"You ready to disappoint them, Gunny?\"\n\n\"Oh hell yes,\" Bobbie said. \"How many bullets have we got in this magazine?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alex switched the display." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The cloud of escort missiles resolved into a numbered list, all in white with identifying serial numbers beside each of them. Even the list filled the screen. He switched to a field summary. \"A little shy of ninety.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That should get us where we're going. Looks like pretty near all their ships are burning hard for us too. How would you feel about taking a few potshots at them by way of discouragement?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It'll keep them at a distance, anyway. I figure their PDCs'll probably take them down before they can do any real damage, but apart from that I'm not opposed,\" Alex said. \"Except... hold on.\" On his list, he switched to the enemy flotilla. It took him a few seconds to find what he was looking for. He marked the Pella." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Not that one. We don't shoot that one.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 5 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Understood,\" Bobbie said.\n\nNo soldier left behind, Alex thought. That goes for you too, Naomi. I don't know what the hell's going on out there, and I don't see how this plays out yet. But I'll be damned if I'm just leaving you behind." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Continue with the same vibes as James S. A. Corey" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Back before, when she had been a girl and not known any better, it had been hard for her to cast Marco as the bad guy in their pairing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even after the Gamarra, it had been difficult. Even after he'd taken Filip away. She'd grown up around poverty. She knew what bad men looked like." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They raped their wives." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Or beat them. Or their children. That was how you knew them for what they were. Marco was never that. He never hit her, never forced himself on her, never threatened to shoot her or throw her out an airlock or pour acid in her eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He'd pretended kindness so well she would doubt herself, make herself wonder if she was the one being unreasonable, irrational, all the things he implied she was." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He never did anything that would have made it easy for her.\n\nAfter she'd reached her quarters, the door had locked. She hadn't bothered trying to raise help or leave her little room since. She knew a cell when she was in it, and she'd known with a certainty like her own mortality that sooner or later, Marco would come." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He sat across from her now, still in his Martian military uniform." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His eyes were soft, his lips pressed into a smile of amusement and regret. He looked like a poet. A man well bruised by the world, but still capable of passion. She wondered if he practiced the expression in a mirror. Probably, he did." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The wound on her head had stopped bleeding." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her joints all ached, and a vast bruise was blooming on her left hip. Even her fingertips felt like she'd scraped the first layers of skin off them, leaving them weeping and raw, though actually they just looked a little pinker than usual. She drank the same version of chamomile tea that the Rocinante made, and it felt like having a secret ally. She recognized that wasn't a perfectly sane thought, but comfort was comfort." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The mess was empty, the screens turned off and the crew sent away." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even Cyn and Karal were absent. The implication was that whatever they said there was private, but it probably wasn't. She could imagine Filip on another deck, watching. It felt like a setup." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Everything about Marco felt like a setup. Because everything was." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't know why you do these things to me, Naomi,\" Marco said. There was no anger in his voice. No, that wasn't true. The anger was there, but hidden behind the mask of disappointment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You used to be better than this.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm sorry. Did I upset your plans?\"\n\n\"Well, yes,\" Marco said. \"That's the thing. Used to be, you knew better. Used to be you at least tried to understand what was going on before you jumped in. Professional. This, though? Took a difficult thing and made it worse. Now what could have been gentle is going to be hard. I just want you to understand why I'm going to do what I'm going to do so you see I didn't have a choice.\"\n\nThere was a smart thing to do." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She knew it. A wiser woman would have cried, begged forgiveness." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That it would be insincere was the point. It was a mistake to give Marco anything real. Better to be thought weak. Better to be underestimated and misunderstood." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She knew that, but she couldn't do it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When she tried, something deep within her pushed back. Maybe if she pretended to be weak, it was too possible that it would become true. Maybe she was pretending to be strong.\n\nNaomi spat on the deck." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was a little blood along with her saliva. \"Save the air.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He leaned forward, taking her hand in his. His grip was strong, like he was showing that he could hurt her, even if he wasn't doing it right now. She thought, Well, that's one way to make your subtext physical, and then chuckled.\n\n\"Naomi, I know we aren't good, du y mé. I know you're angry. But I know we were something once. We're one body, you and me. Much as we try to be apart, our son means we will never be totally separate.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She tried to pull her hand back, but he kept hold of it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She could pull harder or let him touch her, control her body even if it was only that much. The glimmer in his eyes was pleasure. His smile was a little more genuine, and it had an edge.\n\n\"You've got to understand what I'm doing here, it's not for me. It's for us.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Us?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Belters. All Belters. It's for Filip. So when his turn comes, there's still a place for him. Not just a footnote. Once upon a time there were a people who lived on moons and asteroids and the planets where life didn't evolve. But then we found the gates, and those people died out because we didn't need them. It's why I have to do this. You don't like my methods. I understand that. But they're mine, and the cause is righteous.\"\n\nNaomi didn't speak. The food processor let out a high whine that meant its water supply was getting low. She wondered if Marco knew that, or if it was just another meaningless noise for him.\n\n\"Pretty speech. But it doesn't explain why I'm here. You didn't need me here in order to break the system. Needed me for something else. You want to know what I think?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You told me,\" Marco said, his grip on her hand tightening just a degree." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So the great James Holden wouldn't come blow my house down. Seriously, you think too much of him. He's not that impressive.\"\n\n\"No, it's worse than that. I think you wanted the Roci. I think you wanted my ship flying at your side when you did all this. But when I didn't bring her, you fell back. Had Sakai rig her to blow. Because there is nothing original about you at all.\"\n\nHis smile was as warm, but his eyes were cold now. Unamused. \"Don't follow,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You start the conversation with Why do you make me hurt you when I love you so much? and now we're at If I can't have you, no one can. You can pretend we're talking about the ship if you want. Doesn't matter to me.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Marco let her go and stood. He wasn't as tall as she remembered him. \"You got it wrong from the start. I wanted Fred Johnson—Butcher of Anderson Station, who killed people like you and me and Filip just because we were Belters. I wanted him isolated. Keep your ship out of his hands. Tried to get it brought, but no. Had Sakai try to disable her. Disable, sa sa? Had it rigged to blow at three percent power. Blown off her aft, maybe didn't even hurt anyone.\"\n\n\"I don't believe you,\" she said, but he was on a roll now, pacing the length of the mess, his arms spread wide like a man giving a speech to an invisible crowd." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Killing the ship wasn't my plan. That's what you pushed me into. What happens to Holden is your fault, not mine. That's what you need to see. How things get worse when you start acting like you know. You don't know, Naomi. You don't know because I haven't told you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She took a sip of her tea and shrugged. \"So tell me.\"\n\nMarco grinned. \"You notice when we cut thrust for a few minutes? Strange thing to do in the middle of a chase, don't you think?\"\n\nThe truth was, she hadn't noticed. In her bunk, nursing her wounds, the shifts in ship gravity hadn't been on her mind." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Docking procedure,\" he said and pulled his hand terminal from his pocket and chose something." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The speakers on the screens clicked, hissed. No image appeared on them, but a voice came.\n\nHer voice.\n\n\"This is Naomi Nagata of the Rocinante. If you get this message, please retransmit. Tell James Holden I am in distress. Comm is not responding. I have no nav control. Please retransmit.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Marco touched something else on his hand terminal, and the screens sprang to life." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Exterior cameras, probably connected to the point defense. The Chetzemoka burned not more than a hundred meters away, a docking tube clinging to her airlock like an umbilical cord. A ship that, if they dug hard enough, would trace back to her. The payments that had come from her accounts." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Put it on intersecting course, more or less,\" Marco said, his voice weary and sorrowful in a way she was certain hid glee." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Set the bottle to fail when the proximity sensors ping a ship. Didn't have to be this way, but it does now.\"\n\nA real despair rose up in her throat, and she pushed it back down. It was what Marco wanted, so she would do anything, feel anything except that. She considered the screen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The ship looking like a box held together with one line of solder and some epoxy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're stealing it from your own son,\" she said. Marco frowned. Naomi pointed toward the screen with her chin. \"The Chetzemoka. I told Filip he could have it when we were here. That's his ship. You're stealing it from him.\"\n\n\"Necessity of war,\" Marco said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Shitty parenting.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His jaw slid forward. His hands balled in fists. For a moment, she thought he was going to make it easy. He'd show whatever audience he was playing for who and what he really was." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He got his temper back in time, and she wasn't sure if she was relieved or disappointed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If you'd stayed in your place, James Holden would have lived. But you stepped out. Put yourself where you didn't belong. Because of you, he's going to die.\"\n\nNaomi stood up, rubbed her eye with the back of her hand. Her false voice repeated through the mess hall—\"Tell James Holden I am in distress...\"\n\n\"Anything else?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You pretend you don't care,\" Marco said. \"But you do.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You say so.\" She shrugged. \"I got a little bump. It's giving me a headache. Or something is. Going to med bay get it fixed, yeah?\"\n\n\"You can pretend—\"\n\n\"Can I pretend in the med bay? Or do you need to go on impressing me?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was too much." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She felt a flood of words hammering up behind all she'd said. You are an egomaniac and a sadist and I can't believe I ever thought I loved you and If Jim dies, I will by God find a way to make the bottle on this ship fail and we'll all go to hell behind him. But engaging was also a trap, so she didn't. She let the silence break the rhythm of Marco's performance and saw his shoulders shift when he gave up and stepped off the stage in his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Miral!\" he yelled, and as the sounds of one of the crew moving from the quarters grew louder, \"You abused the freedom I gave you. You can't expect to keep it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Too dangerous to leave free?\" she asked, then licked her fingertip and ticked off a mark on an imaginary board. \"One point for me, then.\"\n\nIn the med bay, a woman she didn't know ran tests to make sure Naomi wasn't bleeding in her brain; that none of the bruises she had were crush wounds bad enough to kill the muscle, flood her body with potassium, stop her heart." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miral leaned against the supply cabinet, reciting obscenities—bitch, puta, cunt—with a half-focused rage." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After spending all those days running inventory, Naomi knew everything in the cabinet. First drawer: gauze and bandages. Second drawer: one-use blood cards for maybe a hundred different field tests. Third drawer: emergency medical supplies like decompression kits, adrenaline shots, defibrillating tape." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Naomi stared at Miral as he recited his litany." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He glanced away, and then returned the stare, enunciating each word a little more sharply.\n\nThe medic had her sit up, the cushion of the medical table crackling under her shifting weight. The analgesic was a spray that went in Naomi's mouth. It tasted like fake cherry and mold." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Maybe take it easy for a couple days, yeah?\" the medic said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Best I can,\" Naomi agreed, hopping down from the bed. She straight-kicked Miral in the crotch, sending him sprawling into the cabinet and cracking two of her toes. She ignored the stab of pain in her foot and launched herself onto him, pounding at his head and neck. When he rolled, she rolled with him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The cabinet doors were open, spilling test cards and preloaded hypodermics across the floor." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miral's elbow swung up, glancing off her jaw but still hard enough to make her ears ring.\n\nShe fell to the side, her belly to the deck, decompression kits the size of her thumb pressing into her face as Miral writhed around to kneel on her back. The medic was screaming. Naomi tried to turn, tried to evade the punches, but she couldn't." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The pain bloomed between her shoulder blades." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And then, like time skipping, the weight was off her. She rolled to her side. Karal had Miral in a submission hold. He struggled and cursed, but the old Belter's eyes were flat and dead." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Be angry con sus séra that she got you unexpected,\" Karal said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Marco pas beat her down, you sure as fuck don't, sabe pendejo?\"\n\n\"Sa sa,\" Miral said, and Karal let him go. The medic, standing in the corner, was a picture of silent rage. Miral rubbed his neck and glared at Naomi where she still lay on the deck." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Karal walked over to look down at her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Bist bien, Knuckles?\"\n\nShe nodded, and when Karal put out his hand, she took it and let him help her up. When she started for the door, Miral began to follow. Karal put a hand on the man's chest." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I got this, me.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Naomi hung her head as they walked, her hair falling over her face like a veil. The steady pressure of acceleration left her knees and spine aching even more than her wounds. All through the ship, malefic faces turned to her. She could feel the hatred coming off them like heat from a fire." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When she passed through the mess, the Chetzemoka was still on the screen, the docking umbilical linking them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They'd need to cut thrust when they unhooked it, or it would fall to the side, trailing along the ship like a limp tentacle. That would be how she knew she was too late. It hadn't happened yet.\n\nAt her quarters, Karal came in behind her and closed the door." }, { "from": "human", "value": "With two of them in the tiny space, it felt cramped and uncomfortably intimate." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She sat on the crash couch, arms crossed, her legs tucked under her, and looked at him, her expression carrying the question. Karal shook his head.\n\n\"You got to stop this, Knuckles,\" he said, and his voice was surprisingly gentle. \"We're in king shit here. Esá la we're doing? History, yeah? Changing everything, but for us this time. I know you and him ain't right, but tu muss listen him. Yeah?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Naomi looked away. She just wanted him to leave, but Karal didn't go." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He sank down, his back against the wall, his knees to his broad chest.\n\n\"I heard the plan where we gehst con du? Bring you in? Fought it, me. Mal cóncep, I said. Why cut open the scar? Marco said was worth it. Said you were going to be in danger when it all came, and Filip, he deserved to see his mother, yeah? And Marco's Marco, so si.\"\n\nKaral rubbed his palms over his head. It made a soft hissing sound, almost too faint to hear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Naomi felt an inexplicable urge to touch him, to offer some comfort, but she didn't." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When he spoke again, he sounded tired.\n\n\"We're little people in big times, yeah? Time for Butchers and Marco—men and history-book things. Other pinché worlds. Who wants that? Just you let this pass, yeah? Maybe your Holden, he doesn't take the bait. Maybe something else trips before he gets here. Maybe you get small and you live through this. That so bad? Doing what needs to live through?\"\n\nShe shrugged. For a time, the only sound was the clicking of the air recycler. Karal lifted himself up with a grunt." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He looked older than she thought of him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was more than just the years, she thought. For a moment, she was young again, back on Ceres with Filip bawling in his crib while she watched the news of the Augustín Gamarra. It occurred to her for the first time that everyone on that ship had watched Earth die in real time the way she'd seen the firefly light of the Gamarra rise and fade on the newsfeed, looped a dozen times while the reporter spoke over it. She wanted to say something, but she couldn't, so she just watched as Karal opened the door then closed it behind him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The lock slid closed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She wiped the wet from her eyes, and—once she was sure he wasn't coming back—spat the decompression kit into her hand.\n\nWet with her saliva and no bigger than her thumb, it was the sort of thing any mech driver kept with her. A tiny ampoule of injectable oxygenated artificial blood, and a panic button that would make an emergency medical request for an airlock to cycle. Military ships like the Pella and Roci ignored that sort of request as basic security." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Canterbury and other commercial ships usually allowed it, filled as they were with civilians who posed a greater threat to themselves than pirates or boarders did." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She didn't know how the Chetzemoka would respond to it, but there was only one way to find out. The only other things she needed were an EVA suit and a clear idea of when the ships would cut thrust.\n\nThen it was a matter of taking control of the ship, maybe blowing the core, and getting the hell away from Marco. Again. She felt a pang of regret at the thought of Filip—and Cyn and Karal and all the people she'd known once and cared for. Even loved." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was an echo of greater pain, and she could ignore it." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your next one should be approximately two sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Didn't break me when I was a girl,\" she said to the tiny black kit. \"Don't know why he thinks he can break me now.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Task: Cooperative storytelling\nMy role: Provide a brief opening\nYour role: Expand upon my opening with four sentences, emulating the writing style of James S. A. Corey." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden wanted badly to sleep, but sleep wouldn't come." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The most he'd been able to manage was a few hours' unconsciousness that left him groggy and ragged. He'd been given the option of moving back into quarters on the station, but he'd refused. Even though he slept better with gravity holding him to the mattress, he didn't want to leave the ship. He wasn't sure how long it had been since he'd shaved, but the patchwork of stubble on his cheeks and neck itched a little." }, { "from": "human", "value": "During the work shifts, it wasn't so bad." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The new crew checked the systems they'd all checked before, looking for sabotage they hadn't seen last time, and it gave him something to do. People to talk to. When they left, he ate in the galley, tried to sleep for a while, then wandered through the ship like he was looking for something but couldn't remember what it was.\n\nAnd then, inevitably and against his better judgment, he checked the newsfeeds." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"With the silence from Medina Station, all contact with the colonial planets has been lost. We can only speculate on the significance of the partial report from the Fólkvangr settlement concerning alien activity in the southern hemisphere of New Triton—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A spokesman for the port authority said that Ganymede's neutrality was a reflection of its universal importance and not a political statement—\"\n\n\"UN forces are en route, but it is not clear whether Prime Minister Smith is actually aboard the racing ship or if this is a distraction to pull the enemy's attention away from a more traditional evacuation. Regardless, acting secretary-general Avasarala has announced a security zone covering the flight path of the pinnace, and all ships in the area have been advised to move beyond weapon range until such time as—\"\n\nLight speed, he decided, was a curse. It made even the farthest corners of humanity's reach feel close, and the illusion was a kind of poison." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The delay between Tycho Station and Earth was a little less than a quarter of an hour, but to travel that far would take days." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If Alex or Naomi died, he could know within minutes that they were gone. He floated in his restraints, the cabin lights turned off, and flipped through the feeds, jumping back and forth in case anything had happened, knowing that if it had, there was nothing he could do. He felt like he was standing on a frozen lake, looking down through the ice while the people he cared about most drowned.\n\nIf he couldn't know, if everything that was happening could happen someplace he couldn't watch, then maybe he could look away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Maybe he could close his eyes and dream about them, at least." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When a connection request came on his hand terminal, he was glad to get it.\n\n\"Paula,\" Holden said.\n\n\"Holden,\" the hacker replied. \"Wasn't sure what schedule you're on. I was afraid I was calling in your sleep shift.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No,\" Holden said. He didn't know why he felt defensive about being awake, but he did." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's fine. I'm fine. What have you got?\"\n\nShe grinned. \"I have a smoking gun. I can transmit a report to you—\"\n\n\"No. I mean, yes. Do that. But am I going to understand what I'm seeing?\"\n\nOn the screen, she stretched, grinning." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I was about to head out to dinner. Meet me at La Fromagerie and I'll walk you through the whole thing.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden pulled up the station directory. It wasn't far. If Naomi died right now, the news would reach him just about when he got there. Maybe before. He pressed his palm against his sandpaper-dry eyes. \"Sounds like a plan,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Meal's on you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You've got me over a barrel, yeah, yeah. Be right over.\"\n\nThe restaurant was small, with what appeared to be real wooden tables but were certainly pressed bamboo from station hydroponics; no one charging even vaguely reasonable prices for the meals would have been able to afford something from an actual tree. Paula was at a table against the wall. The bench she sat on looked normal for her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When he sat across from her, his feet didn't quite touch the deck." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Boss,\" Paula said. \"I already ordered.\"\n\n\"I'm not hungry. What have you got?\"\n\n\"Take a look,\" she said, passing her hand terminal over to him. The screen was filled with a structured scatter of code, structures nested inside structures with repeated sections showing variations so subtle as to approach invisibility." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was like seeing a poem written in an alphabet he didn't know." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What am I looking at?\"\n\n\"These two lines,\" she said. \"This sends the stop code to the bottle. These are the conditional statements that call it. For you, if you'd gotten to ninety-five percent, you'd have been a star. If you'd been in dock, which you probably would have, it would have taken a fair bite out of the station too.\"\n\n\"And the new software? The one that the ship's running now?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Not in it,\" Paula said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This is where you get to be impressed with me finding two lines of uncommented code in a fusion reactor's magnetic bottle driver.\"\n\n\"Very impressive,\" Holden said, dutifully.\n\n\"Thank you, but that's not the cool part. Take a look at the trigger line. You see all those calls set to null? They're all other system parameters that weren't being used.\"\n\n\"Okay,\" Holden said. From the brightness in her expression, he had the sense he should have seen something more in her words." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Maybe if he'd been able to sleep..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This is an all-purpose trap. You want something to blow when they've been out of port for six days? Set that call there to about half a million seconds. You want it to go when the weapons systems are armed? This call right here set to one. There's maybe a dozen different ways to set this thing off, and you can mix and match them.\"\n\n\"That's interesting—\"\n\n\"That's a smoking fucking gun,\" Paula said. \"Bottle containment failures don't leave much by way of data. Not supposed to happen ever, but sometimes they do. The story has always been that accidents happen, what can you do? Ships blow up sometimes. This shows that someone built a tool specifically to make it happen. And to make it happen again and again and again, wherever they could sneak their code into the ship they decided had to die. What we have here is key evidence in maybe thousands of murders no one even knew were murders until right now.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Excitement tightened her voice, brightened her eyes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The unease in his gut grew thicker.\n\nI need to go do something, Naomi said in his memory. And I can't have you involved in it. At all.\n\nWas this it? Was this what she'd been trying to keep separate from him, from the Rocinante?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "And what did it mean if it was?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Paula was still looking at him, expectation in her eye. He didn't know how to respond, but the silence was getting awkward.\n\n\"Cool?\" he said.\n\nFred was sitting at Drummer's desk, his elbows resting on the tabletop, his hands cradling his chin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He looked as tired as Holden felt." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On the screen, Drummer and Sakai were in one of the interrogation rooms. The table that was usually between them had been moved askew, and Drummer was leaning back in her chair and resting her feet on it. Prisoner and guard were both drinking what looked like coffee. Sakai laughed at something and shook his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Drummer grinned impishly. She looked younger." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden realized with a start that she was wearing her hair down.\n\n\"What the hell is this?\" he asked.\n\n\"Professionalism,\" Fred said. \"Building rapport. Establishing trust. She's halfway convinced him that whoever he was working for was willing to crack the station open with him still inside it. Once he's come around, we'll own him. That man will tell us everything we ask and then try to remember something we didn't think to dig for if we give him time. No one's as zealous as a convert.\"\n\nHolden crossed his arms." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I think you're overlooking the beat-him-with-a-wrench stratagem. I favor it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No you don't.\"\n\n\"In this case, I'd make an exception.\"\n\n\"No. You wouldn't. Torture's for amateurs.\"\n\n\"So? I don't do this professionally.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fred sighed and turned to look up at him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The reckless tough-guy version of you is almost as tiring as the relentless Boy Scout was. I'm hoping your pendulum swings hit middle sometime soon.\"\n\n\"Reckless?\"\n\nFred shrugged. \"Did you find anything?\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" Holden said, \"but it's not in the fresh driver. We have a clean bill of health.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Unless there's something else.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yup.\"\n\n\"Sakai says there wasn't.\"\n\n\"Not entirely sure I know how to respond to that,\" Holden said. Then, a moment later, \"So, I've been thinking.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"About the message from the Pella?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yeah.\"\n\nFred stood up. His expression was hard, but not without compassion. \"I was expecting this fight, Holden. But there's more at stake here than Naomi. If the protomolecule is being weaponized, or even just set loose again—\"\n\n\"That doesn't matter,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Wait, no. That came out wrong. Of course that matters. It matters a lot. It just doesn't change anything. We can't...\" He paused, swallowed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We can't go after her. I've got one ship, they've got half a dozen. Everything in me wants to fire up the engines and burn like hell after her, but it won't help.\"\n\nFred was silent. The distant sound of Sakai's laughter filtered through from the screen. They both ignored it. Holden looked at his hands." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He felt like he was confessing something. Maybe he was." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Whatever's going on here?\" Holden said. \"Whatever she's involved with, I can't fix it by putting on my shining armor and riding into battle. The only way I can see to do her any good at all is to do what we had planned. Get you to Luna. If you can use Dawes and Sakai and Avasarala to open some kind of communication with these sons of bitches, Naomi can be a bargaining chip. We can trade her for some of the people you've got in the brig. Or Sakai. Or something.\"\n\n\"That's the conclusion you've reached?\"\n\n\"It is,\" Holden said, the words tasting like ashes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You've grown up some since the first time we met,\" Fred said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden heard the sympathy in it. The consolation. \"It's making me regret my 'reckless' comment.\"\n\n\"I'm not convinced that's a good thing. Have you ever done this? Loved someone like they were part of you and then left them in danger?\"\n\nFred put a hand on Holden's shoulder." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For all the frailty that age and trouble had put in the older man's face and body, his grip was still firm." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Son, I've grieved for more people than you've met. You can't trust your heart on this. You have to do what you know, not what you feel.\"\n\n\"Because if I do what I feel...\" Holden said, thinking that the end of the sentence was something like I'd beat Sakai's teeth in or I'd get us all killed. Fred surprised him.\n\n\"Then we lose her.\"\n\n\"Course set,\" Chava Lombaugh said from the cockpit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"On your order, sir.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden tried to lean back into his crash couch, but without thrust gravity to give him weight, it ended up as just a straightening of the neck. His heart was racing, adrenaline ticking coolly through his veins.\n\nIt wasn't supposed to be like this. The command deck felt too full." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sun-yi, serious and relaxed, was at weapons." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Maura had comm controls up, monitoring them because that was what she did more than from any actual need. It should have been Alex's voice. It should have been him and Naomi in the couches.\n\nHe shouldn't have been scared." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"All right,\" he said. \"Let's do this.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sir,\" Chava said. The warning light went from amber to red and Holden fell back into his couch. Tycho Station fell away behind them. It wouldn't be an hour before it was too small to make out without assistance. Holden waited for three long, shuddering breaths. Four." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How are we looking, Mister Ip?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "From the engineering deck, Sandra Ip—who should have been Amos—said, \"All systems are within tolerance.\"\n\n\"Meaning not all blowed up,\" Holden said.\n\nThere was a pause on the channel. \"Yes, sir. Not all blowed up, sir.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden hated it that he wasn't sure of his own ship." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Rocinante had been nothing but solid for him since the day he'd gotten aboard her. He'd trusted the ship with his life the way he trusted his heart to beat. It was more than instinct. It was automatic. To do anything else would have been strange." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But that was before." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sakai's sabotage hadn't killed him, but it hadn't left him unscathed either. It would be a long time before Holden was sure that there were no more unpleasant surprises hidden in the ship. Software waiting for the right moment to evacuate the air or throw the ship into a fatal acceleration or any of the other thousand ways a ship could fail and kill its crew. They had looked everything over and found nothing, but they'd done that before and nearly died from their oversights." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was no amount of double-checking that would ever prove that nothing had been missed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "From now on—maybe for a long time, maybe forever—he would wonder about things he hadn't before. He was resentful, even angry, that his faith had been shaken.\n\nHe wondered if he was still thinking about the Rocinante.\n\n\"All right,\" he said, unstrapping." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm going to get some coffee. You folks try not to break anything, and if you do, let me know.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The chorus of yessirs was oddly disheartening. He wished they'd known he was joking. Or felt comfortable enough to joke back. Their formality was just another way it didn't feel like his ship anymore." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He found Fred in the galley, talking into his hand terminal, recording a message that was clearly meant for Anderson Dawes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden got his coffee quietly between phrases like lines of communication and profound lack of trust. When Fred finished, he folded his hands and looked over.\n\n\"I'd take one of those too. Cream, no sugar.\"\n\n\"Coming up,\" Holden said. \"Anything new?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Two of the original Martian escort surrendered.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Seriously?\"\n\n\"They were too far from the action to affect the outcome, and they were getting hammered. I don't like it, but I won't second-guess their command.\"\n\n\"Is it just my imagination, or are these people handing us our asses on a plate?\" Holden said, bringing the coffee mugs to the table." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are they really this good, or do we all just suck a lot worse than I thought we did?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fred sipped the coffee. \"Ever heard of the Battle of Gaugamela?\"\n\n\"No,\" Holden said.\n\n\"Darius the third, emperor of Persia, had two hundred thousand soldiers under his command." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bactrians, Arachosians, Scythians. Some Greek mercenaries." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On the other side, thirty-five thousand soldiers, and Alexander of Macedon. Alexander the Great. Five Persians to every Macedonian. It should have been a slaughter. But Alexander pulled so much of the enemy out to the flank that a gap opened in the middle of the Persian lines." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alexander called his men to form a wedge, and leading with his own cavalry, he pushed through and headed straight for the emperor." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were vast forces to either side, surrounding him. But it didn't matter, because he saw how to reach Darius. Alexander saw something no one else had seen.\n\n\"These people? This little faction of the OPA? Between Earth and Mars and me, we outnumber them. We outgun them. All this has happened because someone saw an opportunity that no one else did. They had the audacity to strike where no one else would even have considered an attack. That's the power of audacity, and if a general is lucky and strong-minded, they can take that advantage and keep the enemy on their back foot forever.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You think that's their plan?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It would be mine,\" Fred said. \"This isn't someone making a play to control the Belt or the Jovian moons. This is someone trying to grab all of it. Everything. It takes a certain kind of mind to succeed in something like that. Charisma, brilliance, discipline. It takes an Alexander.\"\n\n\"That sounds a little discouraging,\" Holden said.\n\nFred held up the coffee cup." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The name TACHI hadn't quite worn off the side, red and black letters half-erased by use." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But not gone. Not yet. \"I understand better now how Darius felt,\" Fred said. \"Having power, position, advantage. Especially when you think you know how wars work. It blinds you to other things. And by the time you see them, there's a Macedonian cavalry with spears set coming right at you. But that wasn't how Darius lost.\"\n\n\"It's not? Because the story you just told me sounded a lot like that's how he lost.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No. He ran.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden drank. From the crew quarters, the murmur of unfamiliar voices was a reminder that things were wrong. That the patterns of the past were broken, and might never be put right. \"He was going to get killed if he didn't, though. Alexander would have killed him.\"\n\n\"Maybe. Or maybe Darius would have withstood the charge. Or maybe he would have fallen and his army would have crushed Alexander's in rage and grief. The end of an emperor isn't always the end of an empire. I look at Earth and what happened there. I look at Mars. At what happened on Tycho, and what I'm afraid happened on Medina. I'm seeing Alexander's wedge bursting through the line at me. The same shock as Darius, the same dismay. The fear. But I'm not Darius. And I think Chrisjen Avasarala isn't either.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So you don't think we're screwed?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your next one should be approximately one sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fred smiled. \"I don't know what to think yet. I won't until I know more about the enemy. But looking back through history, there are a lot more men who thought they were Alexander the Great than men who actually were.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Provide 4 sentences as a continuation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They burned across the emptiness, and the enemy came hard behind them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Four Martian military ships with target locks on Alex's drive burned toward him as they all dropped toward the sun. The other two had stayed behind to continue the attack on the main force. More than half the attackers had peeled off to come for him. Alex hoped it was enough to let Captain Choudhary get a toehold." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nothing he could do about that from here, though, but watch and hope." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For the first few hours, it had all been hard burn and dodging. Once he'd opened up some distance between the Razorback and the attackers, the nature of the chase altered. It wasn't about catching or being caught anymore. Alex had the lead, had seventy-two missiles left flying around him in a cloud, a path to Luna, and reinforcements burning out to join him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If nothing went wrong, he'd be safe in less than two days." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The enemy's job now was to make something go wrong.\n\n\"You've got another couple PDC arcs coming in,\" Bobbie said.\n\n\"That's cute,\" Alex said. \"I'm moving to avoid. You want to let the missiles know?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Already done.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The tungsten slugs of the enemy point defense cannons were meant to chew through missiles at close range. At the distances they were holding now, they were something between an invitation for the crew of the Razorback to blunder into them by mistake and an uplifted middle finger. Alex tracked the incoming fire and braced as the maneuvering thrusters pushed them down and to the left to avoid the gently curving arcs of enemy fire, then up and right to correct to the original course. Around him the cloud of missiles parted to let the slugs pass through their flock of exhaust cones and warheads." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Any enemy missiles following that up?\" he asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A moment later Bobbie said, \"Nope.\"\n\n\"Keep an eye out. Our friends there are gettin' antsy.\"\n\n\"Happens when you're losing,\" Bobbie said. Even without turning, Alex could hear the smile in her voice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "From the cabin in the back, Smith's voice came in staccato gasps." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even the relatively modest one-g flight was three times what the man was used to. He'd been burning up the tightbeam for hours. Sometimes, Alex caught Chrisjen Avasarala's recorded voice, other times a man's warm drawl. Someone on Mars, he figured." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Razorback had been a toy once, and while the screens were decades out of date, they still had some bells and whistles." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He set the wall screens to match external cameras, and the wide starscape bloomed around them. The sun was bigger and brighter here than it would have been on Earth, but constrained by the limits of the screen to a burning whiteness. The curves of the Milky Way glowed all along the plane of the ecliptic, the billions of stars made soft by distance. Being surrounded by missiles was like floating in a cloud of fireflies, and behind them, bright as seven Venuses in an Earth twilight, the drive plumes of the attackers who wanted them dead." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And also Naomi." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bobbie sighed. \"You know, a thousand of those stars out there are ours now. That's like, what? Three ten-thousandths of a percent of our galaxy? That's what we're fighting over.\"\n\n\"You think?\"\n\n\"You don't?\"\n\n\"Nah,\" Alex said. \"I figure we're fighting over who gets the most meat from the hunt and first access to the water hole. Mating rights. Who believes in which gods. Who has the most money. The usual primate issues.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Kids,\" Bobbie said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Kids?\"\n\n\"Yeah. Everyone wanting to make sure their kids have a better shot than they did. Or than everyone else's kids. Something like that.\"\n\n\"Yeah, probably,\" Alex said. He shifted his personal screen back to tactical, pulling up the latest data on the Pella." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It still had the strange, cheap-looking civilian craft tethered to it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alex couldn't tell if they were taking something off it or putting something on. So far, it was the only craft in the little force that wasn't clearly military design. There hadn't been any more contacts from Naomi. He didn't know whether that was a good thing or a problem, but he couldn't help checking on the ship every five minutes like he was picking at a scab." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You ever worry about your kid?\" Bobbie asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't have one,\" Alex said.\n\n\"You don't? I thought you did.\"\n\n\"Nope,\" Alex said. \"Never really had the situation for one, you know? Or I guess I did, and it didn't fit. What about you?\"\n\n\"Never had the urge,\" Bobbie said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The family I've got has been more than enough.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yeah. Family.\"\n\nBobbie was silent for a moment. Then, \"You're thinking about her.\"\n\n\"Naomi, you mean?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yeah.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alex turned in his couch. Bobbie's armor reached against both walls, servomotors locked in place to brace her. She looked crucified. The wound in the deck where she'd pulled out the crash couch made it seem like she'd burst through the bottom of the ship. Her expression managed to be both sympathetic and hard." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Of course, I'm thinking about her,\" Alex said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She's right there. And probably she's in trouble. And I can't figure out how the hell she got there in the first place. It's not going to be too long before the cavalry gets here to save us, and when they do, I don't know if I should be helping to attack the Pella or protect her.\"\n\n\"That's hard,\" Bobbie agreed. \"But you know we've got our mission. Get Smith to Luna. We've got to stand our watch.\"\n\n\"I know. Can't help thinking about it, though. I keep putting together schemes where we use the missiles we've got left to make them turn her over to us.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Any of them even remotely plausible?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not a one,\" Alex said.\n\n\"There's nothing worse than keeping to your duty when it means leaving one of your own in danger.\"\n\n\"No shit.\" Alex looked at the readouts from the Pella. \"You know, maybe—\"\n\n\"Stand your watch, sailor. And heads up. We've got more PDCs coming in.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alex had already seen them and started laying in the course corrections." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Optimistic little shits. Got to give them that.\"\n\n\"Maybe they think you'll get sleepy.\"\n\nThe overloading of the pinnace was awkward and strange. Moving from the pilot's seat to the head meant both Alex and the prime minister of Mars squeezing past Bobbie's power armor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Or, for Bobbie, exiling Smith to the empty space where her couch had been while she used the tiny cabin to break down her armor or climb back into it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No one even suggested that they sleep by hot-bunking in the cabin.\n\nSmith himself seemed like a personable man, polite and thoughtful. Inoffensive was a word that came to mind. Alex had stopped following Martian politics sometime around the slow zone, so he didn't come in with any preconceptions about the man or his policies." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When they did talk, it was usually about small things—the popular culture of Mars when they were both growing up, Smith's gratitude for the efforts he and Bobbie were putting into keeping him alive, some questions about what Ilus had been like." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alex had the sense that Smith was, if anything, a little starstruck by him. Which was pretty thoroughly odd, when he thought about it.\n\nStill, when Smith popped his head out of the cabin to tell Bobbie that there was a message specifically for her from Avasarala, it had the sense of a secretary who was vaguely uneasy interrupting his boss. Alex felt a weird impulse to reassure the man it was all right, but wasn't sure how to say it without being even more awkward." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bobbie thanked him, and for a while she was silent." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alex kept his eyes on the enemy and the sun and the data from the incoming UN escort ships that were still hidden by the sun's corona.\n\n\"Alex?\" Bobbie sounded frustrated.\n\n\"Yup.\"\n\n\"I can't make this thing's incoming feed talk to my suit. Can you put this up on a screen for me? I'd do it myself, but—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He switched over to the comm system, opened a panel on the wall screen, and sent the message to it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Chrisjen Avasarala appeared. She looked older than Alex remembered her. There were dark circles under her eyes and a grayness to her skin that didn't belong there. Her sari only made her look paler. When she spoke, though, her voice was just as sure as ever." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Bobbie, I need any data you have about the missing Martian ships. I know, you're going to tell me how you've already given me everything, and of course I trust and believe all that you say, blah blah fucking blah. But I need it. Now. I've got confirmation of two dozen Martian military vessels that are burning hard for the Ring. Everything from the Barkeith to a couple resupply barges. It's like a little fucking fleet all its own. Smith says he's looking into it, which could mean anything from he knows exactly what's going on and doesn't want to tell me to Mars is in the middle of a coup and he doesn't want to tell me. One way or the other, he's locked up tight as a rat's asshole.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sorry about this,\" Bobbie said over her shoulder.\n\n\"It's nothing she hasn't said to my face,\" Smith replied.\n\n\"You want me to stop the playback?\" Alex asked, but Avasarala was already talking again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If these are more ships that got sold to whoever's chasing you, I need to know." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If they're all MCRN vessels with actual Martian Navy crews, that's something very different. And since they're not answering, I'm stuck trying to peep in the windows. If you've held something back—something sensitive, something that made you uncomfortable to share with me—I absolutely understand. Your patriotism and loyalty to Mars has been a thorn in my fucking side since the day I met you, but I respect it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It speaks well of you as a soldier and as a person, and now it's time to get the fuck over it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Also, Nathan, if you're listening, and I assume you are, I'm the best and only friend you've got. Give her permission to share what she has, or I swear to God I'll have you turning tricks out of a prefab shed on the side of the highway. I'm trying to save humanity here. It would be just fantastic if someone would help.\"\n\nHer voice broke on the last word, and tears appeared in her eyes. Alex felt a tightness in his chest and a sense of sorrow he'd managed to ignore until it now welled up in him. Avasarala took a deep breath, sneered, and turned her gaze back to the camera." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand angrily." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Like they'd betrayed her.\n\n\"So. No more fucking around. I love and adore you, and I can't wait for you—all of you—to be where I can keep you safe. Be careful. And send me the fucking data. Now.\"\n\nThe message ended. Bobbie let out a long, shuddering breath. Alex was pretty sure if he looked back, she'd be weeping too." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Smith's voice came from the door to the cabin." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I've told her all I know about them,\" Smith said. \"The ships were not listed as missing. The crews aboard them all check out as Martian citizens. But so did the false escort ships. Until I have a complete audit of the military's personnel and supply databases, I don't know what I'm looking at.\"\n\nAlex coughed to clear his throat before he spoke. \"Avasarala's not always the most trusting person, Nate. It ain't just you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She's thorough,\" Smith said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And she's in a hard position. Sergeant Draper?\"\n\nThere was a long silence. When Alex looked back, Bobbie's expression was closed. Her lips pressed to a single line." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"On my own initiative and without direction from Avasarala I... When I found evidence that something had gone missing, I checked to see what commanding officers were in charge of that materiel. I didn't see any pattern in it, but someone else might. If they saw it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alex closed the panel Avasarala had been in. The air seemed fragile. Smith took a short breath, made a small, noncommittal sound in the back of his throat. \"Please see that I get a copy too, Sergeant Draper.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He closed the door to the cabin behind him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alex sat up in his couch. \"You know,\" he said, \"you have a really weird relationship with treason. On the one hand, I think you may be the most patriotic person I've ever met, and on the other hand—\"\n\n\"I know. It's been confusing for me too. For a long time now.\"\n\n\"Your loyalty to the corps and your loyalty to that woman ever really come to blows, it'll be a hard day.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It won't happen,\" Bobbie said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She won't let it.\"\n\n\"No?\"\n\n\"She'd lose,\" Bobbie said. \"She hates losing.\"\n\nThe message from the Pella came three hours later." }, { "from": "human", "value": "From the first instant, it was clear that it was a press release." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The answer to the questions everyone had been asking: Who did all this, and why? The man was seated at a desk, two different banners showing the split circle of the OPA on the wall behind him. His uniform was crisp and unfamiliar, his eyes soulful and gentle to the point of being nearly apologetic, his voice low and rich as a viol.\n\n\"My name,\" he said, \"is Marco Inaros, commander of the Free Navy. We are the legitimate military voice of the outer planets, and we are now in a position to explain both to the oppressors on Earth and Mars and also to the liberated people of the Belt the terms on which this new chapter of human liberty, dignity, and freedom are founded. We recognize the right of Earth and Mars to exist, but their sovereignty ends at their respective atmospheres. The vacuum is ours. All travel between the planets of the solar system are the right and privilege of the OPA and will be enforced by the Free Navy. All taxes and tariffs imposed by Earth and Mars are illegal, and will not be respected. Reparations for the damage done by the inner planets to the free citizens of the system will be assayed, and failure to repay them for the benefit of the full human race will be considered a criminal act.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "A throbbing had come into the man's voice without it ever seeming to make his words affected or musical." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He leaned in toward the camera, and it felt both intimate and powerful.\n\n\"With the opening of the alien gates, we are at a crossroads in human history. We have already seen how easy it would be to carry our legacies of exploitation, injustice, prejudice, and oppression to these new worlds. But there is an alternative." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Free Navy and the society and culture of the Belt are representatives of that new pathway." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We will begin again and remake humanity without the corruption, greed, and hatred that the inner planets could not transcend. We will take what is ours by right, yes, but more than that, we will lead the Belt to a new, better form. A more human form.\n\n\"As of now, the gates to the other worlds are closed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The inner planet colony ships will be redirected to existing stations in our system, and the goods they carry contributed to building the strong outer planets that we have always deserved." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We no longer recognize or accept the yoke of the inner planets anywhere in the system. The moons of Saturn and Jupiter are ours by right. Pallas Station, Ceres Station, every pocket of air in the Belt with even one human in it, all are the natural and legal property of their inhabitants. We pledge our lives to protect those people, citizens of the greater humanity, against the historical and established crimes of economy and violence they have suffered at the gun barrels of Earth and Mars." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I am Marco Inaros. I am commander of the Free Navy. And I call upon all free men and women of the Belt to rise up now in joy and glorious resolve. The Free Navy pledges you all the safety of our protection. This day is ours. Tomorrow is ours. The future of humanity is ours. Today, and forevermore, we are free.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On the screen, Marco Inaros lifted his hand in the Belter idiom of greeting, militarizing the motion with his precision and focus. His face was an icon of resolve and strength and masculine beauty.\n\n\"We are your arm,\" he said. \"And we will strike your enemies wherever they are. We are the Free Navy. Citizens of the Belt and of the new humanity, we are yours.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "A rising chord picked up and broke into a traditional Belter protest song transformed into something martial and rousing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The new anthem of an invented nation. The image faded to a split circle and then to white. The crew of the Razorback were quiet.\n\n\"Well,\" Bobbie said. \"He's pretty. And he's really charismatic. But, wow, that speech.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It probably sounded good in his head,\" Alex said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And really, when your prelude is you kill a couple billion people, anything you say is going to sound a little megalomaniacal and creepy, right?\"\n\nSmith's voice was calm, but the dread in it carried through. \"He wasn't talking to us.\" He stood in the door to the cabin, his arms stretched to brace against the frame." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His amiable smile hadn't changed, but its meaning had." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your next one should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That was meant for the Belters. And what they heard in him—what they saw in him—won't be anything like what we did. For them, he just declared victory.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "expand on the story like James S. A. Corey would" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Ash sifted down, coating everything with a few millimeters of gray." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Everything stank of it. They got off the road to let relief convoys go by twice, and then once when an old electric service truck whined by, its bed filled with six or seven huddled figures. They slept when it got too dark to see, hauling the bikes into the bushes or alleys. The dead guy's emergency rations tasted like crap, but they didn't seem to be toxic." }, { "from": "human", "value": "After four days, the plants along the roadside started showing signs of dying: green leaves turning brown and curving toward the earth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The birds, on the other hand, were going crazy. They filled the air with chirps and trills and songs. It was probably sparrow for Holy shit, what's going on, we're all gonna die, but it sounded pretty. Amos tried to keep clear of the bigger cities, but there wasn't a lot of space left in that part of the world that wasn't paved." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Passing through Harrisonburg they were followed by a dozen dogs for about ten kilometers, the pack building up its nerve to attack." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He let Peaches go ahead for that part, but it never got serious enough to make him spend bullets. When they started getting in toward Baltimore, there stopped being a way to keep clear of people.\n\nThey were still about a day from the arcology, and the smell of the world had changed to salt water and rot, when they ran into the other crew. They were moving down a commercial street, the bikes making their soft chain-hiss, and he caught sight of the others in the gloom, heading toward them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Amos slowed down, but didn't stop." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Peaches matched him. From the smear of light in the east, he guessed it was about ten in the morning, but the darkness still made it hard to be sure how many of them there were. Four he could see for sure. Maybe more trailing a little way behind. Hard to say.\n\nThey were smeared with ash, the same as everything." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If they had weapons, Amos didn't see them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Handguns, maybe. So he had them for range if he wanted to start shooting. They were walking, so outrunning them was also an option, if it came to that. Thing was, Peaches didn't look like anywhere near the threat she was, and pretty much everyone was going to be going off appearances. It was that kind of misunderstanding that got people killed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The other group slowed down, but didn't stop." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Wary, but not disinterested. Amos stood up on his pedals.\n\n\"Peaches? How's about you hang back a little.\"\n\n\"Draw down on them?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Nah. Let's be neighbors first.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her bike slowed and fell behind. Ahead on the street, the others made their own calculations and came to a different conclusion. All four stepped out toward Amos together, chins raised in a diffident greeting. No trouble unless there's trouble." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Amos smiled amiably, and it occurred to him this was exactly the kind of situation that had taught him how to smile like that." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hey,\" he said.\n\n\"Hey.\" One of the four stepped closer. He was older. He moved gracefully, center of gravity low. Maybe a veteran. Maybe just someone who'd boxed some." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Amos pointed his smile at the guy, then the other three." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tension crept up the back of his neck and into his shoulders. He breathed through it, forcing himself to relax. \"Coming from Baltimore?\"\n\n\"Monkton,\" the fighter said.\n\n\"Yeah? Towers or the flats?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The fighter's mouth twitched into a little smile." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Z tower,\" he said.\n\n\"Zadislaw,\" Amos said. \"Had a friend lived there once. Long time ago. How is it up there?\"\n\n\"It's ten thousand people in a box with no food and not much water.\"\n\n\"Not so great, then.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Power supply's all fucked up. And Baltimore's worse. No offense meant, but I'd say you're heading the wrong way.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The fighter licked his lips. \"Nice bikes.\"\n\n\"They do what we need 'em to,\" Amos agreed. \"Only gets worse south of here. We're walking away from the strike.\"\n\n\"Keep going south, though, it gets warm again. That's where we're headed. Baja complex.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "One of the others cleared her throat." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I've got a cousin down there.\"\n\nAmos whistled between his teeth. \"That's a hell of a walk you got there.\"\n\n\"Walk there or freeze here,\" the fighter said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You and your friend there ought to come with us.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I appreciate the invite, but we've got people we're meeting up with in Baltimore.\"\n\n\"You sure about that?\"\n\n\"It's more like a working hypothesis, but it's the plan for now.\"\n\nThe fighter's gaze flickered down to the bike again, then up to Amos' face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The man studiously avoided looking at the rifle hanging on Amos' back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He waited to see which way they were going. The other man nodded.\n\n\"Well, good luck to you. We're all going to need it.\"\n\n\"That's truth,\" Amos said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Tell Baja hi for me when you get there.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Will.\"\n\nThe fighter started off down the street, the others with him. Amos loosened the strap that held the rifle, but he didn't draw the weapon. The four walkers moved down the ash-gray road." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Peaches rode up, passing them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The last in their formation turned to watch her pass, but no one made a move.\n\n\"Everything all right?\" she asked.\n\n\"Sure,\" Amos said. The shadows of the other crew faded into the gloom.\n\n\"Talked them out of any unpleasant actions?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Me? Nope. They did most of that themselves. Best defense we've got right now is everyone's in the habit of not killing each other and taking their shit. Pretty soon, people are just going to start assuming anyone they don't know is out to slit their throats. If they're lucky.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She looked at him. Her face was smooth, her eyes intelligent and hard. \"You don't sound upset at the prospect.\"\n\n\"I'm comfortable with it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "With every kilometer traveled they came closer to the sea and the stink of rot and salt grew worse." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They hit the high-water mark: the place where the charge of the floodwaters had broken. The line of debris was so clear and distinct it looked deliberate. A short wall made of wreckage and mortared with mud. Once they passed it, the ash was thick with mud and the roads were covered in broken wood and construction plastic, ruined clothes and waterlogged furniture, blackened plants killed by darkness and ash and salt water." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And the bodies of dead people and animals that no one was going to bother cleaning up." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The bikes threw up gobbets of the muddy road and they had to push harder, bearing down with all their weight, to keep the wheels spinning.\n\nWhen they were still about twenty klicks from the arcology, Amos ran into a pit filled with water and covered over with a scum of ash. It bent the bicycle's front rim. He left it where it lay, and Peaches dropped hers beside it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was aware of voices around him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Every step of the way, they were being watched. But between having rifles and not seeming to have anything much else, no one tried to stop them. All around, the ground floors of the buildings were gutted, walls cracked by the pitiless water, and the contents of the stores and apartments and offices puked out into the streets. Some places, the second story was just as bad; some places it was better." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Above that, the city seemed almost untouched." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amos kept imagining the place like it was a healthy-looking guy with exposed bone and gangrene from the ankle down.\n\n\"Something funny?\" Peaches asked.\n\n\"Nope,\" Amos said. \"I was just thinking.\"\n\nThe arcology was no different." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It loomed up among the ruins, towering over the debris-choked streets now the way it had over the maintained streets before." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The reactor that powered the vast building seemed to still be running, because lights glowed in half of the windows. If he just put his hand over the bottom layer, Amos could almost pretend the ash was snow, and all this was nothing more than the worst Christmas in history.\n\nThey trudged into the lowest level. Icy mud stuck his pants to his skin up to the knee." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Glass pipes and footprints showed where people had been but there was no one standing guard." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At least no one they saw.\n\n\"What if your friend's not here?\" Peaches asked as Amos poked at the elevator's call button.\n\n\"Then we think of something else.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Any idea what?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Still nope.\"\n\nHe was more than half-surprised when the elevator doors opened. Flood damage could have ruined the mechanism. Of course it could also get stuck halfway up, and they could die in it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When he selected the club level, the screen clicked to life." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A broad-faced woman with a scar across her upper lip sneered out at him.\n\n\"The fuck you want?\"\n\n\"Amos. Friend of Erich's.\"\n\n\"We got no fucking handouts.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Not looking for any,\" Amos said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Want to talk about a job.\"\n\n\"No jobs either.\"\n\nAmos smiled. \"You new at this, Butch? I have a job. I'm here to see if Erich wants in. This is the part where you go tell him there's some psycho in the elevator wants to talk with him, then he says who is it, and you say the guy calls himself Amos, and Erich tries not to look surprised and tells you to let me up and—\"\n\n\"For fuck's sake!\" Erich's voice was distant, but recognizable." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Let him up, or he'll talk all day.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Butch scowled into the screen and blinked out to the blue arcology menu system. But the car started up.\n\n\"Good news is he's here,\" Amos said.\n\nErich's office looked the same as the last time Amos had been in it—the same wall screen showing the same ocean view, the rubber ball instead of a chair, the desk encrusted with decks and monitors." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Even Erich didn't look different." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Maybe better dressed, even. It was the context that changed it all. The screen showed an ocean of gray and white, and Erich's clothes looked like a costume.\n\nButch and the four other heavily armed thugs with professional trigger discipline who'd escorted them from the elevator walked out, closing the door behind them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Erich waited until they'd gone before he spoke, but the tiny fist of his bad arm was opening and closing the way it did when he was nervous." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well. Amos. You're looking more alive than I'd expected.\"\n\n\"Not looking too dead yourself.\"\n\n\"As I recall the way we left it, you weren't ever coming back to my city. Open season, I called it.\"\n\n\"Wait a second,\" Peaches said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He said if you came back here, he'd kill you?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Nah,\" Amos said. \"He broadly implied that one of his employees would kill me.\"\n\nPeaches hoisted an eyebrow. \"Yeah, because that's different.\"\n\n\"If this is about the old man, I haven't checked to see if he made it or not. Deal was he kept the house, and I did that. More than that, and I've got other problems.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And I got no trouble to cause,\" Amos said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I figured things had changed enough maybe the old rules weren't a great fit for the new situation.\"\n\nErich walked over to the wall screen, limping. A few seagulls circled, black against the colorless sky. From the last time he'd been there, Amos knew the buildings that should have provided a foreground." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Most of them were still in place close in." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Out toward the shoreline, things were shorter now.\n\n\"I was right here when it happened,\" Erich said. \"It wasn't a wave like a wave, you know? Like a surfer wave? It was just the whole fucking ocean humping up and crawling onto shore. There's whole neighborhoods I used to run just aren't there now.\"\n\n\"I didn't see anything happen,\" Amos said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The newsfeeds and the mess after were bad enough.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Where were you?\"\n\n\"Bethlehem,\" Peaches said.\n\nErich turned back to them. There was no anger in his face, or fear, or even wariness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That was good. \"So you're headed south, then? How bad is it up there?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not that Bethlehem,\" Amos said. \"The one in the Carolina admin district.\"\n\n\"Where the Pit is,\" Peaches said, raising her hand like a kid in a classroom. Then a second later, \"Was.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Erich blinked and leaned against his desk." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Where the third strike hit?\"\n\n\"Close to there, yeah,\" Amos said. \"Lost that tequila you gave me with the hotel, so that sucked.\"\n\n\"All right. How are you still alive?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Practice,\" Amos said cheerfully." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Here's the thing, though. I've got a job. Well, Peaches has a job, and I'm in. Could use some help.\"\n\n\"What kind of job?\" Erich asked. A sharpness and focus came into his voice, talking business. It was like watching someone wake up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Amos turned to Peaches and waved her on." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She hugged stick-thin arms around her torso.\n\n\"Do you know Lake Winnipesaukee?\"\n\nErich frowned and nodded at the same time. \"The fake lake?\"\n\n\"Reconstituted, yeah,\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There's an enclave on Rattlesnake Island. The whole place is walled. Independent security force. Maybe fifty estates.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm listening,\" Erich said.\n\n\"They have a private launchpad built out onto the lake. The whole point of the place is that you can drop there suborbital or down from Luna or the Lagrange stations, and be walking distance from home. Everyone there has a hangar. Probably nothing with an Epstein, but something that could get us to Luna. Going through the road, you couldn't get past the checkpoints, but there's a way in from the water. The boathouse locks are compromised. Put in the right code, and they pop open even if the security chip's not in range.\"\n\n\"Which you know how?\" Erich said.\n\n\"I used to summer there. It's how we got in and out when we went slumming.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Erich looked at Peaches like he wasn't sure how she'd gotten in the room." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His laugh was short and hard, but it wasn't a no. Amos picked up the pitch. \"Idea is we get in, grab a ship, and head for Luna.\"\n\nErich sat down on the ball, his legs wide, and rolled a few centimeters back and forth, his eyes half-closed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So what's the score?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The score?\" Peaches asked.\n\n\"What are we taking? Where does the money come in?\"\n\n\"There isn't any,\" Peaches said.\n\n\"Then what do I get out of it?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You get out of here,\" Amos said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Place was kind of a shithole before someone dropped the Atlantic on it. It's not getting better.\"\n\nErich's wasted, tiny left arm squeezed tight to his body. \"Let me get this straight. You've got a score where I go seven, maybe eight hundred kilometers, sneak past some private mercenary death squad, boost a ship, and the payoff is that I get to leave everyone and everything I've got here? What's next? Russian roulette where if I win, I get to keep the bullet?\" His voice was high and tight." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He bit the words as he spoke them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This is my city. This is my place. I carved my life out of the fucking skin of Baltimore, and I spent a lot doing it. A lot. Now I'm supposed to put my tail between my legs and run away because some Belter fuckwit decided to prove he's got a tiny little dick and his mama didn't hug him enough when he was a kid? Fuck that! You hear me, Timmy? Fuck that!\"\n\nAmos looked at his hands and tried to think what to do next. His first impulse was to laugh at Erich's maudlin bullshit, but he was pretty sure that wasn't going to be a good idea. He tried to think what Naomi would have said, but before he came up with anything good, Peaches stepped toward Erich, her arms out to him like she was going to give him a hug." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I know,\" she said, her voice choked with some emotion Amos didn't place." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You know? What the fuck do you know?\"\n\n\"What it's like to lose everything. How hard it is, because you keep thinking it can't really be gone. That there's a way to get it back. Or maybe if you just act like you still have it, you won't notice it's gone.\"\n\nErich's face froze. His bad hand opened and closed so fast, it looked like he was trying to snap the tiny pink fingers. \"I don't know what you're talking—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There was this woman I knew when I went in. She killed her children. Five of them, all dead. She knew it, but she talked about them all like they were still alive. Like when she got up tomorrow, they'd be there. I thought she was a lunatic, and I guess I let that show, because she stopped me one day at the cafeteria and said, 'I know they're dead. But I know I'm dead too. You're the only bitch here thinks she's still alive.' And as soon as she said that, I knew exactly what she meant.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To Amos' astonishment, Erich started to weep and then blubber. He fell into Peaches' open arms, wrapping his good arm around her and crying into her shoulder. She stroked his hair and murmured something to him that could have been I know, I know. Or maybe something else." }, { "from": "human", "value": "So clearly something sweet and touching had just happened, even if he wasn't clear what the fuck it was." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amos shifted from one foot to the other and waited. Erich's wracking sobs grew more violent and then started to calm. It must have been fifteen minutes before the man pulled himself out of Peaches' embrace, limped to his desk, and found some tissue to blow his nose.\n\n\"I grew up here,\" he said, his voice shaking." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Everything I've ever done—every meal I ever ate, every toilet I ever pissed in, every girl I ever rolled around with? It's all been inside the 695.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For a second, it looked like he was going to cry again. \"I've seen things come and go. I've seen shit times turn into normal and turn back to shit, and keep telling myself this is like that. It's just the churn. But it's not, is it?\"\n\n\"No,\" Peaches said. \"It isn't. This is something new.\"\n\nErich turned back to the screen, touching it with the fingertips of his good hand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's my city out there. It's a mean, shitty place, and it'll break anyone who pretends different. But... but it's gone, isn't it?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Probably,\" Peaches said. \"But starting over's not always bad. Even the way I did it had some light in it. And what you've got is better than what I had.\"\n\nErich bowed his head. His sigh sounded like something bigger than him being released. Peaches took his good hand in both of hers and the two of them were silent for a long moment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Amos cleared his throat." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your next one should be approximately one sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So. That means you're in, right?\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Expand the story by adding four sentences." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She didn't have days. Hours maybe. For all she knew, minutes. And the plan still had holes in it.\n\nShe sat in the mess, hunched over a bowl of bread pudding." }, { "from": "human", "value": "People passed through from the crew quarters, some wearing Martian uniforms, some their normal clothes, a few in a new Free Navy uniform, but the other tables stayed empty apart from her and Cyn." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Before she'd been almost crew. Now she was a prisoner, and as a prisoner, her schedule had changed. She'd eat when other people weren't eating; she'd exercise when other people weren't exercising; she'd sleep in the dark with her door locked from the outside.\n\nShe was grateful for it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She needed the quiet of her own mind now, and strangely, she felt comfortable there." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Something had happened in the last days. She couldn't put her finger on when or how, but the dark thoughts had either vanished or else grown so vast she couldn't see their horizons. She didn't think she was crazy. She had felt her mind fishtailing out from under her one time and another in her life, and this was very different." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She understood she might die, that Jim might die, that Marco might sail from success to success, that Filip might never forgive or even understand her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And she could tell that all of those facts mattered to her, and mattered deeply. But they didn't overwhelm her. Not anymore.\n\nThe umbilical linking the ships was fifty meters at full extension. Not even as wide as a soccer field." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The link between the ships was between the cargo-level airlocks, where it was easier to access engineering and move supplies, which left the crew-level airlocks unused." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were EVA suits in the lockers there. With a strip of welding tape or a crowbar, she could get one in only a couple of minutes. Get into the suit, out the Pella's airlock, force the airlock on the Chetzemoka all in the time between the drives cutting off and the Chetzemoka firing her maneuvering thrusters. There were no calculations for it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It would be very, very close, but she thought it was possible." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And since it was possible, it was necessary.\n\nThere were problems, of course, that needed solving. For one thing she didn't have welding tape or a crowbar, and with her escorts now treating her as untrustworthy, her opportunity to steal either while running an inventory was gone. Second, once Marco saw she'd taken an EVA suit and made the jump, she had no way to keep him from firing a missile at the Chetzemoka." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Or worse, finding some way to disable the proximity trap and come back for her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If she could get a suit on the sly, though, so that the inventory said they still had a full complement, they might think she'd killed herself. If she was dead, she posed no threat. She knew the inventory system well enough, she thought she could force an update. She knew she could, given enough time and access." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But she only had hours." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Maybe hours. Maybe less.\n\nA familiar, sharp voice came from the screen where a newsfeed was still playing to the empty room. \"Secretary-General Gao was more than the leader of my government. She was also a close personal friend, and I will miss her company deeply.\"\n\nAvasarala's expression was careful, composed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Even through the screen and a couple hundred thousand kilometers, she radiated certainty and calm." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Naomi knew it might all be an act, but if it was, it was a good act. The reporter was a young man with close-cut dark hair who leaned forward and tried to look up to the task of interviewing her. \"The other casualties of the war have—\"\n\n\"No,\" Avasarala said. \"Not war. Not casualties. These aren't casualties. They're murders. This isn't a war. Marco Inaros can claim to be an admiral in command of a great navy if he wants. I can claim to be the f—Buddha. That doesn't make it true. He's a criminal with a lot of stolen ships and more innocent blood on his hands than anyone in history. He's a monstrous little boy.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Naomi took another bite of bread pudding." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Whatever they used to make the raisins wasn't convincing, but it didn't taste bad. For a moment, her thoughts weren't on welding tape and inventory cheats.\n\n\"So you don't consider this an act of war?\"\n\n\"War by who? War is a conflict between governments, yes? What sort of government does he represent? When was he elected? Who appointed him? Now, after the fact, he's scrambling to say he represents Belters. So what? Any petty thug in his position would want to call it war because it makes him sound serious.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The reporter looked like he'd swallowed something sour and unexpected." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm sorry. Are you saying this attack isn't serious?\"\n\n\"This attack is the greatest tragedy in human history,\" Avasarala said, her voice deep and throbbing. She dominated the screen. \"But it was carried out by shortsighted, narcissistic criminals. They want a war? Too bad. They get an arrest, processing, and a fair trial with whatever lawyer they can afford. They want the Belt to rise up so they can hide behind the good, decent people who live there? Belters aren't thugs, and they aren't murderers. They are men and women who love their children the same as any of us. They are good and evil and wise and foolish and human. And this 'Free Navy' will never be able to kill enough people to make Earth forget that shared humanity. Let the Belt consult its own conscience, and you'll see compassion and decency and kindness flourish in any gravity or none. Earth has been bloodied, but we will not be debased. Not on my fucking watch.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The old woman sat back in her seat, her eyes fiery and defiant." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The reporter glanced into the camera and then back to his notes. \"The relief effort on Earth is, of course, a massive undertaking.\"\n\n\"It is,\" she said. \"We have reactors in every major city on the planet running at top efficiency to provide power for—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The screen went blank." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Cyn put his hand terminal down on the table with an angry click. Naomi looked up at him from behind her hair.\n\n\"Esá bitch needs sa yutak cut,\" Cyn said. His face was dark with rage." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Lesson á totas like her, yeah?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"For for?\" Naomi said, shrugging. \"Kill her, and another one will take her place. She's good at what she does, but even if you did slit her throat, there'd just be someone else in the same chair saying the same things.\"\n\nCyn shook his head. \"Not like that.\"\n\n\"Close by.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No,\" he said, his chin jutting a centimeter forward." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not like that. Alles la about big social movements y ages of history y sa? Stories they make up later so it makes sense. Not like that, not real. It's people do things. Marco. Filipito. You. Me.\"\n\n\"You say so,\" Naomi said.\n\n\"Esá coyo on Mars who traded us for all the ships and told us where to find supplies? He's not 'Martian economic despair' o 'rising debt ratios' o 'income and access inequality.'\" With each pretentious invented term, Cyn wagged his finger like a professor lecturing a class, and it was funny enough that Naomi chuckled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He blinked at the sound, and then smiled a little shyly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"La coyo la is just some coyo. He's a man made a deal with a man who talked up some otras, and we did things. Who people are, it matters, yeah? Can't replace them.\"\n\nHis gaze was on her now, not a professor lecturing a class, but Cyn lecturing her. She scooped the last bite of pudding into her mouth. \"Get the feeling you're saying something,\" she said around it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Cyn looked down, gathered himself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She could see the effort more than she could understand it.\n\n\"Filipito, he needs you. No sabez la, but he does. You and Marco are you and Marco, but no you take the coward's out.\"\n\nHer heart jumped a little. He thought she was in despair, that she might give in to the dark thoughts." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She wondered what brought him to the conclusion, and whether it was a mistake he was making or something he could see in her that she couldn't." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She swallowed. \"You telling me not to kill myself?\"\n\n\"Be a bad thing to say?\"\n\nShe stood up, her soiled bowl in her hand. He rose with her, following as she headed for the recycler." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The weight of her body was reassuring." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was still time. They hadn't cut the drives yet. She could still figure her way over. \"What should I do, then?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was Cyn's turn to shrug." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Come with. Be Free Navy. We go where they need us, do what needs doing. Help where they need help, yeah? Already eight colony ships on target.\"\n\n\"Target for what?\"\n\n\"Redistribué, yeah? Alles la food and supplies they got heading out for the Ring? Más a anyone ever gave the Belt. Take that, feed the Belt, build the Belt. See what es vide when we're not scrabbling for air y ejection mass. Gardens in the vacuum. Cities make Tycho Station look some rock hopper's head. New world without a world to it, yeah? None of this alien bok. Blow the Ring. Burn it. Get back to people being people, yeah?\"\n\nTwo women walked by, heads bent toward each other in passionate conversation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The nearer one glanced up, then away, then back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was venom in her gaze. Hatred. The contrast was stark. On one hand, Cyn's vision of a future where Belters were free of the economic oppression of the inner planets—of the central axioms that had formed everything in Naomi's childhood. In her life. Civilization built by them and for them, a remaking of human life." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And on the other, actual Belters actually hating her because she had dared to act against them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Because she wasn't Belter enough. \"Where does it end, Cyn? Where does it all end?\"\n\n\"Doesn't. Not if we do it right.\"\n\nThere was nothing in her cabin that could help her, but since she was confined there and alone, it was where she searched. Hours. Not days." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The crash couch was bolted to the deck with thick steel and reinforced ceramic canted so that any direction the force came from was compression on one leg or another." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Any individual strut might have been usable as a pry bar, but she didn't have any way to unbolt the couch or break one free. So not that. The drawers were thinner metal, the same gauge, more or less, as the lockers. She pulled them out as far as they would open, examining the construction of the latches, the seams where the metal had been folded, searching for clues or inspiration. There was nothing.\n\nThe tiny black thumb of the decompression kit, she kept tucked at her waist, ready to go if she could just find a way." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She felt the time slipping away, second by second, as she came up blank." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had to find a way. She would find a way. The Chetzemoka was so close to still be too far away.\n\nIf she didn't try to go when they pulled the umbilical?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "If she could sneak across now and hide there until they separated..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If she could get to the armory instead, and maybe find a demolition mech that could act as an environment suit... or that she could use to cut through the bulkheads fast enough that no one shot her in the back of the head...\n\n\"Think,\" she said. \"Don't spin and whine. Think.\"\n\nBut nothing came.\n\nWhen she slept, it was for thin slips of minutes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She couldn't afford a deep sleep for fear of waking to find the Chetzemoka gone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And she lay on the ground with her hand clutching the base of the crash couch so that it would tug her awake if they went on the float.\n\nWhat would Alex do? What would Amos do? What would Jim do?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "What would she do?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nothing came to her. She waited for despair, the darkness, the sense of overwhelming failure, and didn't understand why it didn't come. There was every reason to be devastated, but she wasn't. Instead there was only the certainty that if the dark thoughts did return, they would come in such strength that she wouldn't stand a chance against them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Oddly, even that was comforting." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When she knocked to go to the head, Sárta opened the door. Not that it mattered. She followed Naomi down the hall, then waited outside. The head didn't have anything of use either, but Naomi took her time in case inspiration came." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The mirror was polished alloy built into the wall." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No help there. If she could take apart the vacuum fans in the toilet...\n\nShe heard voices from the other side of the door. Sárta and someone else. The words were too soft to make out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She finished washing her hands, dropped the towelette in the recycler, and stepped into the corridor." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Filip looked over at her. It was her son, and she hadn't recognized his voice.\n\n\"Filip,\" she said.\n\n\"Cyn said you wanted to talk to me,\" Filip said, landing the words equally as question and accusation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Did he now? That was kind of him.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She hesitated. Her hands itched with the need to find some way to put her hands on an EVA suit, but something in the back of her mind whispered If they think you're alive, they'll come for you. Anger and diffidence made the planes and angles of Filip's face. Cyn already thought she was bent on self-slaughter. It was why he'd sent Filip." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her belly went heavy almost before she understood why." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If Filip thought it too, if when she went missing, her son went to Marco and stood witness to her suicidal bent, it would be easier to believe. They might not even check to see if a suit was missing.\n\n\"Do you want to talk here in the hallway?\" she said, her lips heavy, her mouth slow." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I have a little place nearby. Not spacious, but there's some privacy.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Filip nodded once, and Naomi turned down the hall, Sárta and Filip following her. She rehearsed lines in her mind. I'm so tired that I just want it to be over and What I do to myself isn't your fault and I can't take it anymore. There were a thousand ways to convince him that she was ready to die." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But beneath those, the heaviness in her gut thickened and settled." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The manipulation was cruel and it was cold. It was her own child, the child she'd lost, and she was going to use him. Lie to him so well that what he told Marco would be indistinguishable from truth. So that when she disappeared to the Chetzemoka, they would assume she'd killed herself, and not come after her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Not until it was too late." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She could do it. She couldn't do it. She could.\n\nIn the cabin, she sat on the couch, her legs folded up under her. He leaned against the wall, his mouth tight, his chin high." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She wondered what he was thinking." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What he wanted and feared and loved. She wondered if anyone had ever asked him.\n\nI can't take it anymore, she thought. Just say I can't take it anymore." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are you all right?\" she asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why wouldn't I be?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" she said. \"I worry about you.\"\n\n\"Not so much you wouldn't betray me,\" he said, and that untied the knot." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yes, if she lied to him, it would be betraying him, and for all her failures, she'd never done that." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She could. She could do it. It wasn't that she was powerless before the decision; it was that she chose not to.\n\n\"The warning I sent?\"\n\n\"I have dedicated my life to the Belt, to freeing the Belters. And after we did everything we could to keep you safe, you spat in our faces. Do you love your Earther boyfriend that much more than your own kind? Is that it?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Naomi nodded. It was like hearing all the things Marco was too polished to say out loud." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was real feeling behind them in a way she would never hear from Marco. Maybe never had. He'd soaked up all his father's lines, only where Marco's soul was safe and unreachable in its deep self-centered cyst, Filip was still raw. The pain that she had not only left him, but left him for a man from Earth lit his eyes. Betrayal wasn't too strong a word." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"My own kind,\" she said. \"Let me tell you about my own kind." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There are two sides in this, but they aren't inner planets and outer ones. Belters and everyone else. It's not like that. It's the people who want more violence and the ones who want less." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And no matter what other variable you sample out of, you'll find some of both." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I was harsh to you the day the rocks dropped. But I meant everything I said. Your father and I are now and always were on different sides. We will never, ever be reconciled. But I think despite everything, you can still choose whichever side you'd like. Even now, when it seems like you've done something that can't be redeemed, you can choose what it means to you.\"\n\n\"This is shit,\" he said. \"You're shit. You're an Earth-fucking whore, and always have been. You're a camp follower, looking to sleep your way into anybody's bed who seems important. Your whole life's that. You're nothing!\"\n\nShe folded her hands." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Everything he said was so wrong it didn't even sting." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was like he was calling her a terrier. All she could think of it was, These are the last words you're going to say to your mother. You will regret them for the rest of your life.\n\nFilip turned, pulled open the door." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You deserved better parents,\" she said as he slammed it behind him." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She didn't know if he'd heard." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "expand on the story like James S. A. Corey would" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Between walking and biking, scrounging up food, and picking a route that avoided the dense populations around the Washington administrative zone, the seven-hundred-odd kilometers between Bethlehem and Baltimore had taken them almost two weeks." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The four-hundred-odd klicks from the arcology to Lake Winnipesaukee took a couple hours. Erich sent out Butch—whose name was something else that Amos couldn't remember even after they told him—and two others, then sent him and Peaches to wait in another room while he had some conversations.\n\nTwenty minutes later, Amos and Peaches and Erich and ten men and women were standing on the roof of the arcology loading into a pair of transport helicopters with the Al Abbiq Security logo on the side. Erich didn't say if they were stolen or if he'd been paying off the security force, and Amos didn't ask." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Pretty much an academic issue at that point." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The landscape they passed over was bleak. The ash fall had slowed, but not stopped. The sun was a ruddy smear on the western horizon. Below them, cities bled into each other without so much as a tree or a swath of grass between them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Most of the windows were empty." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The streets and highways were filled with cars, but few of them were moving. They swung out to the east as they passed by New York City. The great seawall had been shattered, and the streets flooded like canals. Several of the great towers had fallen, leaving holes in the skyline." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Where is everyone?\" Peaches shouted over the chop of the rotors." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They're there,\" Erich shouted back, gesturing with his bad arm and holding on to the strap with his good. \"They're all there. It's just there's not as many as there were last week. And more than there are going to be.\"\n\nOver Boston, someone fired a missile toward them from the roof of a commercial shopping district, and the copters shot it down. The sky to the east was the low bruise-dark that made Amos think of storm clouds." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the west, the sunset was the color of blood." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We gonna have trouble with the rotors icing up?\" Amos asked the pilot, but he didn't get an answer.\n\nThey set down at an airfield a few klicks south of the lake, but Amos got a look before they landed: low hills holding the water like it was being cupped in a massive palm. There were maybe a dozen islands scattered across the lake, some as crowded with buildings as the shore, others with little tame forests if someone rich enough for the luxury lived there." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The landing platform was a square of floating ceramic with red and amber lights still blinking for visual landings." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When they actually got to the water's edge, it wasn't as pretty. The water stank of dead fish and a coating of ash lay across the surface like someone had sifted chalk dust over the whole place. Erich's people waded in up to their thighs and dropped three packages that unfolded into hard, black pontoon boats. By the time they started toward the enclave on Rattlesnake Island, the sky was a perfect black." }, { "from": "human", "value": "No stars, no moon, no backsplash of light pollution." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The night was like sticking his head in a sack.\n\nThey spun to the north side of the island where a wide bridge on a coated steel pier ran out toward the launching pad. Hangars and boathouses encrusted the shore, boxes for the toys of the wealthy as big as basic housing blocks for a thousand people. The pontoon boat they were in surged forward over the chop of the water." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The boathouse they chose was painted bright blue, but outside the circles of their lights, it could have been anything." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It only took a minute to find the keypad on a pole that poked up from the dark water. Peaches leaned over, stretched her thin arm, and tapped out a series of numbers. For a second, it looked like it hadn't worked, then the boathouse doors silently rose and automatic lights came on. The interior was all wood paneling, rich red cedar, and enough room for a tennis court." }, { "from": "human", "value": "An angry barking came out from the darkness as they steered inside." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A wolfhound stood on the deck of a little powerboat, its paws on the rail. The pontoon boats snugged up in the space next to the powerboat. Amos hauled himself up and the wolfhound darted toward him, growling and snarling. It was a beautiful animal, genetically engineered, he figured, for the gloss of its fur and the graceful lines of its face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hey there,\" Amos said, squatting down to its level." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Someone didn't bother taking you along when they left, huh? That shit's gotta suck.\"\n\nThe dog shied back, uncertain and frightened.\n\n\"How about this,\" Amos said. \"Don't start anything with us, we won't shoot you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It doesn't talk,\" Erich said as the dog retreated, barking over its shoulder." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How do you know? Assholes with this much money, maybe they put some kind of translator into its brain.\"\n\n\"They can't do that,\" Erich said, then turned to Peaches. \"They can't, can they?\"\n\n\"This is the Cook estate,\" Peaches said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Darwa and Khooni lived here. I used to sleep over on Wednesday nights in the summer.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She shuddered a little and Amos cocked his head. \"It's a long time since I've been here. It seems like it should have changed more.\"\n\n\"You know how to get to their hangar?\" Erich asked.\n\n\"I do.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "But when they got there, the space was empty." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When they crossed the broad gravel yard to the next hangar over—the Davidovics'—it was empty too. The third one didn't have a ship, but it did have a dozen people. They stood in the center of the space with handguns and the kind of cheap suppression sprays they sold over the counter at grocery stores. The man in front was maybe fifty with graying hair and the beginnings of a new beard." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You, all of you, stay back!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "the man yelled as Amos and Butch and three more came in through the side door. \"This is private property!\"\n\n\"Oh, it belongs to you?\" Butch sneered. \"This all your place?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We work for the Quartermans. We have a right to be here.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The man waggled his handgun. \"You, all of you, get out!\"\n\nAmos shrugged. Another half dozen of Erich's people had come in, most of them with assault rifles held calmly at their sides. The servants were all huddled together in the middle of the room." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If they'd had any skill or practice, there would have been two or three snipers up in the rafters, ready to start picking the bad guys off while these folks kept their attention low, but Amos didn't see anyone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I kinda don't think the Quartermans are coming back. We're going to take some of their stuff. But anything we can't use, you should feel welcome to.\"\n\nThe man's face hardened, and Amos got ready for there to be a lot of dead people. But before Erich's people lifted their guns, Peaches interrupted.\n\n\"You're... you're Stokes, right?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The front man—Stokes, apparently—lowered the gun, confused as Peaches stepped forward." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's me. Clarissa Mao.\"\n\n\"Miss Clarissa?\" Stokes blinked. The gun wavered. He heard Butch mutter \"Fucking seriously?\" under her breath, but no one started firing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Miss Clarissa! What are you doing here?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Trying to leave,\" Peaches said, with a laugh in her voice. \"What are you here for?\"\n\nStokes smiled at her, and then nervously at Amos and Erich and all the others, shining his teeth at them like the beam from a deeply insecure lighthouse. \"The evacuation order came when the second rock came down. The Quartermans all left. Took the ship, and gone. They all went. The Cooks, the Falkners, old man Landborn. Everyone, they took their ships and left. Told us the security would keep us safe until relief came. But there's no relief, and the security? They're thugs. They tell us we have to pay them since the Quartermans are gone, but what do we have?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"All the Quartermans' shit,\" Amos said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Which brings me back to my first point.\"\n\n\"Are there any ships?\" Peaches said. \"We need a ship. Just to get us to Luna. That's why we came here.\"\n\n\"Yes. Yes, of course. The Bergavins left the Zhang Guo. It is in their hangar. We can take you there, Miss Clarissa, but—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "A sharp whistle came from the side door." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "From the street outside it. Butch met Amos' gaze. \"Company,\" she said.\n\nThe streets on the island were wide. Roomy. Big enough to haul a ship down to the bridge." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The security patrol car had the claw-and-eye logo of Pinkwater." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Its headlights cut a wide cone through the darkness. Erich stood with his good hand up to shield his eyes. Two men were swaggering up toward him.\n\n\"Well now,\" the first man said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What have we got here?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Erich backed away, limping. \"No trouble, sir,\" he said.\n\n\"How about if I determine that,\" the lead man said. \"Get on the fucking ground.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had a cowboy hat on and his hand on the butt of his pistol." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amos smiled. The warmth in his belly and his arms was the same kind he got when he heard a familiar song after a long time. It was just pleasant. \"I said get on the ground you crippled sonofabitch! You do it now, or I'll fuck your fucking eyeholes!\"\n\n\"Peaches?\" Amos called as he strode out into the light." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The two security men drew their pistols and pointed them at him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hey, Peaches, you back there?\"\n\n\"Yes?\" she said. It sounded like she was in the side door. That was fine. He saw the pair of security men clock the rest of Erich's people in the gloom." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were mostly silhouetted, but their bodies went tense." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Always a bad moment, seeing you brought a knife to a gunfight.\n\n\"See, this is what I was talking about,\" Amos called. \"Things start falling apart, and the tribes get small. These guys, probably good upstanding folks when there's a boss to answer to. Clients. Shareholders.\" He turned to the man in the hat and grinned amiably. \"Hey,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Um. Hey,\" Hat said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amos nodded and called back toward the hangar. \"Thing is you take that away, they're guys with guns. They act like guys with guns. Do guys-with-guns stuff. Right?\"\n\n\"I follow you,\" Peaches said.\n\n\"You should put your guns down,\" Amos said to Hat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We've got just a shitload more of them than you do. So really.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You heard the man,\" Butch said. \"Guns on the ground, please.\"\n\nThe security men glanced at each other.\n\n\"We could have just shot you,\" Amos said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As Hat and his partner slowly lowered their guns to the pavement, Amos raised his voice again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So Peaches, these guys? They go from being protectors of this big tribe with what's-his-name and them inside the tribe to being protectors of their own little tribe, and those folks on the outside of it. It's all about who's in and who's out.\"\n\nHat lifted his hands, palms out, about shoulder high. Amos hit him in the jaw. It was a solid punch, and his knuckles ached from it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Hat staggered back, and Amos stepped forward twisting his body into the kick." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It landed on Hat's left kneecap and the man screamed.\n\n\"Thing is,\" Amos called, \"most of us don't got room in our lives for more than six\"—he straight-kicked Hat in the middle of the back as he tried to stand up—\"maybe seven people. You get bigger than that, you got to start telling stories about it.\"\n\nHat was crawling back toward the car. Amos put his knee on the man's back, leaned down, and started emptying Hat's pockets and belt." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Chemical mace. A Taser." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A wallet with ID cards. A two-way radio. He found the unregistered drop gun strapped to the guy's ankle. Each thing he took, he threw out to the edge of the water, listening for the splash. Hat was weeping, and Amos' weight made it hard for him to breathe." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The other one was standing perfectly still, like if he didn't move Amos wouldn't notice him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Wasn't like he had a better strategy at this point.\n\nAmos grinned at him. \"Hey.\"\n\nThe guy didn't say anything.\n\n\"It's okay,\" Amos said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You didn't say you were gonna skullfuck my friends, right?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Right,\" the other one said.\n\n\"Okay, then.\" Amos stood up. \"You should probably get him to a doctor. And then whoever else you've got on this shithole of an island, tell them what I did, and how I didn't fuck you up because you hadn't fucked with me. Okay?\"\n\n\"All right.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Great. And then don't come back around here.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I won't.\"\n\n\"We won't,\" Amos said. \"You mean we won't. Not you and not your tribe.\"\n\n\"We won't.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Perfect. No problems, then. And give Butch your stuff, all right? Drop gun too.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, sir.\"\n\nAmos walked back toward the hangar. Sure enough, Peaches was standing in the doorway, her arms crossed. He wiped his hand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His knuckles were bleeding." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"See, that's what civilization is,\" he said. \"Bunch of stories. That's all.\"\n\n\"So what if it is?\" Peaches said. \"We're really good at telling stories. Everything just turned to shit, and we're already finding ways to put it back together. Stokes and the other servants were ready to fight us or get killed, but then I knew his name and he remembered me, and now there's a story where he wants to help us. You go out there and you send a message about how those guys should leave us alone. All of us. More than just six or seven. And, side note here, you know the Pinkwater guys are going to come back and try to kill you for that, right?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Just need 'em to take a long time gearing up,\" Amos said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Figure we'll be off the ground by then.\"\n\nStokes leaned in from behind Peaches, his expression apologetic. \"About that? There is a small problem.\"\n\nThe hangar was as tall as a cathedral, and the Zhang Guo stood in the middle of it like a piece of gargantuan art." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The surface of the ship was worked to look like gold-and-silver filigree over a body of lapis." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The drive cones had golden ideograms written on them in something that looked like gold but apparently didn't melt at high temperature. He could tell from looking it didn't have an Epstein drive. Twice as big as the Rocinante and maybe—maybe—a quarter as functional, it was as much an orbital shuttle as it was a confession of decadence.\n\nAnd, more to the point, it didn't run." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The house power supplies are exhausted,\" Stokes explained." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Without power, there's no water recyclers. No heat. No network connections.\"\n\n\"So,\" Amos said. \"You figured the smart move was to get a bunch of people who've never seen a working fusion drive to just fire one up so you could top off the batteries? That's the kind of suicidal optimism you just don't see every day.\"\n\nStokes shrugged. \"The ship was here only because it needed repair. We were never able to make it run.\"\n\nAmos clapped the man on the shoulder." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You just go get me all the tools you were using. This is something I know how to do.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Stokes trotted away, shouting to the others from his group. Erich's people seemed to be equally divided between setting up a defensive perimeter and looking for the most expensive things that would fit in their pockets. Erich and Peaches came to stand beside him.\n\n\"How fucked are we?\" Erich said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't know,\" Amos said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"First guess, there's something hinky with the power supply. Too much noise. A bad coupler. Something that's triggering the safety shutdown. But I've got to get between her hulls and take a peek.\"\n\n\"I'll help you ring the circuits,\" Peaches said. Erich looked over at her, confused. \"I spent a few months as an electrochemical technician,\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well of fucking course you did,\" Erich said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You bring a deck?\" Amos asked.\n\n\"Sure,\" Erich said. \"Why?\"\n\nAmos pointed at the drive cone with his chin. \"You can get the diagnostics running, and I can tell you what the output means.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Erich frowned and scratched his neck thoughtfully with his tiny arm." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Sure. Figure I can do that.\"\n\nPeaches coughed once, then chuckled. \"Erich? Did you ever, you know, kill anyone?\"\n\n\"I run a drug empire in Baltimore,\" Erich said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Of course I've killed someone. Why?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Nothing,\" she said. \"It's just here we are, three murderers, and what's going to save our asses if anything does is that we happen to have the skill set to repair a fusion drive.\"\n\nErich smiled. \"We are kind of well suited to this, aren't we?\"\n\n\"Well, we'd better set up some lookouts while we do it, though,\" Amos said. \"My plan to get out of here before trouble comes back may not work out.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I can have Stokes help with that too,\" Peaches said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They can't fight, but they can watch. And I can get a few of the savvy ones to help us put the ship together if you want.\"\n\n\"More the merrier,\" Amos said. \"Long as they don't touch anything unless we tell them.\"\n\n\"When we go, are we taking them with us?\" Peaches asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yup,\" Amos said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She smirked. \"Because they're tribe?\"\n\n\"Shit no. My tribe is the crew on the Roci, maybe you two, and a dead woman. I don't actually give a shit if every damned one of 'em dies.\"\n\n\"So why take them?\"\n\nOne of Erich's people called out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Another one laughed, and one of the servants tentatively joined in." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your next one should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amos rubbed the raw spots on his knuckles and shrugged. \"Seems like the sort of thing Holden'd do.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Write 4 sentences sentences in the style of James S. A. Corey spawning from what the user wrote." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Naomi lifted the handles of the resistance machine over her head then let them slowly down. Sárta sat on the box of resistance gel and watched her like someone a little bit bored at a zoo. Naomi didn't care. They didn't talk. For every purpose but the ones that mattered most, Naomi was alone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The trick, she'd decided, was not to remove just one EVA suit, but all of them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Corrupt the data, and no one would know whether she'd taken something or not. But if she only broke the inventory for the suits, that would be telling too. She lifted the handles. The muscles in her arms and shoulders ached." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She let the handles down, savoring the pain." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If she could get one of the scanners she'd used before, she might be able to feed false data into the system. Fill it with a few thousand phantoms. A million EVA suits filling every square centimeter of the ship. Then even if she couldn't erase the data, she could render it useless. The problem was—" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The warning Klaxon sounded." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Naomi's heart sank into her belly. They were preparing to go to free fall. She was out of time. She wasn't ready. Outside the ship right now, the umbilical was still in place." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As soon as it was hauled in, the Pella and the Chetzemoka would peel apart, and all her fragile hopes would die." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She let the handles drop. The cable pulled them back into place, ready for the next person.\n\nShe wasn't ready. She wasn't going to be ready. It didn't mean she wouldn't try." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She walked the few steps to the resistance gel and nodded at the guard." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Going to the head.\"\n\n\"Just been, you.\"\n\n\"Going again,\" she said, turning away.\n\n\"Hell you are. Hey!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Naomi pretended to ignore the woman, listening as she scrambled down to come after her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She'd been a model prisoner up to now, and the defiance took Sárta by surprise. Well, it was meant to. The warning sounded again, and the count. Zero g in three." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Two. Naomi put both hands on the doorframe. One." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Up and down vanished, and she pulled her body into a tight curl and exploded out toward Sárta. Both her feet hit the guard in the belly, sending her back through the wide empty air of the room. She grabbed Naomi's left shoe, prying it off as she spun away. It would take her seconds to reach the other side of the room and something to push against." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That was her head start." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sárta was already shouting.\n\nNaomi flipped herself through the hatch, then down the hall, too fast for safety. She had minutes. She had less than minutes. Had she really thought she could pry open a locker, pull on a suit, and cycle the airlock?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The math had worked at the time." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She couldn't imagine it now.\n\nSárta was somewhere behind her, shouting. Raising the alarm. But Naomi was already around the corner. With sight lines broken, Sárta would have to guess where she'd gone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "With luck, it would buy her a few more seconds." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She only needed seconds. She only had them. The crew airlock was closed. She cycled the inner door open, then started pulling at lockers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If someone—anyone—had slipped up. Left one unlocked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The metal clanked and rattled under her fingertips as she tugged and tugged and tugged. Was the umbilical unhooked yet? Were they pulling it in? It seemed like they must be." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There were voices raised from down the hallway." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Men and women shouting. One of them was Sárta. Another one was Cyn. She felt herself sobbing and ignored it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She couldn't fail. She couldn't. Not this time." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not now.\n\nFor a sickening second, she didn't feel the decompression kit at her waist. She slapped the place where it had been pressed against her skin, and it was there. If she could just get a suit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She tried another locker." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her heart skipped as it opened. A simple EVA suit hung there, suspended in the null g by thin bands of elastic. She reached for it.\n\nShe stopped." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They'll know the suit is missing, a small voice said in the back of her mind." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They'll know where you've gone. They'll come after you.\n\nHer breath was heavy and fast, her heart racing. The thing she'd been trying not to think for the last hours came to the front of her mind like an old friend." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fewer than fifty meters." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It isn't far. You can make it.\n\nShe closed the locker. The inner door of the airlock was open now. She launched herself toward it, forcing herself to pant." }, { "from": "human", "value": "To hyperoxygenate. She couldn't tell if the dizziness she felt was from too much oxygen or a kind of existential vertigo." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was really going to do this. Naked in the void. She braced her palms against the outer door of the lock. She expected it to be cold." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That it was the same temperature as any decking seemed wrong." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fifty meters in hard vacuum. Maybe less. Maybe it was possible. She couldn't depressurize first. The long seconds matching the airlock to the outer nothingness would take more time than she had." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She'd have to blow it out." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Full pressure to nothing in a fraction of a second. If she held her breath, it would pop her lungs. She would have to blow herself empty first, let the void into her. All around her heart." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Even if it worked, it would do her damage." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She could handle that.\n\nThe voices were loud and getting louder. Someone shouted, \"Find the fucking bitch!\" Cyn sloped in past the lockers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His eyes widened. Sárta was behind him. Good, she thought." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Perfect. Let them see. The indicator went from green to red under her thumb. Cyn launched across the room with a wordless cry as the inner door started to close." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For a moment, she thought he wouldn't make it, but his hands caught the edge of the door and hauled himself through." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She tried to push him back, but he forced his way in.\n\nThe airlock door closed behind him, the magnetic seals clacking. Naomi held the handhold by the control panel, waiting for him to hit her. To kick. To put her in a chokehold." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The lock was small enough he could put flat palms on both doors." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She couldn't get away from him if he attacked, but he didn't. On the other side of the door, Sárta was shouting. Naomi thumbed the emergency override. Three options appeared: OPEN SHIP DOOR, OPEN OUTER DOOR, RETURN TO CYCLE." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Knuckles, no you hagas eso.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His hands were spread before him, wide and empty. \"Bist bien. Bist bien alles.\"\n\n\"What are you doing?\" Naomi said, surprised to hear the pain in her voice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why did you do that?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Because you my people, yeah? We're Belt. Born on the float. You, me. Alles la.\" Tears were welling up in his eyes, waves sheeting over pupil and iris with no gravity to fight the surface tension. \"We travel so far, vide—uns the promised land. And we go all of us together. Tu y mé y alles.\"\n\n\"You aren't saving me,\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The big man crossed his arms." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then I'm die trying. You're my people. We look out for each other. Take care. Not going to stand by while you die. Won't.\"\n\nShe should have been panting, forcing oxygen into her blood. She should have been flying across the emptiness. Cyn floated, turning slowly clockwise a degree at a time, his lips pressed tight, daring her to deny him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Daring her not to see that she was loved here, that she had family here, that she belonged." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Someone hit the inner door of the lock. The voices were louder. More numerous. Naomi knew she could open the door, but if she did, Cyn wouldn't be the only one going out it. If he'd wanted to, he could have beaten her down by now." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That he hadn't meant he'd chosen not to." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Naomi's heart felt trapped between stones. She couldn't blow the door. She had to. She couldn't kill Cyn. She couldn't save him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Whatever you do now, she thought, you will regret it forever. Seconds passed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Another voice. Filip on the other side of the airlock door. She could hear him shouting, telling her to open the door. He sounded frantic.\n\nHow the hell did she keep getting into these situations?\n\n\"Be strong,\" Cyn said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"For Filipito, be strong.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Okay,\" she said. She pushed her jaw forward in a yawn, opening her throat and her Eustachian tubes. Cyn yelped as she hit OPEN OUTER DOOR. Air tugged at her once, hard, as it evacuated. Adrenaline flooded her blood as she was assaulted invisibly on every square centimeter of flesh." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The breath in her lungs rushed out of her, trying to pull her lungs along with it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Cyn grabbed at the airlock frame to keep himself inside, spun, screaming, was gone.\n\nWith her lungs empty, there was no reserve. She wasn't holding her breath, surviving off the gas held inside her. Someone could hold their breath for a couple minutes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the vacuum, she could make it maybe fifteen seconds unaided." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One thousand one. Naomi shifted, hand over hand, to brace against the inner door and look out. The void was there, the great dome of stars. The Chetzemoka glowed in sunlight brighter than the Earth had ever seen. The umbilical hung to her left, too bright to look at directly and more than halfway retracted." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her ribs ached; her eyes ached." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her diaphragm tugged at her gut, trying to inflate lungs squeezed to knots. If she'd had an EVA suit, it would have had attitude thrusters. Without them, she had one chance and no time to think about it. One thousand two. She launched." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For a moment, she saw Cyn in the corner of her eye, a flicker of pale movement." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The sun was below her, vast and bright. Radiant heat pressed against her throat and face. The Milky Way spread out, arching across the endless sky. Carbon dioxide built up in her blood; she could feel it in the burning drive to breathe." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Chetzemoka grew slowly larger." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One thousand five. Shadows streaked its side, every protrusion and rivet cutting the sunlight into strips of darkness. Everything fell slightly out of focus as her eyes deformed. The stars shifted from diamond points of light to halos to clouds, like the whole universe dissolving. She'd thought it would be silent, but she heard her heartbeat like someone hammering in the next deck." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If I die here, she thought, at least it's beautiful." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This would be a lovely way to die. One thousand eight.\n\nThe lines of the Chetzemoka's airlock became clear enough to make out. Without magnetic boots, she'd have to reach it with bare handholds, but she was close. She was almost there." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The world began to narrow, lights going out in her peripheral vision even as the bright ship grew larger." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Passing out. She was passing out. She plucked the black thumb out of her belt, twisted it to expose the needle, and slammed it into her leg. One thousand ten.\n\nA coldness spread through her, but the colors came back as the sip of hyperoxygenated blood poured through her. An extra bit of breath without having the luxury of breathing out first." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The airlock indicator on the Chetzemoka's skin blinked, the emergency response received, the cycle starting." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The ship loomed up. She was going to hit, and she couldn't afford to bounce. She put her hands out fingers first, and prepared to crumple as she struck. There were handholds on the surface—some were designed, but others were the protrusions of antennae and cameras." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She hit with all the same energy she'd kicked off with, the ship slamming into her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She'd known to expect that. She was ready. Her fingers closed on a handhold. The force of the body wrenched her shoulder and elbow, but she didn't lose her grip. One thousand thirteen.\n\nAcross the gap, the umbilical was in the Pella." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Maneuvering thrusters lit along the warship's side, an ejection mass of superheated water glowing as it jetted out." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Cyn's body—he would have lost consciousness by now—was out there somewhere, but she couldn't see it. He was already lost, and at least Sárta and Filip and maybe others had seen them both. Cyn and Naomi in the airlock without suits, and then gone. Spaced. Dead.\n\nNot dead yet. She had to get moving." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her mind had skipped a fraction of a second." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She couldn't do that. Naomi pulled herself carefully, skimming along centimeters from the skin of the ship. Too fast, and she wouldn't be able to stop. Too slow and she'd pass out before she reached safety." }, { "from": "human", "value": "All she could do was hope there was a golden middle ground." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One thousand...She didn't know anymore. Fifteen? Her whole body was a confusion of pain and animal panic. She couldn't make out the stars at all anymore. The Pella was a blur." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The saliva in her mouth bubbled. Boiled." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A high, thin whine filled her ears, an illusion of sound where no sound was.\n\nA lot of things happen, she thought, vaguely aware she'd said it to someone else, not long ago. Even this. She felt a wave of peace wash over her. Euphoria. It was a bad sign." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The airlock was there, five meters away." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then four. Her mind skipped, and it was flashing past her. She shot out her arm, grabbing for it, and the frame hit her wrist. She clutched for it, snatching the way Cyn had. She was spinning, the impact turning all her forward momentum angular." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But she was over the airlock." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Its pale mouth rose up from under her feet and vanished overhead, and back again, and back again. When she reached out, her hand was actually inside the ship, but she couldn't touch the frame. Couldn't pull herself in. The Pella was drifting away, losing its color as her consciousness began to fade. So close." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She'd come so very close." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Centimeters more, and she might have lived. But space was unforgiving. People died there all the time. The Pella loosed another plume from its maneuvering thrusters, as if in solemn agreement." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Without thinking, she drew up her leg, the spin increasing as she bent tight." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She pulled off the shoe that Sárta hadn't gotten. Her hands felt weird. Clumsy, awkward, more than half numbed. When she stretched back out, the spin slowed to what it had been." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She tried to judge the timing, but too little of her mind was left." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the end, she saw the Pella at the end of a distant and darkening hall and threw the shoe at it as hard as her failing strength allowed.\n\nEjection mass. The spin slowed. Her hands reached farther into the airlock. She was drifting in." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her heel hit the steel frame and the pain was excruciating and very far away. Her mind blinked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had an impression of the airlock control panel, the lights trying to impart some critical information. She couldn't see the colors or the symbols on the pad. Her consciousness faded and was gone.\n\nNaomi woke herself up coughing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The deck was pressing against her face." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She couldn't tell if she was desperately weak or under high burn. The edges of the airlock around her were fuzzy. She coughed again, a deep wet sound. Images of hemorrhaging lungs filled her mind, but the fluid she brought up was clear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her hands were almost unrecognizable as hands." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her fingers were thick as sausages, filled with plasma and fluid. Her skin was too hurt to touch, like a bad sunburn. Her joints ached from her toes to the vertebrae in her neck. Her belly felt like someone had kicked her in the gut a couple dozen times." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She forced a breath." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She could do that. Inhale, exhale. Something gurgled in her lungs. Not blood, though. She told herself it wasn't blood. She rolled onto her side, tucked her legs up, rose to sitting, and then lay back down again as the world swam." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That was more than a g. That had to be more than a g. She couldn't be that weak, could she?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Chetzemoka hummed under her. She realized vaguely that she was hearing words. Voices. A voice. She knew that didn't make sense, but she didn't know why. She pressed her hands to her face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A storm of emotions ran through her—elation, grief, triumph, rage." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her brain wasn't working well enough yet to associate them with anything. They just happened, and she watched and waited and gathered her scattered self together. Her hands and feet started hurting, tortured nerve endings screaming at her. She ignored them. Pain was only pain, after all." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She'd lived through worse." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Next time, she made it to her feet. The little black thumb of the decompression kit was still lodged in her leg. She pulled it out, lifted it to shoulder high, and dropped it. It fell like maybe one and a half, two gs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That was nice. If she'd felt this bad at just one g, she'd have been worried." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She should probably have been worried anyway.\n\nShe cycled the inner door open and stumbled out to the cheap locker room. The lockers hung open, EVA suits hanging in them or scattered on the floor. The air bottles were all gone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The voice—it was just one voice, but her ears seemed to have lost all their treble and left only an incomprehensible soup of bass tones—was familiar." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She thought she should know it. She moved through the abandoned ship. She wondered how long she'd been unconscious, and if there was any way to know where she was, what heading she was on, and how fast she was already traveling.\n\nShe reached a control panel and tried to access the navigation system, but it was locked down." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As was the comm, the system status, the repair and diagnostics." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She laid her forehead against the panel more from exhaustion than despair. The direct contact of bone on ceramic changed the voice, sound conduction through contact, like pressing helmets together and shouting. She knew the voice. She knew the words." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Expand the story by adding 4 sentences." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Arnold Mfume, who wasn't Alex, came out of the crew quarters still drying his hair. When he saw Holden and Foster—the two captains—by the coffee machine, he grimaced.\n\n\"Running a little late there, Mister Mfume,\" Foster Sales said.\n\n\"Yes, sir. Chava just pointed that out to me. I'm on my way.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Coffee?\" Holden said, holding out a freshly brewed bulb." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Little milk, no sugar. Might not be how you take it, but it's ready now.\"\n\n\"I won't say no,\" Mfume said with a fast, nervous smile. Holden couldn't place his accent. Flat vowel sounds and swallowed consonants." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Wherever it came from, it sounded good on him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As Holden handed over the bulb, Foster cleared his throat. \"You know it's a bad habit to be late for your shift.\"\n\n\"I know, sir. I'm sorry, sir. It won't happen again.\"\n\nAnd then, Mfume was gone, bolting up the ladder toward the cockpit faster than the lift would have taken him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Foster sighed and shook his head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's good being young,\" he said, \"but some people wear it better than others.\"\n\nHolden tapped in an order for another coffee. \"I wouldn't want people to judge me by what I did in my twenties. What about you? Can I get you one?\"\n\n\"More of a tea man, myself,\" the other captain said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If that's an option.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't know that I've ever tried.\"\n\n\"No?\"\n\n\"There was always coffee.\"\n\nThe morning meeting had started off as just part of the shakedown." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Between the new crew and the uncertainty surrounding the ship, it had seemed like a good idea for Holden and Foster Sales to touch base with each other, compare notes, make sure that everything was the way it was supposed to be." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The care Foster took to treat the Roci with respect had helped Holden. The new crew wasn't his, and he didn't feel comfortable with them, but they weren't going through the real crew's lockers while no one was looking. And day by day, their presence was growing more familiar. Less strange.\n\nWhen he called down to engineering and Kazantzakis or Ip replied, it didn't seem as wrong anymore." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Finding Sun-yi and Gor wired into gaming goggles shooting the crap out of each other in simulated battles—because as weapons techs with no one to shoot at they were getting antsy—stopped being weird and edged into sort of endearing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Maura Patel was spending her insomniac, sleepless shifts upgrading the tightbeam system. Holden knew it was something Naomi had on her list of projects, but he let Maura do it anyway. And after the long, quiet days in the dock, sleeping in his couch and waking to an empty ship, part of him even appreciated the company. They might be the wrong people, but they were people." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Having guests in his house kept him from descending into his fear and anxiety." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was only putting on a brave face, but it actually made him feel a little braver.\n\n\"Anything else I should be aware of?\" Foster asked.\n\n\"Just I want to know if anything happens with the Razorback or the Pella,\" Holden said. \"Or if we get a message from Earth. Amos Burton or my family, either one.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "As if they were different." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I think you've made that clear to the crew,\" Foster said solemnly, but with a glimmer of amusement in his eye. Probably Holden had made the point a few times. To everyone. The coffee machine chimed and gave Holden a fresh bulb. Foster made his way to the ladder, and then down toward the torpedo bays where Kazantzakis was cleaning things that were already clean." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden waited a few seconds and then headed up to the ops deck." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Chava, coming down, met him, and they did a little awkward no-you-first dance before they got past each other.\n\nFred was in the crash couch that he'd appropriated as his office. The hatch to the cockpit was closed, but Holden could still hear the wailing of the raï that Mfume liked to listen to during his shift in the pilot's seat. Between that and the coffee, he wouldn't be sleeping, but Fred had put headphones on and so didn't hear Holden coming." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The image on his screen was familiar." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Marco Inaros, the self-styled head of the Free Navy and public face of the devastation of Earth. And—Holden tried the thought carefully in case it hurt too much to think it—if Naomi was dead, the man who'd probably killed her. His chest contracted painfully and he pushed the idea away. Thinking about Amos and Naomi was too dangerous." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fred turned sharply, noticing him, and pulled off the headphones." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Holden. How long have you been there?\"\n\n\"Just came up.\"\n\n\"Good. Hate to think I'm getting too feeble to know when there's someone in the room. Everything all right?\"\n\n\"Apart from being in the middle of a system-wide coup with half of my crew missing? Peachy. I mean, I'm not sleeping, and when I do it's nightmares from start to finish, but peachy.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well, it was kind of a stupid question. Sorry about that.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden sat on the couch beside Fred's and leaned in.\n\n\"What do we know about this guy?\"\n\n\"Inaros?\" Fred said. \"He was on my short list of possibilities when the rocks dropped. Not the head of it, but in the top five. He leads a splinter group of high-poverty Belters. The kind of people who live in leaky ships and post screeds about taxation being theft. I've spoken to him a time or two, usually to deescalate a situation he wanted to set on fire.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You think he's the one behind it all?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fred sat back, his couch gimbals hissing as they shifted. From the headphones, Holden could hear the man's voice even over the murmurs of raï—\"We will begin again and remake humanity without the corruption, greed, and hatred that the inner planets could not transcend...\"\n\nFred grunted and shook his head. \"I don't see it. Inaros is charismatic. And he's smart. Watching his press release, he certainly thinks he's in charge, but he'd have to. The man's a first-rate narcissist and a sadist besides. He'd never knowingly share power with anyone if he could help it. This level of organization? Of coordination? It seems beyond his reach.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How so?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fred gestured toward the screen. The light from it glowed in his eyes; tiny images of Inaros giving his salute. \"It doesn't feel right. He's the kind of man who carries a lot of weight in a small circle. Playing at this scale isn't what he does best. He isn't a bad tactician, and the timing of the attacks was showy in a way that seems like he was likely behind them. And he's charming at the negotiating table. But...\"\n\n\"But?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But he's not a first-class mind, and this is a first-class operation. I don't know how to put it better than that. My gut says that even if he's taking credit for it, he has a handler.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What would your gut have said before the rocks dropped?\"\n\nFred coughed out a laugh. \"That he was an annoyance and a small-time player. So yes, it may just be sour grapes on my part. I'd rather think I was outplayed by someone who's a genius at something grander than self-mythologizing.\"\n\n\"Do you have any idea why Naomi would be on his ship?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fred's gaze shifted from the hazy middle distance of thought to directly on Holden." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Is that someplace we want to go right now?\"\n\n\"Do you?\"\n\n\"I don't. But I can speculate. Naomi is a Belter, and what I know of her says she grew up in the same circles as Inaros and his crew. I have to assume they crossed paths before and had some unfinished business. Maybe they were on the same side, maybe they were enemies, maybe both. But not neither.\"\n\nHolden leaned forward, elbows on his knees." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As general as they were, as gently as he'd said them, the words were like little hammer blows. He swallowed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Holden. Everyone has a past. Naomi was a grown woman when you met her. You didn't think she'd popped out of the packaging right when you set eyes on her, did you?\"\n\n\"No, of course not. Everyone on the Canterbury was there because they had a reason. Including me. It's just if there was something big, like 'part of a cabal that went on to destroy Earth' big, I don't know why she wouldn't have told me.\"\n\n\"Did you ask?\"\n\n\"No. I mean, she knew that I was interested. That she could tell me whatever she wanted to tell me. I figured if she didn't want to, that was up to her.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And now you're upset that she didn't. So what changed? Why are you entitled to know things now that you weren't entitled to know before?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The raï from the cockpit paused, silence filling the ops deck. On Fred's screen, the playback had reached the split circle as it faded to white. \"I may,\" Holden said, \"be a small, petty person. But if I'm going to lose her, I at least need to know why.\"\n\n\"We'll see if we can't put you in a position to ask her yourself,\" Fred said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The music from the cockpit kicked in again, and Fred scowled up at the hatch." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If it's any comfort, I think we have a chance. I don't think it'll be long before he's ready to open negotiations.\"\n\n\"No?\" Holden said. It was such a thin sliver of hope, but he felt himself jumping to it all the same.\n\n\"No. He got the jump on us tactically. I will absolutely give him that. But the next part is where he has to actually consolidate and hold power. That's not tactics. That's strategy, and I don't see anything in him that leads me to think he has a handle on that.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I do.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fred waved a hand like Holden's words had been smoke and he was clearing the air. \"He's playing a short-run game. Yes, his stock's high right now, and probably will be for a little while. But he's standing in the way of the gates. All of this is to stop people from going out and setting up colonies. But the hunger is already out there. Smith couldn't stop Mars from depopulating itself. Avasarala couldn't put the brakes on the process, and God knows she tried. Marco Inaros thinks he can do it at the end of a gun, but I don't see it working. Not for long. And he doesn't understand fragility.\"\n\n\"You mean Earth?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Fred said. \"It's the blind spot of being a Belter. I've seen it over and over in the past few decades. There's a faith in the technology. In the idea of maintaining an artificial ecosystem. We're able to grow food on Ganymede, so they think humanity's freed from the bonds of Earth. They don't think about how much work we had to do for those crops to grow. The mirrors to concentrate the sun, the genetic modifications to the plants. The process of learning to build rich soil out of substrate and fungus and full-spectrum lights. And backstopping all of that, the complexity of life on Earth. And now these new worlds... well I don't have to tell you how much less hospitable they are than it says on the box. Once it becomes clear that he's got it wrong—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He doesn't, though,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yeah, okay, the ecological part maybe he hasn't thought all the way through, but when it comes to the Belt, he isn't wrong. Look at all the people who just pulled up stakes and headed out for the rings. Ilus or New Terra or whatever the hell you want to call it? It's a terrible, terrible planet, and there are people living on it. All those colony ships that left Mars to go try terraforming a place that's already got air and a magnetosphere? A lot of those people are really, really smart. Even now, just now, you said how the pressure to get out to the new systems is more than this guy expects or is prepared for. That means he's doomed, maybe. But that doesn't make him wrong. We have to make him be wrong.\"\n\n\"You think I don't know that?\" Fred said. \"What I was doing with Medina Station would have—\"\n\n\"Would have made a place for all the people living on Medina Station. But asteroid prospectors? Water haulers? The crews that are barely eking by? Those are who Marco's talking to, and he's right because no one else is taking them into account. Not even you. They're looking at the future, and they're seeing that no one needs them anymore. Everything they do will be easier in a gravity well, and they can't go there. We have to make some kind of future that has a place for them in it. Because unless we do, they have literally nothing to lose. It's all already gone.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The system chimed and Maura's voice came over the speakers. \"Captain Holden, sir?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm here,\" Holden said, still looking at Fred's angry scowl. \"And aren't you supposed to be off shift, Mister Patel?\"\n\n\"I am off shift, sir. But I couldn't sleep, so I was running some diagnostics. But Captain Sales said you wanted an alert if the situation changed with the Razorback and its pursuers?\"\n\nHolden's mouth flooded with the metallic taste of fear. \"What's going on?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We're getting reports that the Free Navy ships have broken off, sir. The UN forces are still half a day out, but the thought is the Free Navy vessels are trying to steer well clear of any large-scale confrontation.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The Pella?\" Holden said.\n\n\"With the Free Navy fleet, sir, but when they made the course change, a civilian ship broke off from the grouping, turning the other way. It's got a lot of inertia to overcome, but unless it changes its acceleration profile, it looks to be on a course that will bring it within a million klicks of us.\"\n\n\"That's not accidental,\" Fred said.\n\n\"It isn't, sir,\" Maura said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The vessel's registered at the Chetzemoka, and it's broadcasting a message on loop. Message follows.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden's knuckles hurt and he forced himself to relax his fists. Naomi's voice filled the ops deck, and it was like being on the verge of passing out from dehydration and being handed a glass of water. As dire as the message was, Holden still felt every syllable untying his knots. When Naomi's message was done, he fell back in his couch, limp as a rag." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She was in trouble, but it was trouble they could fix." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was on her way back toward him.\n\n\"Thank you, Mister Patel,\" Holden said. \"In thanks, you may now have all my stuff. I don't care about any of it anymore.\"\n\n\"Including the coffee maker, sir?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Almost all my stuff.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When Fred spoke, his voice was hard. Sharp. Unrelieved. \"Mister Patel, what relief ships are in the vicinity?\"\n\n\"Transponder data shows nothing, sir. The inner system's been pretty much shut down. UN order.\"\n\nHolden rolled to his side and called up a connection to Mfume." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Music blared out of the console." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mixed with the sounds filtering through the deck, it made the ops deck seem larger than it was. \"Mfume!\" Holden shouted, and then a few seconds later, \"Mister Mfume!\"\n\nThe music turned down, but not off. \"Sir?\"\n\n\"I need you to take a look at the flight path for the Chetzemoka. See what it's going to take to match orbits with her.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What ship?\" Mfume said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The Chetzemoka,\" Holden said. \"Just check the newsfeeds. It'll be there. Let me know what you figure out as quickly as you possibly can. Like now would be good.\"\n\n\"I'm on it,\" Mfume said, and the music turned off both on the console and from the hatch. Holden took a deep breath, then another, then laughed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The relief wasn't an emotion." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was too physical and profound for that. It was a state of being. It was a drug that poured invisibly through his veins. He started laughing and it turned into a moan that sounded like pain, or else pain's aftermath." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fred clicked his tongue against his teeth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So. If I were to suggest that we not rendezvous with that ship?\"\n\n\"I would be happy to let you and your friends off anywhere between here and there,\" Holden said. \"Because unless you've decided to turn to piracy and throw me out the airlock, that ship is where we're going.\"\n\n\"I thought as much,\" Fred said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Can we at least agree to be careful approaching it?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden felt a little bubble of rage rise up in him. He wanted to shout at Fred, to punish him for taking this moment and soiling it with doubt. With the possibility that it was a trap and not Naomi coming home at last. Holden took the great glowing sense of release and tried to put it aside and his anger with it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes,\" he said. \"You're right. It could be a trap.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It may not be,\" Fred said. \"I hope it isn't. But...\"\n\n\"But we're living in interesting times,\" Holden said. \"It's okay. I get it. I'll be careful. We'll be careful. But if it is her, and she really is in trouble, she's my first priority. That's just the way it is.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I know,\" Fred said, and the way he said it meant I know, and everyone who knows anything about you does too." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Which is why you should be careful.\n\nHolden turned to the monitor and pulled up the nav data. As he watched, Mfume laid in the course that would get him to Naomi. Or whatever else was on that ship." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fred's seed of doubt had already taken root." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He didn't know whether to be grateful or resent the old man. Between the distances and their respective velocities, it looked like it would be tricky. Naomi had been burning hard toward Earth, and the speed the Chetzemoka had built up was almost all in the wrong direction to reach him. If it wasn't a trap and Naomi was in trouble, he could still be too late." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Expand the story by adding 4 sentences." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The worst thing was not knowing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The newsfeeds were awash with information, but very little of it matched up. Four billion were dead on Earth. Or seven. The ash and vapor that had turned the blue marble to white was starting to thin already—much sooner than the models predicted. Or the surface of the Earth wouldn't see daylight and blue skies for years." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was the dawn of a resurgence of natural flora and fauna driven by the human dieback or it was the final insult that would crash a perennially overstressed ecosystem." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Three more colony ships had been captured on their way to the ring gate and turned back or boarded and the crews spaced, or else seven had, or it was only one. Ceres Station's announcement that Free Navy ships could use the docks was a provocation or a proof that the OPA was unified or the station administration was giving in to fear. All around the system, ships were turning off their transponders, and the systems for visual tracking of the exhaust plumes were getting dusted off and reprogrammed in languages that contemporary systems could parse. Alex told himself it was temporary, that in a few months, maybe a year, everyone would run with transponders again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That the Earth would be the center of human civilization and culture." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That he would be back on the Roci with Holden and Naomi and Amos.\n\nHe told himself that, but he was getting less and less persuasive. Not knowing was the worst thing. The second-worst thing was being chased by a bunch of top-of-the-line warships that really wanted to kill you." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the display, one of their escort missiles went from green to amber to flashing red." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Shit,\" Bobbie said. \"Lost one.\"\n\n\"It's all right. We've got plenty more.\"\n\nIn the past hours, the Pella and her pack had come up with the bright idea of coordinating their comm lasers to hit a particular missile and then pumping energy into it until the controls overheated. The missiles failed inert, or they would have figured the enemy strategy out when the escorting cloud had cooked off in a massive chain reaction." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Instead, they'd lost four missiles in half an hour and put together what was happening." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bobbie and the Razorback's antiquated and underpowered system had designed a rolling pattern formation for the missiles that kept any one of them from being in an uninterrupted sightline for more than a few seconds at a time. Watching it on the cameras reminded Alex of documentaries he'd seen about deep sea fish on Earth, vast schools roiling and yet staying together. Only for him, it was their little group of remaining missiles.\n\nEver since the announcement by the Free Navy, the prime minister had been back in the cabin, using their own tightbeam for what sounded like a hundred furious conversations that all seemed to have the same timbre." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alex couldn't quite make out all the words and he made conscious effort not to listen in case someone asked later what he knew." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But the phrases not substantiated and significant failure and still investigating all came through enough times that Alex started to recognize them, kind of like hearing a song often enough that the lyrics became clearer.\n\nHis monitor was divided between a large-scale map of the solar system highlighting the parts of it critical to him—the Razorback, the UN military escort burning out to meet them, the Rocinante, the Pella and its pack, Tycho Station, Mars, Earth, Luna—and a smaller inset that was the Razorback's internal systems diagnostics. The little pinnace hadn't been intended for full interplanetary travel, and with Earth and Mars where they were, they were going to be cutting it pretty close. The reactor had enough fuel pellets to burn for months, but once they ran out of ejection mass, the drive wouldn't do them much good." }, { "from": "human", "value": "So far, they were still inside the error bars." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Which, for him, meant that even if they ran out, they'd be going slow enough that someone could come throw a tether on them. Rescued by professionals was still firmly in his win column.\n\nThe navigation system threw an alert to his monitor. He opened it.\n\n\"What've you got?\" Bobbie asked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The Pella and her little friend there cut their drives again,\" Alex said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And... Hey! I think... Some of the ships are peeling off. I think they're giving up!\"\n\nBobbie whooped and Smith stopped his conversation in the back long enough to come see what was going on. By the time Alex had explained it all, the Pella had its drive on too, and was turning with the others. Not a full flip-and-burn, but a kind of fishtail slide that kept a good fraction of their momentum while still setting them on a course for the Belt and, give or take a few million kilometers, the Jovian system." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Chetzemoka peeled off in the opposite direction." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Whatever mission the Pella was on, it was leaving the Razorback behind.\n\nA tension Alex hadn't been consciously aware of started to evaporate along with Bobbie's occasional whoops and laughter. The UN escort force checked in. The solar flares weren't even coming close to intersecting with their path." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Razorback's heat sinks were coping with the radiant heat well enough." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alex let himself relax.\n\nIt lasted almost half an hour.\n\n\"This is Naomi Nagata of the Rocinante. If you get this message, please retransmit. Tell James Holden I am in distress. Comm is not responding. I have no nav control. Please retransmit...\"\n\nAnd then forty minutes after that:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Alex, since you're in the neighborhood and it went so well the last time I asked you to check out a mystery ship, I was wondering if you'd be interested in making a little detour. I'm having my temporary pilot figure out a fast burn that will get me to Naomi, but you're closer and you're going in nearly the same direction. There's a chance this is the bad guys trying to trick us, so keep your eyes open. If it is Naomi, though, make sure she's still breathing when I get there. Let me know what you think.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alex's jaw was clenched hard enough his teeth ached. He already knew what Bobbie was going to say, so instead of starting the conversation, he started quietly feeding data into the nav system and seeing what options were open depending on how hard he wanted to burn and how much fuel he had left, and what telemetry said about the little ship and the convoy it broke off from. The wall screens were set to mimic the exterior view, so when he looked up from the navigation data, he could pick out the dot of light that was her drive plume. He also pulled up an audio feed matched to the broadcast from it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"This is Naomi Nagata of the Rocinante. If you get this message, please retransmit...\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He could feel the disapproval radiating up from behind him. Bobbie didn't say anything at first, didn't even make a grunt or a noise. It didn't matter. Alex knew. When she finally did speak, it was almost a relief to have it out in the open." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What are you doing there, sailor?\" Bobbie asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Figuring the best way to go after Naomi.\"\n\n\"Any reason you're doing it?\"\n\n\"Because we're going after Naomi.\"\n\n\"We're almost at the flip part of the flip-and-burn. Any course changes we make are going to eat up a lot of fuel.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alex didn't look back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Just gestured at the screen. \"The way I figure, that's a distress call. We logged it. We're obligated to stop.\"\n\n\"Don't,\" Bobbie said.\n\n\"That's the rules.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't throw the rule book at me. We've got a mission here. I don't like it any more than you do, but we need to stand our post. We've got orders.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alex's jaw hurt worse. He tried yawning to stretch the ache away. It didn't work. He turned his crash couch to face her. With her helmet off and her hair pulled back in a tight, functional ponytail, her head seemed small." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The power armor was still locked in place, hands in fists against each side of the ship." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If she decided to disable him and take command of the pinnace, she was just going to win. Also, he needed to keep in mind that she was jerry-rigged in place, and probably couldn't actually take a really high-g burn without coming loose.\n\n\"We do,\" he said. \"We've got orders. But you've got orders from Nate and Avasarala, and I absolutely respect how you look out for both of those. But I got orders from my captain, and the watch I need to stand is over that way and getting farther from us.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You're not thinking with your head,\" Bobbie said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Look at the risk profile, Alex, because if we go, we're taking a risk. If we win, we get Naomi Nagata out of trouble. If we lose, the leader of one of the most important political organizations in the human race dies at a time when unity and leadership is critically important. No, stop. I know what you're thinking. I've thought it too, just about some other people. Naomi's yours. She's one of the people in your circle, and fuck if you're going to risk her, much less sacrifice her for some kind of vague greater good, right?\"\n\nAlex closed his mouth, paused. \"Right.\"\n\n\"I understand that,\" Bobbie said. \"I do. I had to train a lot to understand that isn't what we do. You had that training too. Whether we're on active duty or not doesn't matter. We serve Mars because we swore an oath. If doing the right thing was the same as doing the easy thing, we wouldn't have had to swear. We have the prime minister of Mars in this ship. We have a military escort coming to get him safely to Luna.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And we have the enemy out there,\" Alex said, hating the words as he said them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's a trap, isn't it?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" Bobbie said. \"It could be. Disable someone and shoot the responders is a dirty trick, but I wouldn't put it past these bastards.\"\n\n\"I don't see how going after her would put us in more danger than holding course,\" Alex said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If they've got a rail gun pointing at us, they can hole us right here just as well as over there.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Trojan horse,\" Bobbie said. \"Pack that thing full of soldiers. If we dock with her, all these missiles aren't going to help a damned bit. Or if the Rocinante gets to it, they take Fred Johnson.\"\n\n\"The odds of—\"\n\n\"Don't think about the odds,\" Bobbie said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Think about the stakes. Think how much we lose if we take the risk and it goes wrong.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alex's head felt thick, like the first stages of illness. He looked back at his nav panel. The distance between the Razorback and Chetzemoka increased with every second. He took a deep breath, blew out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Naomi's voice came softly from the feed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Tell James Holden I am in distress. Comm is not responding. I have no nav control...\"\n\nThe voice that came from the cabin space was soft, gentle, conversational. \"An interesting analysis, but incomplete.\"\n\nNathan Smith stood in the doorway." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His hair was greasy and disarrayed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His clothes looked like they'd been slept in. His eyes were bloodshot, the rims red and angry. Alex thought he looked a decade older than when they'd taken off. The prime minister smiled at Alex, then Bobbie, then Alex again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Sir,\" Bobbie said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You've neglected a term, Sergeant. Consider what we stand to lose if we don't make the attempt.\"\n\n\"The reason for doing this,\" Alex said. \"The reason for doing any of this. If there's a chance—and I think there's a pretty damned good one—that Naomi managed her own escape, and she's out there and in distress, and she's called for help, you know what the rules are? That we stop and help. Even if she's not someone we know. Even if it was someone else's voice. That's the rule, because out here, we help each other. And if we stopped doing that because we're more important or because the rules don't apply to us anymore, I can make a decent case that we've stopped being the good guys.\"\n\nSmith beamed. \"That was beautiful, Mister Kamal. I had been thinking of explaining to Chrisjen Avasarala that we'd left our only solid witness to the Pella behind, but I think I like your version better. Set course and alert the UN escort to our change of plans.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, sir,\" Alex said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When the door closed, he turned to Bobbie. \"Sorry.\"\n\n\"Don't be,\" Bobbie said. \"It's not like I didn't want to go after her.\"\n\n\"And if it turns out the ship's full of soldiers?\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "The user will write a bit then you need to write around 4 sentences continuing directly from the user's text. Try to mimic the style of James S. A. Corey.Produce 4 sentences using the prose and structure of James S. A. Corey every time its your turn using what the user wrote as a seed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Even a steady one g could be unpleasant for her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The constant press of two was a slow torture. It began as a deep ache in her knees and the base of her spine, then progressed quickly to sharp pain, like a needle stuck into the joints. Naomi surveyed the Chetzemoka in stages, moving through a deck, then lying down until the pain lessened, then the next deck. Her hands and feet hurt even as the swelling subsided." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her cough didn't get better, but it didn't get worse." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The first disappointment was that the controls were in lockdown. She tried a few passwords—FreeNavy and Marcoisgreat and Filip—but even if she got it right, there was no reason to expect that they'd left the biometrics profiles turned off.\n\nThe lockers by the airlock hung open and empty. The three EVA suits that remained didn't have batteries or air bottles." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The emergency rations were gone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She expected the toolboxes to be gone from the machine shop, but they'd taken out the racks that held them too, the drawers from the cabinets, the LEDs from the wall lights. The crash couches were all slit open, gel and padding pooled on the deck beside them. The drug delivery system and reservoirs were gone. The only water was in the drives; ejection mass to be spit out the back of the ship." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The only food was the residue in the recyclers that hadn't been processed back into anything edible." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The stink of welding rigs and burning still hung in the air, so the air recycler was probably running unfiltered.\n\nNaomi lay on the deck, her head resting on her hands, and her eyes closed. The ship had been constructed for one use and as an insurance write-off. Its working life had begun with it being disposable, and it had been looted from there." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Even the physical panels and monitors had been salvaged and carried away." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As presents to Filip went, it was actually pretty crappy. The deck shook under her, the vibration of thrust setting up resonances that no system even tried to damp down. Between the high g and the vacuum damage leaking fluid into her lungs, breathing took more effort than it should have.\n\nThe ship wasn't a ship." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She needed to stop thinking of it that way." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was a bomb. It was what she'd done to the Augustín Gamarra years ago and had carried with her ever since like a weight around her throat. Jim had known the kind of person that landed on water haulers like the Canterbury. He'd said that everyone there had reasons for being there." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There were reasons the ship she'd tried to give to her son was stripped empty and triggered to kill." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not just her but anyone who came close to her. There were reasons. If she could defuse it, undo the threat, then she could follow it back, though. Take it to Ceres, where it had all started. There should be a way through the machine shop." }, { "from": "human", "value": "All machine shops were supposed to be connected at the back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She reached out her hands, only they weren't her hands. She was dreaming. She forced her eyes open and rolled to her back with an exhausted sob.\n\nOkay. If she stopped moving now, she was going to sleep. That was good to know." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She sat up, rested her head against the wall. Sleep later." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sleep when you're dead. Or even better, sleep when you're safe. She grinned to herself. Safe. That sounded like a good plan." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She should try that for a change." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She balled her hands into tight fists. The joints all screamed in pain, but when she opened them, her fingers moved better. That was probably a metaphor for something.\n\nShe had to set priorities." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She didn't have a lot of resources." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If she just grabbed at the first idea that came to her, it would be easy to exhaust herself without getting the critical work done. She needed to get food and water and make sure the air supply was reliable. She needed to warn anyone coming to save her not to approach. She needed to disarm the trap." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Maybe dump core, maybe replace the drivers with a copy that didn't carry her poisoned code." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And she needed to do it before the ship blew up. At two g. Without tools or access to the controls. Or... was that right? Access to the controls was going to be hard, but she should be able to improvise some tools." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The EVA suits weren't powered and didn't have bottles, but they had seals and reinforcement." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She could take the cloth apart, and salvage some lengths of wire. Maybe something solid enough to cut with. And could she use the helmet clamps as a kind of vise grip or clamp? She wasn't sure.\n\nEven if she could, what would that gain her?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"More than you've got now,\" she said aloud." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her voice reverberated in the empty space.\n\nAll right. Step one, make tools. Step two, drop core. Or warn anyone coming in." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She stood up and forced herself back to the airlock lockers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Five hours later, she was on the ship's perfunctory little engineering deck, sealing the hatch manually. Two of the EVA suits had given up what little they had to offer to make a tiny, sketchy tool kit. Doing anything with the controls had failed. So she could be a rat in a box, or she could take out the middleman." }, { "from": "human", "value": "After all, the controls all connected to machinery, and the machinery—some of it—was where she could put her hands on it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The space between the hulls was in vacuum, and she didn't have any great faith that the outer hull was actually sealed. The one remaining suit held about five minutes' worth of air without a bottle and she could set the radio to passive and pick up the faintest echo of her own voice making the false message with the residual charge in the wires. The lock that should have let her get into and out of the maintenance access had been hauled off as salvage, but she could turn the full engineering deck into a makeshift airlock. Close the hatch to the rest of the ship, force the access panel into the space between hulls." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She budgeted two minutes to locate something useful—a power repeater she could sabotage to force the drive to shut down, the wiring for the comm system, an unsecured console that was talking to the computers—then two minutes to get back out." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Thirty seconds to close and seal the maintenance panel and pop the engineering hatch. She'd lose a roomful of air every time, but she'd only lose a roomful.\n\nShe put on the helmet and checked the seals, then opened the access panel. It fought her at first, then gave all at once." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She thought she felt a rush of escaping air go past her, but it was probably her imagination." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Twenty seconds already gone. She crawled into the vacuum between the hulls. The darkness was so complete, it was like closing her eyes. She tapped the suit's controls, but no beam of light came from them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She backed out, closed the access panel, opened the hatch, and took off her helmet." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Light,\" she said to the empty space. \"Going to need some light.\"\n\nThe monitor hung from wires, asking for her password. It just fit past the lip of the access panel, and filled the space between the hulls with light so dim, she couldn't see colors in it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Shadows of struts and spars made deeper darkness all around, and shapes she couldn't make sense of." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had forty-five seconds before she had to head back. It was the fifth time she'd been down trying to scrape through the coating on the wires. In a real ship, it would all have been protected by conduit. On this piece of crap, the wiring had all been fixed directly to the hull with a layer of yellowed silicone epoxy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "On the one hand, it was a blessing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On the other, she was horrified that she'd ever trusted her life to the ship. If she'd inspected between the hulls before they left Ceres, she'd have been sleeping in an environment suit the whole way to the Pella.\n\nThe coating peeled free. Thirty seconds. She took a bit of salvaged wire and shorted the circuit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A fat spark leaped out and the world lurched." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Across the space, maybe four meters away, an indicator light went amber, and she was falling sideways. With the extra illumination, she could see the round, tree-thick body of the maneuvering thruster. She put out her arms, catching herself against a steel strut. When she pressed her helmet to it, the rumble of the drive drowned out the ghost-quiet radio." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She reached for the wire, broke the connection, and the rumble stopped." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Out of time, she turned back, her head swimming. The ship was spinning, then. She had no way to know how quickly, but the Coriolis was enough to make her stumble on the way back.\n\nWith the panel closed, the hatch open, and her helmet off again, she sat still until her balance came close to returning." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then, moving carefully, drunkenly, she scratched the new information on the wall." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was developing a crude map of the ship's secret interior and keeping track of all she learned. She was tired enough not to trust her memory. From the count she'd started, she knew she'd been on thirty sorties. Now, for the first time, she'd done something." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was only one thruster, but the ship was spinning now, tumbling in circles instead of burning ahead in a line." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All the acceleration would be bled into the changing angular momentum, and she wouldn't be going toward Jim as quickly. So maybe she'd bought a little time. It would make things harder for her, but she'd grown up in the Belt and on ships. Coriolis—and coping with the sick dizziness—was nothing new to her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She knew that the feeling of power and accomplishment she felt was out of scale with what she'd actually managed, but she grinned all the same." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Thirty sorties. Two and a half hours just of time spent in vacuum. That didn't count the minutes refreshing the air in her suit or planning out the next run. Maybe five hours total since she'd started this. She was exhausted. She felt it in her muscles and the pain in her joints." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She hadn't eaten—couldn't eat." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was thirsty with the first strains of a dehydration headache coming on. There was no reason to think she would survive this. So she was surprised to notice that she was happy. Not the powerful, irrational, and dangerous joy of a euphoric attack, but a kind of pleasure and release all the same." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At first, she thought it was because there wasn't anyone there with her, guarding her, judging her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And that, she decided, was part of it. But more than that, she was simply doing what needed to be done without having to concern herself about what anyone else thought. Even Jim. And wasn't that odd? She wanted nothing in the world more than for Jim to be there—followed by Amos and Alex and a good meal and a bed at a humane gravity—but there was a part of her that was also expanding into the silence of simply being herself and utterly alone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There were no dark thoughts, no guilt, no self-doubt tapping at the back of her mind." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Either she was too tired for that, or something else had happened to her while she'd been paying attention to other things.\n\nThis was the difference, she thought, between solitude and isolation. And now she knew something about herself she hadn't known before. It was an unexpected victory, and all the better for that." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She started getting ready for the thirty-first sortie." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had almost a minute, because she'd figured out that coming up the comm array power supply took a lot longer than it did going back down. It was the sort of thing she'd have realized much more quickly if her mind hadn't been a little on the compromised side.\n\nThe comm system was held in place by more than epoxy. Long strips of metal tape lashed the transmitter in place, the welds still bright as if they'd been made yesterday." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Three sorties ago—number forty-four—she'd thought there might be a diagnostic handset." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not that she could speak into it, but she might have been able to tap out a message. But despite the fact that handsets like that were standard and required, there wasn't one.\n\nIt had taken her some time to put together a backup plan.\n\nFor hours, the looped message had played in her ear, whispering on the back of residual charge." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"This is Naomi Nagata of the Rocinante. If you get this message, please retransmit. Tell James Holden I am in distress. Comm is not responding. I have no nav control. Please retransmit...\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Thirteen seconds long, and barely louder than the sound of her breath, even with her head less than a meter from the transmitter. With the leads to the transmitter exposed, she was ready. She'd have four times through. It had to be enough that it wouldn't be mistaken for random interference." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She pressed her head to the hull to distract from the whirling of her inner ear." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This is Naomi Nagata,\" she said, matching the timing and cadence of her false self. \"If you get this message, please retransmit. Tell James Holden I am in—\" She slammed the wire onto the exposed leads. A shiver of electricity bit her fingertips even through the suit's gloves. The radio was silent, but she kept mouthing the words, replaying them like a song stuck in her head until the right moment, then yanked the wire free \"—control. Please retransmit. This is Naomi Nagata of the Rocinante. If you get this message, please retransmit. Tell James Holden I am in—\" Cut, pause. \"—control. Please retransmit.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "After the fourth time, she took the length of steel spring she'd been using as a knife and cut the transmitter." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her false voice went dead. She scrambled down, moving from strut to strut, watching her hands and feet with every movement so she wouldn't misjudge. The acceleration gravity made her ankles and wrists feel unstable. The air in her suit didn't feel stale or close; the carbon dioxide scrubbers worked well enough on passive that she wouldn't feel the panic of asphyxiation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She'd just gently pass out and die." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She ducked into the engineering deck, closed the access panel. On the way to the hatch, her knee buckled. She popped the hatch open, ripped off her helmet, and sank down, gasping. Her vision narrowed, bright sparkles filling in her peripheral vision." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She dry heaved once, paused, did it again, and let her body's weight sink deep into the deck below her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tell James Holden I'm in control for some really broad definition of control, she thought and laughed. Then coughed until her ribs hurt even worse. Then laughed again.\n\nAt her seventy-first sortie, she hit the wall. It wasn't subtle. She had closed the hatch to the main body of the ship, closed the seals, and put her helmet onto the environment suit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Before she fixed it into place and started the next five-minute count, her hands dropped to her sides." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She hadn't consciously intended to do that; it had just happened. Alarmed in a vague, distant kind of way, she sat on the deck with her back against the wall and tried moving them. If she'd just become paralyzed or something, that would change the situation. Give her permission to stop." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But her hands still flexed; her shoulders still moved." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was just exhausted. Even the effort to swallow seemed heroic. She closed her eyes, wondering if she'd instantly fall asleep, but she was too weary for that. So she sat.\n\nIf the suit had a battery, it would probably be cataloging the failures of her body right now." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The dehydration headache was worse now, and moving in toward nausea." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her skin felt raw where the unshielded sun had burned her. Though she wasn't producing as much, she was still coughing. And she figured her blood was probably about equal parts plasma and fatigue poisons by now.\n\nHer two little victories—the thruster, the transmitter—had been the end." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Since then, either her efforts had degraded or things had genuinely gotten more complicated, or both." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The repeaters that would cause the core to shut down had either been omitted in the build or were tucked someplace that couldn't be reached from between the hulls. The sensor array that would trigger the bottle failure when a rescue ship got too close would have been a lovely thing to access, but it appeared to be mounted on the exterior where she couldn't get to it. There were half a dozen places she could have tried tapping into the computer system, but none of them had interfaces, and she didn't have any she could bring. Other plans and strategies flickered through her mind from time to time like fireflies." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Some of them might have been good." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She couldn't keep hold of them long enough to say.\n\nShe might have slept or the timeless skipping might just have been how her brain worked now. The voice she heard was just a whisper fainter than her own voice had been, but it snapped her back to herself.\n\n\"Hey there, Chetzemoka. This is Alex Kamal presently of the Razorback. Naomi? If you're there, I'd appreciate you giving me a sign. I'd sort of like to make sure it's you before we come over. Your ship's been acting a mite odd, and we're a little on the jumpy side. And, just in case it's not Naomi Nagata? I've got fifteen missiles locked on you right now, so whoever you are, you might want to talk with me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't,\" she said, knowing he couldn't hear her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Stay away. Stay away.\"\n\nEverything hurt. Everything whirled. Nothing was easy. When she got to her feet, her head swam. She was afraid she was going to pass out, but if she bent over, she wasn't sure she'd have the strength to stand back up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She had to find a way to wave him off." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had to keep him from getting close enough to be caught in the blast. Whether it saved her life or not didn't matter. She'd had her good day. It was more than she'd expected, and she was so deeply weary..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Breathing hard, she opened the engineering hatch for the last time and stumbled for the lift." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your next one should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And after the lift, the airlock." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "I'll be your writing partner today. I will set the scene, and you will continue the story with 4 sentences, channeling the voice and techniques of James S. A. Corey.i'll kick things off by writing a bit, then you'll take over and write the next 4 sentences in the distinctive voice of James S. A. Corey.Ive got a bit of writers block, im gonna send you something then keep it going 4 sentences at a time, also im going for a James S. A. Corey sorta thing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Even though it was strictly local, running off the Zhang Guo's system, it was nice having working hand terminals again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amos lay on a support wedged in the narrow space between the hulls. The rest of his work team was only the soft clanging of magnetic clamps and the gentle, soothing smell of a welding torch. The meter he had clipped to the power line was at zero.\n\n\"Now?\" Peaches said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Nothing.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A couple seconds passed.\n\n\"Now?\"\n\n\"Nothing.\"\n\nAnother second. The meter chirped, the indicator going from zero to eighty-nine. Amos grinned." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's it, Peaches. I'm a little shy of ninety.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Locking that in,\" she said, and even though the hand terminals were set for audio, he knew she was smiling. He plucked the meter free and sprayed sealant over the holes he'd made for the leads. \"Erich? If you're there, we're ready for another run.\"\n\n\"Of course I'm here,\" Erich said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Where would I go? Starting the diagnostics run now. You two go stretch your legs or something.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amos whistled once between his teeth, the shrill echo making the sound seem larger. \"I'm taking a break. You guys get that conduit open, just wait for me. Don't try to do something smart.\"\n\nThere was a rough clatter of agreement as he swung out and up, climbing to the access panel with the handholds and the structural supports. The B-team wasn't much by way of help, but they could do some of the time-consuming easy stuff while Amos and Peaches and Erich made the Zhang Guo skyworthy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "So far, it had been as much cleaning up the servants' half-assed attempts to fix the ship as it had been finding why she'd been grounded in the first place." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As showy as the ship was, her internal design was pretty nearly off-the-shelf. On the engineering deck, Amos dug up a cleaning rag and wiped the hardening shell of sealant off his fingers and wrist. Where it was thinnest, it was already solid, coming away from his skin like the shell off a shrimp.\n\nBoth doors of the airlock were open, and a portable stairway led down to the hangar floor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The windows were still dark, and a filthy, gritty rain tapped against the panes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The air smelled of ozone and cold, and Amos' breath ghosted. The overhead LEDs cast a harsh light, cutting shadows so distinct they looked fake. Stokes and the other household servants were clustered against one wall, clutching bags and hard cases and talking anxiously among themselves. Butch leaned against one wall, her hand to her ear in an attitude of concentration." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Amos watched her as he came down the stairs." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The woman radiated a sense of barely restrained violence. Amos had known a lot of people who had the same air about them. Some of them were criminals. Some were cops. She caught him staring and lifted her chin in something between a greeting and a challenge." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He smiled amiably and waved." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He got to the hangar floor about the same time Peaches climbed out the airlock onto the stair. Stokes broke free of the huddled group and trotted over toward Amos, smiling anxiously. \"Mr. Burton? Mr. Burton?\"\n\n\"You can call me Amos.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, thank you. I wondered whether Natalia could perhaps go to the Silas house? Her husband is a janitor there, and she is afraid if she leaves without him, they will never see each other again. She's very worried, sir.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Peaches came down the stairs behind him with footsteps soft as a cat's. Her shadow spilled down the walkway in front of her. Amos scratched his arm. \"Here's the thing. Pretty sure we're going to be able to start the final run-through in maybe forty-five minutes. Anyone who's here when we're done, they can bum a lift so long as there's room. Anybody not here should be far enough away they don't get burned down to their component atoms when we take off. Between those, I don't actually give a shit what any of you people do.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Stokes chuckled and made a short birdlike bob with his head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Very good, Mr. Burton. Thank you.\" Amos watched him scamper away.\n\n\"Mr. Burton, is it?\" Peaches said.\n\n\"Apparently,\" Amos said, then lifted a thumb to point after Stokes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Did he think I was joking about something? 'Cause I was just telling him how the sun comes up in the east.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Peaches lifted a shoulder. \"In his mind, we're the good guys. Everything we say, he interprets that way. If you say you don't care if he lives or dies, it must be your dry gallows humor.\"\n\n\"Seriously?\"\n\n\"Yep.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's a really stupid way to go through life.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's how most people do.\"\n\n\"Then most people are really stupid.\"\n\n\"And yet we made it to the stars,\" Peaches said.\n\nAmos stretched out his arms, the muscles across his shoulders hurting pleasantly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You know, Peaches, it's nice how we got all this help and stuff, but I kind of liked it better when it was only you and me.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You say the sweetest things. I'm going to track down some coffee or tea. Or amphetamines. You need anything?\"\n\n\"Nope. I'm solid.\" He watched her walk away. She was still way too thin, but since he'd stepped into the room in the Pit at Bethlehem, she'd taken on a kind of confidence. He wondered, if she had to go back, whether she still wanted him to kill her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Probably something worth asking about." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He stifled a yawn and tapped his hand terminal. \"How's it looking up there?\"\n\n\"Not throwing any errors yet,\" Erich said. \"So this is what you do now?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"This is what I've been doing for years.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And you can make a living this way?\"\n\n\"Sure, if you don't mind weird-ass aliens and corporate security assholes trying to kill you now and then.\"\n\n\"Never minded before,\" Erich said. \"Okay, that's it. We're at the end of the run. I got that one hiccup from the water recycler, but everything else is good to go.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If we're in this brick long enough to recycle the water, something will have gone badly wrong.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's what I was thinking too. You want me to start firing the reactor up? They've got scripts and a checklist.\"\n\n\"Yeah, why don't you let me take—\"\n\nThe hand terminal squawked and a man's voice Amos didn't recognize came on. \"Boss? I think we've got company.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What're you seeing?\" Erich snapped." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Three trucks.\"\n\n\"Okay, fuck it,\" Erich said. \"I'm starting up the reactor.\"\n\nAmos trotted toward the front of the hangar." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The lookouts at the windows were all standing and tense." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They knew. The servants were still milling in their corner, out of the way. \"Yeah, I'd go ahead and run the check first,\" he said. \"It'd be a shame to do all this just so we could give the folks in Vermont a nice light show.\"\n\nThe silence was harsh." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Amos didn't understand what the problem was until Erich spoke again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't take orders from you. Burton.\"\n\nAmos rolled his eyes. He shouldn't have said that on an open channel. So many years and so many catastrophes, and it was still all about not losing face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I was thinking of it more as expert opinion,\" Amos said. And then, \"Sir.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Noted. While I take my time to do that, how about you go help hold the perimeter,\" Erich said, and Amos grinned. Like he wasn't already on his way to do that. Erich went on. \"Walt, start getting the passengers in the ship. Clarissa can assist with the start-up.\"\n\n\"On my way,\" she said, and Amos saw her running across the hangar for the stairs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Stokes was watching her with alarm." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amos waved him over.\n\n\"Mr. Burton?\" the man said.\n\n\"That girl going after her old man? Yeah, she might need to rethink that.\"\n\nStokes went pale and searchlights brighter than the sun flooded through the hangar windows." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A voice echoed through bullhorns, barking syllables too muddled by the echo to be words." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It didn't matter. They all got the gist. By the time Amos got to the front doors, there were figures in the lights. Men in riot gear approaching the hangar with assault rifles in their hands that looked a little more heavy-duty than crowd control demanded. The servants were lined up on the stairs to the ship's airlock, but they weren't moving fast." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One of Erich's men—maybe twenty years old with a red scarf at his neck—handed Amos a rifle and grinned." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Aim for the lights?\"\n\n\"Any plan's better than no plan,\" Amos said, and broke the windowpane out with the butt of the rifle. The gunfire started before he could flip the barrel around to take aim. It roared like a storm, no gap between one report and the next." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Somewhere people were screaming, but Erich and Peaches were in the ship and Holden and Alex and Naomi were somewhere off-planet and Lydia was safely dead." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was only so much to worry about. The guy next to him was screaming a wordless war cry. Amos took aim, breathed out, squeezed. The rifle kicked, and one of the glaring lights went out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then someone else got another one." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One of the Pinkwater soldiers pulled back an arm to throw something, and Amos shot them in the hip. A second after they went down, the grenade they dropped flashed and a plume of tear gas rose up through the falling rain.\n\nSomeone—Butch, it sounded like—yelled \"Push 'em back!\" and Amos crouched down, squinting back at the Zhang Guo." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The civilians were almost all on, Stokes at the back waving his arms and yelling to hurry them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Something detonated, blowing the glass out of the remaining windows. The shock wave thudded through Amos' chest like the explosion had kicked him. He stood up, glanced through the window, and shot the nearest figure in the face. The deeper rattle came from outside, and stuttering muzzle flash brighter than the remaining lights." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holes appeared in the wall, beams of light shining through into the vast cathedral space of the hangar." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We got to get out of here!\" Scarf Boy shouted.\n\n\"Sounds good,\" Amos said, and started walking backward, firing through the window. A half second later, Scarf Boy was with him. The others either noticed them or had already reached the same conclusion." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Two were already on the stairs, shooting as they climbed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At this point, no one was trying to hit anything; they were just keeping the others from advancing too fast for everyone to get on board. Amos' rifle went dry. He dropped it and jogged back to the stairs, holding his hand terminal to his ear as he went.\n\n\"How're we doing?\" he shouted." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You're very clever,\" Peaches yelled back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We had a power hiccup on start-up. Would have lost maneuvering thrusters.\"\n\n\"We going to lose them now?\"\n\n\"Don't think so.\"\n\n\"Good.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He stopped at the base of the stairs." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Scarf Boy crouched behind him, reloading his assault rifle. When he had the new magazine in, Amos plucked it out of his hands and pointed at the stairway with his chin. Scarf Boy nodded thanks and scuttled up the steps, his head low. Shadows danced on the windows, and the side door burst in with a three-person team rushing in." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Amos mowed them down." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Half a dozen of Erich's people were on the stairs now, some still shooting as they climbed. One of them—Butch—stumbled as she got to the fourth step up. Blood soaked her arm and the side of her neck. Amos held the assault rifle up, spraying the walls, and knelt beside her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Come on,\" he said. \"Time to go.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't think that's happening,\" Butch said.\n\nAmos sighed. He put his hand terminal in his pocket, took the woman's collar in one hand and the rifle's grip in the other, and ran up the steps to the rattle of his own gunfire. The woman screamed and bounced. Something exploded, but Amos didn't pause to figure out what." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At the airlock, he hauled Butch through, fired one last burst down the stairway, and hit the controls to cycle the lock closed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All around him, Erich's people and the house servants were huddled. Some were covered in blood. He was covered in blood. He was pretty sure it was all Butch's, but not a hundred percent." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sometimes, in the heat of the moment, he missed things like getting shot." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He let Butch down to the deck and pulled out his hand terminal.\n\n\"Okay,\" he said. \"Now would be good.\"\n\n\"The exhaust's going to kill everyone out there,\" Erich said.\n\n\"Are we caring about that?\" Amos shouted." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I guess not.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The drive roared to life. \"Lay down!\" Amos shouted. \"We don't have time to get to couches. Everyone lay down. You want the thrust spread out over your whole body!\"\n\nHe lay down beside Butch." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her eyes were on him with something that might have been pain or anger." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She didn't speak, and neither did he. Erich's voice came over the ship's system, telling them to brace, and then Amos weighed a whole lot more than he had a few seconds before. A loud crunching sound rattled the deck—the Zhang Guo pushing through the hangar's roof on her way to the sky. The ship rattled, dropped, rose again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The deck pressed into Amos' back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If they had to make any hard turns, there were going to be at least a dozen people all mushed together in the corner where the deck met the wall.\n\nThe screen over the engineering controls flickered to life; clouds and rain falling down onto the forward cameras as the ship rose. Lightning flickered, the thunder rolling through the ship. He couldn't remember if a standard orbital escape called for three gs or four, but whatever it was would have been a whole hell of a lot more fun in a crash couch." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His jaw ached, and he had to remember to clench his arms and legs to keep from passing out." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All around him, the others weren't remembering that in time, or more likely never knew. Most of them, this was their first time up the well.\n\nOver the course of long minutes, the rain and clouds on the screen faded. The lightning fell away behind them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then, through the featureless gray, the first shining stars." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amos laughed and whooped, but no one joined him. Looking around, he seemed to be the only one still conscious, so instead, he lay back on the deck and waited for the thrust gravity to drop out when they hit orbit.\n\nThe stars slowly grew brighter, twinkling at first as the last gritty layers of atmosphere passed by them, and then growing steady. The Milky Way appeared like a dark cloud lit from behind." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The thrust gravity began to ease and he got to his feet." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Around him, other people were starting to come back to themselves. Scarf Boy and the others were hauling Butch out to the lift and the med bay, assuming the Zhang Guo had one of those. Stokes and the others were laughing or weeping or staring off in shock and disbelief. Amos checked himself for wounds and, apart from a series of four deep, gouging scrapes along his left thigh whose origins he couldn't recall, felt fine." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He turned his hand terminal to the open channel." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This is Amos Burton. You guys mind if I come up to ops?\"\n\n\"You can do that, Burton,\" Erich said. There was maybe just a hint of smug in his voice. This saving face for Erich thing was going to get old fast, but right at the moment, he was feeling too high to care." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The ops deck was offensively lush." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The anti-spalling had been made to look like red-velvet wallpaper and the light came from silver-and-gold sconces all along the walls. Erich sat in the captain's couch. His good hand was moving over the deck in his lap, his bad one holding on to the straps. Peaches was in the navigator's couch, her eyes closed and her smile beatific." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Grab a couch,\" Erich said with a grin." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His old friend and not the criminal boss who needed to keep Amos in his place. He switched to the ship system. \"Brace for maneuvers. Repeat, brace for maneuvers.\"\n\n\"That's not how they really do that,\" Amos said, strapping in at communications." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's just something they say in the movies.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's good enough for now,\" Erich said, and the couches shifted under them as the thrusters turned the ship. Slowly, the moon hove into view, and behind it, the sun. Silhouetted, Luna was a disk of black from here except for a thin limn of white along one edge and a webwork of city lights. Peaches chuckled like a brook, her eyes open now, her hands pressed to her lips." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The tears welling up in her eyes glittered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Didn't think you'd see this again, did you Peaches?\"\n\n\"It's beautiful,\" she said. \"Everything's beautiful, and I didn't think anything ever would be again.\"\n\nThey were all silent for a moment, and then Erich switched the view, pulling it slowly down." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Below them, Earth was a smear of white and of gray." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Where the continents should have burned in the permanent fire of lights, there were only a scattering of dim, dull glowing points. The seas were hidden, and the land. A funeral shroud was over the planet, and they all knew what was happening beneath it.\n\n\"Fuck,\" Erich said, and it carried a weight of awe and despair." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yeah,\" Amos said. They were all quiet for a long moment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The birthplace of humanity, the cradle of life in the solar system, was beautiful in its death throes, but none of them had any doubt that was what they were seeing.\n\nThe comm controls interrupted them. Amos accepted the connection and a young woman in UN naval uniform appeared in a high-priority panel.\n\n\"Zhang Guo, this is Luna Base. We do not have an approved flight plan for you. Be advised this space is under military restriction. Identify yourselves immediately, or be fired upon.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Amos opened the channel." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your next one should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hey there, Luna Base. Name's Amos Burton. Didn't mean to step on anybody's toes. If you've got someone up there named Chrissie Avasarala, pretty sure she'll vouch for me.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Task: The user will write a bit then you need to write around 4 sentences continuing directly from the user's text.\n\nAuthor style: James S. A. Corey" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hey there, Chetzemoka. This is Alex Kamal presently of the Razorback. Naomi? If you're there, I'd appreciate you giving me a sign. I'd sort of like to make sure it's you before we come over. Your ship's been acting a mite odd, and we're a little on the jumpy side. And, just in case it's not Naomi Nagata? I've got fifteen missiles locked on you right now, so whoever you are, you might want to talk with me.\"\n\nAlex shut off the mic, and rubbed his cheek. They were on the float now, course matched with the mysterious ship only about fifty kilometers above them on the relative z-axis. The sun, larger by far than he'd ever seen it from Mars, glowed below them, heating the little pinnace almost to the limit of its ability to shed the energy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Behind him, Bobbie was watching the same feed he was." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That doesn't look good,\" she said.\n\n\"Nope.\"\n\nAs a boy, back on Mars, there had been a little improvised firework that his friends would sometimes make for fun. All it took was a length of light-duty pipe, a mining spike, and a single-use rocket motor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The way it worked, they'd spike one end of the pipe to a flat section of wall, fix the motor to the other end with industrial tape or epoxy with the thrust pointing off to one side." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fire the motor, and the whole thing turned into a ring of smoke and fire, the pipe spinning around its axis faster than the eye could follow, the flare of the motor exhaust blinding and flickering. Sometimes the motor came loose and bounced along the corridor, posing a threat to everyone watching. Sometimes the spike came loose. Most times, it just left a circle of scrapes and scorch marks on the stone of the wall that pissed off the maintenance crews." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They called them fire weasels." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He didn't know why.\n\nAbove them, the Chetzemoka was spinning like a fire weasel. She wasn't quite tumbling, but the circle she was burning in was tight. All the acceleration she'd been using to burn hard out toward the Belt and Holden was getting eaten now, each point on her pathway canceling out the point a hundred and eighty degrees off from it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her exhaust plume was a jet of flame and plasma that would glass anything that tried to approach her unless it came from above or below." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And if they did that...\n\n\"What do you think happened?\" Bobbie asked.\n\n\"Maneuvering thruster fired off, never got balanced.\"\n\n\"Can you match course with that? I mean even if we decided we wanted to?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alex pressed the tip of his tongue to the back of his teeth and willed Naomi to call him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To give him a sign that she was still alive. That he wasn't about to risk his ship and his life and the lives of the people with him to rescue a corpse. \"Might have to come up with something clever.\"\n\nHe pulled up the tactical display." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Razorback and her cloud of missiles with no one left to shoot at." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Chetzemoka chasing its tail like a terrier that had gulped down its own body weight in uppers. Then, far distant, the UN escort decelerating in from the sun toward a matching course, and the Roci doing the same from the Belt. Everything was coming together right here—the head of the OPA, the prime minister of Mars, Avasarala's best cavalry—because it was where Naomi Nagata was, and as long as Alex and Holden were drawing breath, they'd be looking out for their own.\n\nThe screen lit up with an incoming message, but not from the Chetzemoka." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alex accepted it, and Holden appeared on the screen." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For about four seconds, the captain didn't do anything but look into the camera and scratch his nose. He looked tired and thin. Alex felt the same way himself. Then a smile bloomed on Holden's face, and he seemed more like himself again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Alex! Good. Tell me what we're looking at.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, we haven't had any new messages since their radio cut out, but if that was an intentional message, this looks like about the worst definition of 'in control' I've seen in a while. This mystery ship's not quite on the tumble, but she's damned close. The way she's chasing her tail, it's not going to be easy making an approach, but I'm working on an idea. The Razorback wasn't built for airlock to airlock. This here's the kind of ride you land in a hangar. But we've got EVA suits for me and Nate. That's the prime minister. I call him Nate now. Don't be jealous. Anyway, I figure we put the Razorback at the center of the circle Naomi's making with our nose up and our ass down, then match roll to the circle she's making. Then as long as no one pukes in their helmet, we can send someone over to the airlock. Not sure it'll work, but it's the best idea I've got so far.\"\n\nHe leaned forward while the tightbeam laser flew the four light-seconds out to the Rocinante, then the four light-seconds back. To judge from the shape of Holden's face, he was probably at more than one g. Even if the Chetzemoka hadn't gone into its surprise spin, the Razorback would have been the first to reach it. Holden's temporary pilot was going to be buying Alex a beer, provided nothing new and unexpected blew up on them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Not that he'd have given good odds on that." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Five seconds in, he remembered that he'd wanted to mention that Bobbie had power armor. He didn't say it, though, since it would just interrupt whatever Holden was saying right then that wouldn't be back to Alex for a few more seconds. Light-delay conversations were all about etiquette and taking turns.\n\n\"Why don't we try that as proof of concept?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden said. \"If it looks like something we can do, I can have the Roci take your place when we get there. Then if we need to cut in through the hull, we can. Have you had any sign from Naomi?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not yet—\" Alex began, but it turned out Holden hadn't been finished, just pausing for breath.\n\n\"Because that whole 'Tell James Holden I'm in control' thing was weird on a lot of levels. I checked the vocal profile of the message coming off the Chetzemoka—well, actually Fred did. It wouldn't have occurred to me. Anyway, the way she said James Holden in the first warning message about the bad bottle drivers and the way it was in this new one? Exactly the same. Fred thinks the new message may have been faked. Only then the way it got modified before it shut off... I'm seeing something here, Alex. But I don't know what it is.\"\n\nThis time Alex waited until he was sure Holden was done before he started talking. \"We haven't had any sign at all, but it seems to me that someone on the ship's been trying to raise a flag. And this flying in circles bit makes it seem a lot less like a Trojan horse. Nothing to gain by doing it, other than make everyone inside feel powerfully like throwing up. Honestly, I don't know what we're looking at here either, Cap'n, and I don't think we're going to know until we get someone inside.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Eight long seconds there and back again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm just worried that if she is in there and the ship's out of control, we're going to be sitting out here dithering while she needs us. I can't stand the idea that we've come this close, and now we're going to lose her. I know it's a little crazy, but I'm a little crazy right now. I keep thinking of her being smashed up against the wall by the spin, and me out here where I can't do anything.\"\n\n\"Yeah, thruster misfires don't work like that,\" Alex said. \"You don't get any sideways impulse unless the thruster's actually going. After that, you've got a little spin station action pushing the folks behind the center of spin down and the folks forward of it up, but all that is gonna be in line with the thrust from the drive, so all you actually get is—\"\n\n\"Alex!\" Bobbie said. \"We've got something.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He twisted on his couch, then turned it to face her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bobbie's eyes were on the wall screen. A panel was there, opened to the view from the upper camera. The Chetzemoka was still in its mad spin, but something had come off, floating now across the clear, empty void, stars behind it like the glittering pupil of a vast eye. The eye of the storm." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bobbie tried to zoom in on it the same moment Alex did, and the system made a confused, upset chime, the focus fluctuating wildly before coming to rest." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A figure in an EVA suit. There were no lights on the suit, and its back was turned to them, the intense sunlight making the gray material shine almost too brightly to make out details.\n\n\"Is she alive?\" Alex said.\n\n\"She's moving.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How long ago did she come out?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not long,\" Bobbie said. \"Seconds.\"\n\nThe figure in the EVA suit lifted her arms, crossing them over her head. The Belter signal for danger. Alex felt his heart speed up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Alex!\" Holden said, from four seconds ago. \"What's going on?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Someone came out of the ship. Let me figure this out, and I'll be back with a report,\" Alex said, then cut the connection. On Bobbie's screen, the figure had shifted to a time signal. Five minutes.\n\n\"What have we got?\" Alex said.\n\n\"She's making the same signs,\" Bobbie said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Here we go. 'Danger. Do not approach. Explosion hazard.' But then here's 'Low air,' and 'five'... shit, 'four minutes.'\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Is it her?\" Alex said, knowing there wasn't an answer for that. Even if the figure turned its face to them, Alex wasn't certain between glare and the suit's helmet if he'd have been able to identify Naomi. It was just a person in an EVA suit, running out of air and warning them over and over again that it was a trap.\n\nBut Alex thought that whoever it was, they sure moved like Naomi." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And they'd both been calling the figure \"she.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They might not know, but they were both pretty certain. The body of the Razorback felt suddenly claustrophobic. Like the appearance of Naomi right there where he could see her required more room to move. Enough space to reach her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alex set the pinnace's system to the diamond-bright suit and started it calculating." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Where's she going to go?\" Bobbie asked.\n\n\"Looks like she's set to drift across into the path of the ship again,\" Alex said. \"If it don't hit her, maybe she gets past and the drive plume gets her.\"\n\n\"Or we watch her suffocate?\" Bobbie said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I can take the ship in,\" Alex said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And crisp her decelerating?\"\n\n\"Well... yeah.\"\n\n\"Get your helmets on,\" Bobbie yelled loud enough to carry into the back cabin. \"I'm going in.\"\n\n\"That suit's got enough thrust to do a fifty-klick flip-and-burn in under four minutes?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alex asked, but he was already sealing his suit as he said it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Nope,\" Bobbie said, reaching for her helmet with one hand and a spare bottle of air with the other. \"But it's got really good mag boots and gloves.\"\n\nAlex checked his seals and got ready to open the Razorback to the void. \"Don't see how that's going to help.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The prime minister's cabin showed it was sealed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On the monitor, the figure—Naomi—signaled Danger. Do not approach. Explosion hazard. Bobbie yelped, took a deep shuddering breath. Her voice was coming through the EVA suit's radio now." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Provide four sentences as a continuation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Leaving the airlock this one last time was the most peaceful thing Naomi could imagine doing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As soon as she'd cleared the outer door, the sun and stars had stopped their gut-sickening whirl. She had taken her tangent from the whirling circle of life, and now her path was a line. Well, not a tangent, really. A secant, and doomed to cross paths with the ship again, only maybe not in her lifetime." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For a moment, she let herself enjoy drifting." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The sun pressed against her back, the light radiating past her as she cast a shadow on whole stars, galaxies. The sense of whirling faded a little, and she wondered where Alex was, out among all these stars. She remembered to start counting. One thousand and... how long had she already been out? Seven? Eight?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Well, she might as well think the worst." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One thousand and thirty. Why not? She lifted her hands over her head. Danger. Then Do not approach. Then Explosion hazard. She felt like she was trying to warn the stars. The Milky Way." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Don't come here." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Stay away. There are humans here, and you can't trust them.\n\nShe stretched with every motion, letting it all go. She should have been scared, but she wasn't." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She was going to her death, and that sucked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She would have liked to live longer. To see Jim again. And Alex. And Amos. She would have liked to tell Jim all the things she'd been so careful for so long not to say." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One thousand and sixty." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Time to change her signs. Four minutes left. Four minutes and a lifetime.\n\nSomewhere out there, Filip was with his father, the way he had been for years. Since he was a baby." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And Cyn, poor Cyn, already as dead as she was going to be because he'd seen her in the airlock and thought stopping her would have been saving her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Thought the life she had with Marco was worth having. She wondered what would have happened if she'd stayed. If the Chetzemoka had flown without her. Would Jim have set off the bomb?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She had to think he would have." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He wasn't a man who reined in his curiosity well. The stars shuddered, blurred. She was weeping. Danger. Do not approach. Explosion hazard." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If the suit had been powered, it would have been screaming alerts at her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was almost glad now that it wasn't. She wasn't even light-headed yet. She'd seen people pass out. As long as her CO2 scrubbers kept working, it would be a peaceful way to go." }, { "from": "human", "value": "No choking, no panic." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Just a moment's disorientation and then, softly, out. Here she was, after so many years, throwing herself out another airlock. She could still remember that first one, back on Ceres. It had been set in the floor, of course, but she could still conjure up the feeling of pressure on her fingers when she'd told it to cycle open, still believing that it meant her own death." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And even then, she hadn't wanted to die." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She'd just wanted it to be over. To be free of it all. For the pain and guilt to be over. And the feeling of being trapped." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She might have been able to stand all the rest of it, but not the sense of being caught." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This death wasn't at all like that. This was throwing herself in front of a bullet so that it wouldn't hit her friends. Her family. The family she'd chosen. The one built from people who had risked their lives for her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She wished Cyn could have met Jim." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Could have understood how far she'd come from the girl he'd known on Ceres, back in the day. How much she wasn't just Knuckles anymore.\n\nShe wasn't religious, but she'd known any number of people who were. Explosion hazard. Low air. Three minutes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She wondered whether they would have thought what she was doing now was sinful." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Giving herself over to the void in hopes that Alex would see her, would understand, would save himself.\n\nAnd her. It would be nice if somehow he found a way to save her back. Or if Jim suddenly swept down from the stars to gather her up. She chuckled. God knew he'd try." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Always blundering into being the hero, her Jim." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now he'd know what it had felt like for her all those times he'd squared his jaw and run off into near-certain death because it was the right thing. Pity she wouldn't be there to point it out to him. He might not connect those dots himself. Or he might. He'd changed over the years, and he wouldn't change back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Danger. Do not approach. Explosive hazard." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She'd lost count again. Two minutes? One? She didn't know. She found herself humming a melody she'd heard as a child." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She didn't know the words to it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They might not have even been in a language she knew. It didn't matter. She was glad for the song's company. Grateful. More than that, she was grateful that she wasn't going to die nauseated. Okay, fine. If this is what I get, this is what I get." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Not a life without regrets, but none I can't live with." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "None I can't die with.\n\nStill, she thought to the universe, if it isn't a problem, I wouldn't say no to a little more.\n\nSomething moved off to her left, streaking out from behind her. Huge and metal and shining brightly in the sun." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It looked like a missile, pointing back toward the sun as it retreated." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Its drive wasn't firing. That seemed weird and kind of random. She wondered if—\n\nThe impact came in the center of her back, hard as an assault. An arm wrapped around her shoulder and a leg around her waist locking her immobile." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She squirmed by reflex, trying to escape the attack, but whoever it was had her cold." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She couldn't escape. She felt the other person's free hand fumbling at her suit. Something hard and metal pressed against her thigh where the air bottles would go.\n\nHer ears popped as the pressure in the suit suddenly changed. A clean, vaguely astringent smell filled her nose." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A fresh bottle. She almost laughed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was being held in a rescue hold. The newcomer did something else she couldn't quite figure, and then locked a tether to her waist and released her. When they rotated together, face-to-face, the newcomer grabbed Naomi's helmet and pressed her own against it.\n\n\"Bobbie?\" Naomi said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hey,\" the Martian ex-marine shouted, grinning." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The sound carried from suit to suit by the conduction, and it made her sound terribly distant for someone who was holding Naomi in her arms. \"Imagine meeting you here, right?\"\n\n\"I'd say it's really good to see you,\" Naomi shouted back, \"but that seems weirdly understated. The ship! It's rigged to lose bottle containment if another ship sets off its proximity alert.\"\n\nBobbie scowled and nodded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Naomi saw the woman's mouth moving as she relayed the information to someone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To Alex. She watched Bobbie listen to something she couldn't hear. She looked older than the last time Naomi had seen her. She looked beautiful. Bobbie said something else into her mic, then pressed their faceplates together again.\n\n\"I'm going to start moving us around,\" Bobbie shouted." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We need to point our feet toward the sun. Low profile. Suck up less heat, okay?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Naomi buzzed with questions that didn't need answers. \"Okay,\" she shouted back.\n\n\"Are you in immediate medical distress?\"\n\n\"Probably. It's been a really hard day.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's funny,\" Bobbie shouted in a voice that meant it wasn't funny." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Are you in immediate medical distress?\"\n\n\"No. I don't think so.\"\n\n\"All right. Put your arms over my shoulders and lock your forearms.\" Bobbie pulled back a few centimeters and demonstrated the forearm lock." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Naomi made the Belter sign that meant roughly Acknowledged and understood." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A few seconds later, Bobbie's armor fired thrusters, and Naomi's weight came back. She was being lifted up, carried into the stars. The sun-bright drive plume of the Chetzemoka passed them, dwarfing the small, dark box of the ship itself. It fell away toward the sun and slowly, over the course of long, eternal minutes, vanished below them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They didn't fit in the pinnace." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not really. It was made for one, maybe two, and it had four with one of them in powered armor. The air was hot and thick, and the recyclers were starting to throw alerts and errors. Alex had shut down the reactor and switched to batteries so they wouldn't be generating as much heat.\n\n\"I mean, we could make a burn for it,\" Alex said, \"but we got people coming from both directions and half as many crash couches as we've got folks.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was in the one actual couch at the front of the pinnace." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bobbie sat curled near the mutilated deck where another couch had once been. The door to the cabin was open, and the prime minister of Mars floated there in a sweat-stained undershirt. He made the place seem dreamlike. For herself, Naomi floated near the ceiling." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alex had set the wall screens to show the outside, but it was all so much less vivid than the real thing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It didn't fool her.\n\nThe Chetzemoka was below them, a spinning black dot against the overwhelming white sun. She caught glimpses of it at the edges of the floor where the screen stopped. Alex had also had the Razorback's system highlight the incoming UN escort ships and, in blue, the Rocinante." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So,\" Alex said. \"XO. You're... ah. Out here. That was kind of unexpected.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Wasn't thinking to see you either, Alex,\" Naomi said. Her blood felt strange in her veins. Sluggish and bright at the same time. And she was having trouble focusing her eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her hands had lost the worst of the swelling, though." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The hours of work between the hulls had probably worked all the extra fluid back in where it belonged. Something like that. Her entire body hurt, and she was still discovering how profound her nausea had been as layers of it she hadn't recognized resolved. Her twenty-second sunburn from the jump off the Pella was swollen and tender to the touch, but not blistered. It would peel once it had healed enough." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When she'd gotten into the Razorback, and the ship had been sealed, she'd drunk a liter of water from a bulb and she hadn't had to pee yet." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The dehydration headache was starting to lose its hold. Bobbie had offered her painkillers, but something in Naomi resisted the idea of doing anything else to her body until she'd seen the inside of a medical bay.\n\nShe realized that her consciousness had flickered out when it came back. Bobbie and the prime minister were talking about good noodle restaurants in the major neighborhoods of Londres Nova." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The air was thick and close and stank of bodies." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was sweating in her crappy EVA suit. The blue dot that was the Rocinante had grown a halo, the drive pointing toward them as it slowed to match their course.\n\nIn the corner of her eye a blackness flickered and was gone.\n\n\"Alex,\" she said, and then coughed so long and hard Bobbie had to brace her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When her lungs were clearer, she tried again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Alex. Can you spare a couple of those missiles?\"\n\n\"Depends, XO,\" Alex said. \"What did you want me to do with them?\"\n\n\"Kill that ship,\" Naomi said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's all right,\" Alex said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We warned everyone about how it's booby-trapped. No one's going to—\"\n\n\"Not because of that. Just because it's time for it to go.\"\n\nBecause I tried to give it to my son instead of a childhood. Because I spent my own money to get it, and it turned into a trap for me and the people I love." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Because everything about that ship was a mistake." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ah. Looks like it's registered to an Edward Slight Risk Abatement Cooperative. They going to be okay with us knocking their bird into the sun?\"\n\n\"It'll be fine,\" Naomi said.\n\nThe prime minister lifted his finger. \"It seems to me that—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Missiles away,\" Alex said, then smiled an apology." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're the head of my government, Nate, but she's my XO.\"\n\n\"Nate?\" Naomi said. \"You're on a first-name basis now?\"\n\n\"Don't be jealous,\" Alex said and pulled up a panel." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Today you will be acting as a writing assistant, your partner will send something and you will write the next four sentences." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If the medical bay could have raised its eyebrows and made judgmental little tsk-tsk sounds, it would have." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Instead, the readout threw a list of amber-colored alerts so long that the first few scrolled off the screen before Holden could read them. Naomi grunted when the needle poked into her vein and the medical expert system's custom cocktail started flowing into her. Holden sat beside her, holding her other hand.\n\nThe transfer from the Razorback had been easy enough." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Once they'd matched course, Alex snugged the pinnace up against the airlock, and all four of them had come over together." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden had been waiting on the other side of the lock, not quite willing to believe that they were really back. Fred Johnson was there too in his greeting-a-political-grandee outfit. It was strange to see Fred visibly change roles, holding his body differently, his expression changing so subtly and profoundly it seemed like the shape of his skull had shifted. It left Holden a little curious about how much the old man presented to him was also tailored to the situation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Chances were, he'd never know." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When the inner door cycled open, he'd forgotten about Fred and the prime minister of Mars and the destruction of Earth and pretty much everything that wasn't Naomi. Her skin was ashen where it didn't look slick and swollen from radiation burns. Her eyes were bloodshot and bleary with a profound exhaustion. Moving into the room, she was careful, like any unexpected bump would hurt." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She was the most beautiful thing he'd seen in years." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He felt like he was the one returning home now that she was here. When she saw him, she smiled, and he grinned back. Somewhere a few feet away or a few miles, Fred Johnson and Nathan Smith were making some kind of formal greeting. It didn't matter at all." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hey,\" he'd said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hey. You take care of the place while I was out?\"\n\n\"Had some trouble with the contractor, but I think we got it straightened out,\" Holden said. Then Bobbie had put a wide, strong hand on his shoulder, shaken him slightly, and said, \"Med bay.\" And then Naomi headed for the lift, leaning against Alex for support." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She looked wounded, exhausted, halfway to dead." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But she'd seen him, and she'd smiled, and it had dropped the bottom out of his heart.\n\nThe alert sounded, counted down, and gravity came back. Naomi coughed. It was a wet, painful sound, but the medical bay didn't seem concerned. The machine had a shitty bedside manner." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do you think we should get a medic?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden said. \"Maybe we should get a medic.\"\n\n\"Right now?\" Naomi asked.\n\n\"Or later. For your birthday. Whenever.\" The words tumbled out of his mouth without stopping by his brain once, and he didn't care enough to rein them in." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Naomi was back. She was here." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A vast fear he'd been carefully not noticing washed over him and started to dissipate.\n\nThis was how she felt, he thought. With the Agatha King and when he'd headed off to the station in the slow zone. When he'd gone down to the surface of Ilus." }, { "from": "human", "value": "All the times he'd thought he was protecting her from his risks, this was what he'd been doing to her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Wow,\" he said. \"I'm kind of an asshole.\"\n\nShe opened her eyes in two bright slits and made a small smile. \"Did I miss something?\"\n\n\"Sort of. I just went someplace for a minute, and I'm back now. And so are you, which is really, really good.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Nice to be home.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But while you were... I mean while we were... Look, when I was back on Tycho, I was talking with Monica. And Fred. I mean I was talking to Fred about you and us and what I was entitled to know and why I thought all that. And Monica was talking about why I lied and whether what she did had any power and how it was ethical and responsible to use it. And I was thinking—\"\n\nNaomi raised her hand, palm out. Her forehead creased. \"If you're about to tell me you had an affair with Monica Stuart, this may not be the best time.\"\n\n\"What? No. Of course not.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Good.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's just I've been thinking. About a lot of different things, really. And I wanted you to know that whatever you were doing and going through that you didn't want me to be a part of? You don't have to tell me if you don't want to. I'm really curious, and I want to know. But whatever it was, it's only my business if you want it to be my business.\"\n\n\"All right,\" she said, and closed her eyes again.\n\nHolden stroked her hand. The knuckles were raw, and there was a bruise on her wrist." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So when you say 'all right'—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I mean I missed you too, and I'm glad I'm back, and could you go get me a bulb of green tea or something?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Holden said. \"Yes, I can.\"\n\n\"Don't hurry,\" she said. \"I may just take a little nap.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden paused at the hatch, looking back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Naomi was watching him go. Her eyes were tired, her body stilled by exhaustion, but she was smiling a little. It helped to see that she was glad to be back.\n\nIn the galley, a half-dozen voices were in competition, gabbling one above the other toward a kind of symphonic shared excitement." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It sounded like he felt." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden ducked in. Alex was sitting on one of the tables with his feet on the bench, talking to Chava Lombaugh and Sun-yi Steinberg, describing something about fast-cycling targeting stutter and acceleration. Chava was talking at the same time, her hands in motion, presenting some physical description of whatever they were on about. Sun-yi was just looking from one to the other, amused. At the next table over, Bobbie Draper was sitting down, but still looming over Sandra Ip and Maura Patel." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bobbie had swapped her powered armor for a slightly-too-small jumpsuit with TACHI stenciled on the back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She caught his eye, smiled, and waved. He waved back, but Sandra Ip had already recaptured her attention, and Bobbie was shaking her head and answering a question he hadn't heard.\n\nHolden had the sudden, visceral memory of being at home with his family, eight parents sitting down to dinner together with their one son, having half a dozen conversations with and past each other. Even though he recognized he was already primed for it, the sense of peace and well-being that washed over him was profound." }, { "from": "human", "value": "This was what family looked like, sounded like, how they acted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even the new crew who he'd been trying not to resent felt more like distant cousins who'd come for a long visit than interlopers.\n\nAlex hopped down and came over to him, grinning. They stood for a long, awkward moment before they gave in and embraced, clapping each other on the back and laughing.\n\n\"No more leave,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Holy shit. Right?\" Alex said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I take off for a few weeks, and everything turns into chaos.\"\n\n\"It really, really does.\" Holden went to the coffee maker and Alex followed at his elbow. \"I think this has to qualify for the worst vacation ever.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How's Naomi doing?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden picked out the tea that Naomi liked best. The machine chimed calmly. \"Getting hydrated mostly. She sent me off to get her a drink, but I think she actually wanted me to stop hovering over her, trying to start a conversation.\"\n\n\"She may take a little time getting back to full power.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Intellectually, I know that,\" Holden said, picking up the bulb of tea." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It smelled of lemongrass and mint even though there was nothing anywhere on the ship that was remotely like either one. Holden grinned. \"Chemistry is amazing, you know? It's really, really amazing.\"\n\n\"Any word from Amos?\" Alex said, and his smile dimmed at the answer in Holden's eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He tried to force the carefree tone back into his voice when he spoke, but Holden wasn't fooled." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, that doesn't mean much. It won't be the first time a planet's blown up on him.\"\n\n\"They're starting to get confirmed death lists,\" Holden said. \"It's still early. A lot of things still falling apart down there, and there's going to be a lot more bad before it sees better. But he's not on the list yet.\"\n\n\"So that's good. And c'mon. It's Amos. Everyone on Earth dies, and he'll probably stack the bodies and climb up to Luna.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Last man standing,\" Holden said, but he headed back to the medical bay with his heart a little less buoyant." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Naomi was gone, the needle that had been in her arm resting on the gel of the bed and the expert system gently prompting someone to intervene. Holden, the bulb of tea in his hand, checked the head and the galley before he thought to go back to the crew quarters.\n\nShe was on their bed, her knees curled up toward her chest, her eyes closed, her hair spilling over the gel. She snored a little, soft animal sounds of peace and contentment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden put the tea on the desk beside her so that it would be there waiting when she woke." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The ops deck was quiet, relatively speaking. Gor Droga, one of the weapons techs, was at a workstation, monitoring the ship and listening to something that had a beat on headphones. All Holden could hear of it was a slightly shifting bass line and an occasional phrase or two when Gor was moved to sing along. The lyrics were in something close to French without actually being French." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The lights were low, most of the illumination coming from the monitors." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden didn't have a pair of headphones close to hand, so he just kept the volume low and watched Monica Stuart being interviewed. The man she was talking to was based on an L5 station, but the transmission gaps had all been edited out to make it seem like they were in the same room.\n\n\"No, it doesn't surprise me at all that the OPA would assist in escorting Prime Minister Smith. Fred Johnson has been vocal and active for years in bringing the OPA into the diplomatic discussion, often against resistance from the inner planets. If anything, I think there's a real irony in the fact that this series of attacks by the Free Navy have been the catalyst to cementing the OPA's legitimacy with Earth and Mars.\"\n\nThe camera cut to the interviewer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So you don't see the Free Navy as a part of the OPA?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And back to Monica. Holden chuckled. She'd changed her blouse between questions. He wondered what the lag had been like before it got edited down for the feed. \"Not at all. The Free Navy is interesting in part because it gives the radical fringe of the OPA a different banner to raise. It represents a sort of self-selected culling of the elements that have kept the Belt from being better respected by the inner planets. And keep in mind, Mars and Earth weren't the only targets of the Free Navy's coup. Tycho Station is as big a success story as Ceres for Belters, and it was attacked too.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Other pundits are calling that a changing of the guard within the OPA, though. Why do you see it as something external?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Monica nodded sagely. It was a well-practiced motion, and it worked to make her seem intelligent and thoughtful but still approachable. There was an artistry in what she did.\n\n\"Well, Michael, sometimes when we make these distinctions, we're really creating them more than describing anything that's already there. We're seeing a very broad realignment on more than one side. It seems clear that elements in the Martian military have been involved with supplying the Free Navy, and also that Prime Minister Smith was their target. So would we call that a rogue element on Mars, or an internal power struggle? In fact, I think the best description we can probably make at this point isn't in terms of UN and Martian Republic and OPA, but the traditional system being brought together in the face of this new threat. This situation grows out of a deep history of conflict, but there are new lines being drawn here.\"\n\nFred chuckled. Holden hadn't heard him come up, but there he was, looking over Holden's shoulder." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden paused the feed as Fred took a couch across from him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You can always tell your media relations team is doing their job when the journalists are down to interviewing each other,\" Fred said.\n\n\"I think she's doing good work,\" Holden said. \"She's at least trying to put this all in a context where it makes sense.\"\n\n\"She's also rebranding herself as an expert on me personally. And you, for that matter.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Okay, that is a little weird. Any other news I should know about?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fred glanced over at Gor, scowled, then leaned over and tapped the man's shoulder. Gor took off the headphones.\n\n\"Take a break,\" Fred said. \"We'll make sure she's solid.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, sir,\" Gor said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Be aware that this close to the corona, we're building up a little heat.\"\n\n\"We'll keep an eye on it.\"\n\nGor unstrapped and slid down the ladder. Fred watched him go with a wistful smile." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I remember when I could take a ladder that way. Been a few years, though.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't anymore either.\"\n\n\"Thus does age make cowards of us all. Or maybe that's conscience,\" Fred said, and heaved a sigh. \"Inaros and his ships haven't made it as far as Saturn's orbit yet, and piracy in the outer planets is spiking. The colony ships are well supplied, under-armed, and there are a lot of them.\"\n\n\"They weren't expecting a civil war.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Is that what this is?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Isn't it?\"\n\n\"Well. Maybe. I've been talking to Smith. I don't suppose Alex and Bobbie overheard much of what he was doing on the Razorback?\"\n\nHolden leaned forward. \"I don't think they were spying on him, no. Were you thinking they would?\"\n\n\"I was hoping your man might have. This Draper woman's too much the patriot. So, without outside confirmation, Smith's story is that there's a breakdown in the naval command. Might just be that someone's been selling a great chunk of their ordnance to Inaros. Might be there was another actor who was willing to swap out.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"For the protomolecule,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That was the price of all this, wasn't it?\"\n\n\"No one knows it's missing aside from you, me, Drummer's men, and whoever took it. I'll keep it quiet as long as I can, but when we get to Luna, I think I have to tell Smith and Avasarala.\"\n\n\"Of course you do,\" Holden said. \"Why wouldn't you tell them?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fred blinked. His laugh, when it came, was deep and rolling." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It came up from his belly and filled the air. \"Just when I think you've changed, you come out with something that is uniquely James Holden. I don't know what to think about you. I really don't.\"\n\n\"Thanks?\"\n\n\"Welcome,\" Fred said. And a moment later, \"There are ships burning for the gates. Martian military ships. It would help me a great deal to know if they answered to Inaros or to someone else.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Like the one who got the protomolecule sample?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Anyone, really. I want to talk to Nagata.\"\n\nThe atmosphere between them went cool. \"You want to interrogate her.\"\n\n\"I do.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And you're asking my permission?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It seemed polite.\"\n\n\"I'll talk to her about it when she's recovered a little more,\" Holden said.\n\n\"Couldn't ask for anything more,\" Fred said, heaving himself to his feet. At the edge of the ladder, he paused." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden watched him consider sliding down the sides the way Gor had." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He watched Fred decide not to. Rung by rung, Fred climbed down out of the ops deck, shutting the hatch behind him. Holden turned the feed back on, and then off again. His head felt filled with cotton." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He'd been so focused for so long on distracting himself from Naomi's absence, now she was back, he felt almost overwhelmed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Monica was right. Things had changed, and he didn't know anymore what his place was in them. Even if he turned away from Fred and Avasarala and the politics of his own minor celebrity, what could an independent ship do in this new, remade solar system? Were there banks that would be able to pay him if he took a job flying cargo to the Jovian moons? And the colonists that had already gone through the rings to new, alien worlds?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Would the Free Navy really stop resupply from getting out to them, and the raw materials and discoveries they made from getting back?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "More than anything, the attacks seemed inevitable and petty. If the inner planets hadn't spent generations showing the Belters that they were disposable, there might have been some way... some way to adapt their skills and lifestyles into this larger human expansion. A way to draw all humanity forward, and not just part of it.\n\nAnd how long would Inaros and people like him really be able to keep the flood of colonists out?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Or maybe there was still something more, some layer of the plan that they hadn't seen yet?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The idea filled him with something he decided to call dread because that was a better name than fear.\n\nThe monitor chimed. Alex, requesting a connection. Holden accepted it gratefully.\n\n\"Hey there, Cap'n,\" Alex said through a grin. \"How're you doing?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Fine, I think. Just killing some time away from the cabin so I don't wake Naomi up. I figure she'll be asleep for twelve, fourteen hours.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're a good man,\" Alex said.\n\n\"You?\"\n\n\"I've been showin' your temporary pilot all the ways he could have beaten me to the Chetzemoka if he'd thought of them.\"\n\n\"Be nice,\" Holden said, but he didn't really mean it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Where are you? I'll come join you.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your next one should be approximately one sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Engineering,\" Alex said. \"Which was part of why I wanted to talk to you. I just got some good news from Luna.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "I'll be your writing partner today. I will set the scene, and you will continue the story with 4 sentences, channeling the voice and techniques of James S. A. Corey.i'll kick things off by writing a bit, then you'll take over and write the next 4 sentences in the distinctive voice of James S. A. Corey.Ive got a bit of writers block, im gonna send you something then keep it going 4 sentences at a time, also im going for a James S. A. Corey sorta thing." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Loading mechs moved pallets of gray or white plastic crates along the length of the Aldrin docks and drowned out the jabber of human voices with the clanks and whirring of machines. Stokes and the other refugees from Rattlesnake Island were in a huddle along one gray wall, trying to only block the cart traffic a little bit while a civil servant with an oversized terminal processed them one at a time. The security force in black armor stood arrayed before the lock to the Zhang Guo, scowling. The wall screen was set to look outside at that truck-tire gray moonscape." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Chrisjen Avasarala's red sari stood out, a vibrant spot of color, and her voice cut through the clamor like it wasn't there." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What the fuck do you mean we can't go on the ship?\" she said.\n\n\"No warrant,\" Amos said. \"Nobody's getting on my boat here without a warrant.\"\n\nAvasarala tilted her head, then looked at the woman in charge of the security squad." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Seeing that you and he seemed to have an understanding, ma'am,\" the security chief said, \"I didn't want to press the point.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Avasarala waved her hand impatiently like she was fanning away smoke. \"Burton, for one thing, that's not your fucking ship.\"\n\n\"Sure it is,\" Amos said. \"Salvage.\"\n\n\"No. When you break into someone's private hangar and drive out in their ship, it's not salvage. That's still theft.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You sure about that? Because it was looking awfully busted up down there. I'm pretty sure that was salvage.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"For another thing, we're under martial law, so I can do very nearly whatever the fuck I want. Including march through your precious little ship there towing you along behind in a ball gag and lacy underwear. So your warrant bullshit? You can roll that up and fuck it. Now tell me why I'm here.\"\n\n\"You know just 'cause you can do something, it doesn't mean you should. I don't look great in frills.\"\n\nShe crossed her arms. \"Why am I here, Amos?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Amos scratched his cheek and looked back at the Zhang Guo." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Stokes and the servants were all out, but Erich and Peaches and the crew from Baltimore were all still inside. Some of them, including Erich, were either living under fake identities or weren't in the system at all.\n\n\"Here's the thing,\" Amos said. \"If you did go in there, you might feel like you had to do something. And then I might feel like I had to do something. And then we'd all be doing things, and we'd all wind up having a worse day, just in general.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Avasarala's face went calm, her eyes focused a few centimeters to Amos' left." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The security chief started to say something, but Avasarala put out a palm to stop her. After a few seconds, Avasarala grunted, shook her head, and turned to the security force. \"You can skip this one. Go get a beer instead or something. It's all right.\"\n\n\"Yes, ma'am,\" the security chief said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Burton? You make goddamned sure there isn't any trouble from this, and you get her the fuck off my moon without anyone seeing her.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You got it, Chrissie.\"\n\n\"Don't fucking call me that. I'm the acting secretary-general of the United Nations, not your favorite stripper.\"\n\nAmos spread his hands. \"Could be room for both.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Avasarala's laughter rang out through the dock." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The security force broke up, moved on. The loading mechs repositioned. The carts continued on their various paths, busy as a kicked anthill. \"I'm glad you made it,\" she said when she regained herself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The universe would be less interesting without you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Likewise. How's the recovery going?\"\n\n\"It sucks donkey balls,\" she said, shaking her head. \"We're still losing thousands of people every day. Maybe tens of thousands. The food's running out down there, and even if I had enough rice to feed them all, the infrastructure's so fucked there's no good way to distribute it. Not to mention that there could still be more of those fucking rocks dropping anytime.\"\n\n\"Your kid okay?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Ashanti and her family are fine. They're here on Luna already. Thank you for asking.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And your guy? Arjun?\"\n\nAvasarala smiled, and it didn't reach her eyes. \"I remain optimistic,\" she said. \"The Rocinante is on its way. You'll have something to ride on that doesn't make your cock look as small as that gaudy turd.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's good to hear. This boat's not my style anyway.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Avasarala turned away, shuffling awkwardly into the crowd. The low gravity didn't seem natural to her. He figured she probably hadn't spent all that much of her life up the well. Space was an acquired skill." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Amos stretched, rolled on the balls of his feet, and waited until the last of the security force was out of sight." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Chances were pretty slim they were going to press the issue once they'd been slapped down, but he still felt better watching them get gone.\n\nWhile he was waiting, two Belters in Aldrin dockworker uniforms scurried by staying close together, their heads bowed. Luna was going to be a shitty, shitty place to be a Belter for a while, Amos thought. Still, it probably hadn't been that great before." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He headed back to the Zhang Guo, and the entry lock opened as he got close to it, welcoming him back in." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The ship's interior was ugly as hell. The anti-spalling in the corridors was deep red and fake-velvet fuzzy with gold fleur-de-lis scattered over them in a weird, non-repeating pattern. The hatchways were enameled in royal blue and gold. Oversized crash couches were all over the place—in the corners of rooms, in niches in the hallways." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The air recyclers added the stink of sandalwood incense without the smoke." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All told, the ship was the embodiment of a stereotypical whorehouse done by a designer who'd never been to a real one. The security station was perfunctory, poorly designed, and barely stocked, but Erich's people were placed around it as well as they could manage. Even Butch, still in pressure bandages, had a rifle with fresh rounds trained down the hallway.\n\n\"Hey,\" Amos said. \"We're cool. They're not coming in.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The release of tension was like a soft breeze, if soft breezes came with the sounds of magazines getting pulled from assault rifles." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Okay,\" Erich said, lifting a pistol in his good hand. \"Tyce. Police up all the guns. Joe and Kin, put a watch on the lock. I don't want to be surprised if anyone shows up unexpected.\"\n\n\"They won't,\" Amos said. \"But hey, knock yourselves out.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You got a minute?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Erich said, handing the pistol to a thick-necked man who Amos figured was Tyce.\n\n\"Sure,\" Amos said. They fell into step, ambling toward the lift.\n\n\"That was really the woman who's running Earth now?\"\n\n\"Until she lets 'em have an election, I guess. I never really paid much attention to how that whole thing works.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Erich made a soft, noncommittal grunt." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His bad arm was curled up against his chest, the tiny fist tight. His good hand was stuffed deep in his pocket. Both made him look like something was eating him.\n\n\"And you... You know her. Like asking-favors know her.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yup.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At the lift, Erich punched for the ops deck. It wasn't where Amos meant to go, but it seemed like the conversation was leading toward something, so he went with it. The lift made a stuttering start, then rose gently past the high-ceilinged decks.\n\n\"I can't tell if this thing's a ship or a fucking throw pillow,\" Amos said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Wouldn't know,\" Erich said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's the first one I've been in.\"\n\n\"Seriously?\"\n\n\"Never been out of atmosphere before. The low-gravity thing. That's weird.\"\n\nAmos bounced gently on his toes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was only about a sixth of a g. He hadn't really thought about it much." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You get used to it.\"\n\n\"You did, anyway,\" Erich said. \"So how did you meet her?\"\n\n\"We got in over our heads on some shit, and some folks she was against were trying to kill us. She came in and tried to keep us alive.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So now you're friends.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Friendly acquaintances,\" Amos said. \"I don't have all that many what you'd call friends.\"\n\nThe lift stopped with a small lurch that it really shouldn't have had. The ops deck was all dark surfaces, the decking a deep chocolate brown, the walls an artificial wood grain, the consoles and couches lined in fake leather." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Or hell, maybe real leather." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It wasn't like he knew the difference to look at. Erich lowered himself into one of the couches and ran his good hand over his scalp.\n\n\"You know,\" he said. \"You couldn't have done this without us. Me and your prisoner friend. And now the head of the fucking government, which excuse me if that still breaks my head a little.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well, I—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, I know you would have done something. Just not this. You couldn't have done this exact thing. This plan? For it, you needed to have us. All of us. And the only thing we had in common was you.\"\n\nAmos sat across from him. Erich wouldn't meet his eyes straight on.\n\n\"Plan's kind of a strong word for it,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I was just grabbing whatever I could.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yeah, the thing is you had things to grab. I spent a lot of years in Baltimore. Know it like the back of my hand. Knew it. Now, I've got all my best people here and no fucking clue what here looks like, you know? Who controls the drugs around here? How do you fake an ID? I mean, I figure that underlying logic's the same anywhere, but...\"\n\nErich stared at the wall like there was something to see there. Amos craned his neck to look, just to be sure.\n\n\"I don't know what we do from here. I don't know what I do from here. I've got people counting on me to get them through the queen of all churns, and I don't know where to take them or what we're gonna do.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yeah, that sucks.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You do,\" Erich said.\n\n\"I suck?\"\n\n\"You know. You've been out here. This? All this? It's your neighborhood. You know people. You know how things work. You know how to keep people alive.\"\n\n\"You may be overestimating the amount of time I've put into analyzing stuff,\" Amos said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I got one ship and three people. That's been kind of a handful. All the rest of this just happened along the way.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But it got us here.\" Erich shifted his gaze. His eyes were hard. \"I've got enough cash squirreled away that if I get access to it, I might be able to buy a small ship. Not a good one, but something. Or relocate the team somewhere. One of the Lagrange stations or Pallas or... wherever. Start over. Make a new niche. If you want to take the lead, I'll give it up.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh,\" Amos said. \"Yeah, no.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They'd be better off with you leading than with me.\"\n\n\"Yeah, but I don't know them enough to give a shit. I've got my own thing going. I'm sticking with it.\"\n\nHe couldn't tell if the release in Erich's eyes was relief or disappointment. Maybe both. Lydia would have known. Or Naomi." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Or Holden." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alex, probably. For him, it was just a little change in muscle tension. Could have meant anything.\n\n\"I'll find my own way then,\" Erich said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We'll be out of here in a couple days, if I can manage it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Okay, then,\" Amos said. It felt like there should be something more. He'd known Erich as long as he'd known anyone alive. Even if they saw each other again a time or two, the conversation they'd just had was the mark of the end." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Both of their lives could have looked a lot different if Amos had said a few different words." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It seemed like there should have been something to say about that. But since he couldn't come up with anything, he went back to the lift and headed down for the machine shop.\n\nGoing to the technical end of the Zhang Guo—the places where the owners and their guests wouldn't spend their time—was like stepping into a different ship. All the glitter and beauty gave way to a clean utilitarian design that wasn't as good as the Roci, but better than any other ship Amos had worked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "All the corners were curved and softened in expectation of impacts." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All the handholds were double-bolted. The drawers and cabinets in the machine shop were latched in two planes. The air smelled like fresh filters and lubricant. Someone had kept the place clean and in better order than a glorified orbital shuttle really deserved." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Amos wondered if whoever that had been was still alive." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It wasn't a question he could answer, though, so he didn't spend a lot of energy on it.\n\nPeaches was sitting at a workbench. The outfit they'd gotten during their bike trip to Baltimore looked pretty sketchy in the clean and tidy surroundings. Torn at the shoulder and still too big for her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She looked like she was swimming in it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail with a zip tie and her hands were moving quickly and carefully over an open case of modular electronics. Her movements were as precise and flowing as an old recording of a piano player at the keys. She didn't look up as he came in, but she smiled.\n\n\"Got something for you. Salvaged a hand terminal. Nice one. Even got it talking to the local network. Finish the configuration, and you're good to go.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Amos pulled the seat next to her out from the body of the ship." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She handed him the terminal, but still didn't meet his eyes.\n\n\"According to Chrissie, it ain't salvage.\"\n\n\"I liberated one, then. I was going to get one myself, but I can't. I've got nothing to connect to.\"\n\n\"Could use it like a disposable,\" Amos said, starting to key his configuration information." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Get you access to feeds anyway.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Does it matter?\"\n\n\"Well, if you don't think it does, then maybe not.\"\n\nShe sighed. There were tears in her eyes and a smile on her face. \"We did it. We made it safely to Luna. Just like we hoped.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yeah.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You know what I really missed when I was in the Pit? Anything that actually meant anything. They fed me, and they kept me alive, and we had this kind of support group thing where we could talk about our childhood traumas and shit. But I couldn't do anything that mattered. I couldn't work. I couldn't talk to people outside the prison. I was just being and being and being until sooner or later, I'd die and they'd put someone else in my cell.\"\n\nShe leaned forward, her elbows on the workbench. She'd burned the side of her thumb on something—a soldering iron, the barrel of a gun, something—and the skin was smooth and pink and painful-looking. \"I won't go back there.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Peaches, there's no there to go back to. And anyway, I'm pretty sure Chrissie knows you're on board here. She's not pushing the issue, so as long as we stay cool and act casual—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her laugh was short and bitter. \"Then what? You can't take me with you anymore, Amos. I can't go on the Rocinante. I tried to kill Holden. I tried to kill all of you. And I did kill people. Innocent people. That's never going away.\"\n\n\"In my shop, that's just fitting in,\" Amos said. \"I appreciate that seeing the crew again could leave you feeling a little antsy, but we all know what you are. What you did. Including all the shit you did to us. This isn't new territory. We'll talk it through. Work something out.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm just afraid that if he doesn't back your play, they'll send me back, and—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amos lifted a hand. \"You're missing some shit here, Peaches. Lot of folks seem to be. Let me lay this out again. There's no back, and it ain't just the real estate. The government that put you in prison only sort of exists anymore. The planet that put you in prison is going to be having billions of people die in the next little bit. Making sure you serve your whole term doesn't mean shit to them. There's a new Navy between us and the Ring, and there's still a thousand solar systems out there to fuck up the way we fucked up this one. Because what you're doing right now? Yeah, you're worrying about how it would go for you if none of that happened. And I'm thinking that you're doing it because you're not looking at the facts.\"\n\n\"What facts?\"\n\n\"It ain't like that anymore.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What isn't?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Any of it,\" Amos said. \"With Earth puking itself to death and Mars a ghost town, everything's up for grabs. Who owns what. Who decides who owns what. How money works. Who gets to send people to prison. Erich just called it the queen of all churns, and he ain't wrong about that. It's a new game, and—\"\n\nHis hand terminal chimed. Amos looked at it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The design was nicer than his old one, but the interface was a little different." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It took him a few seconds to figure out what the alert meant. He whistled between his teeth.\n\n\"What is it?\" Peaches asked.\n\nHe turned the screen toward her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Seventy messages and twenty-three connection requests. Going back to before the rock dropped.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 5 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Who from?\"\n\nAmos looked at the list. \"Alex, mostly. A few from the captain. Fuck. I got six hours of stored video with just Alex trying to talk to me.\"\n\nPeaches' smile was thin, but it was a smile. \"At least you have people.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Task: Cooperative storytelling\nMy role: Provide a brief opening\nYour role: Expand upon my opening with four sentences, emulating the writing style of James S. A. Corey." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"A bicycle?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amos leaned on the breakfast bar. \"Sure. They don't need fuel, they don't get sick. Most of the repairs, you can handle on your own. You're looking for post-apocalyptic transportation, bikes are the way to go.\"\n\nAlex sipped his beer. It was a local brew from a pub just down the corridor with a rich hoppy flavor and a reddish color." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I guess I never thought about it that way.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The suite on Luna was bigger than their rooms on Tycho Station had been, but of the same species. Four bedrooms opened onto a wide, recessed common area. A wall screen bent around the curve of the room, set to an idealized lunar landscape that was more photogenic than the real one. Every now and then, an animated \"alien\" girl would pop out from behind a rock, look surprised, and dart away again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was cute, he supposed, but he would have preferred the real moonscape." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So anyway, I didn't want to go through Washington. Too many people there, and if the pumps stopped working, I didn't want to be pedaling through knee-high sludge, right?\"\n\n\"Right,\" Alex said.\n\nHolden was on the Rocinante. Naomi was asleep in her room." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She'd been sleeping a lot since the Rocinante had plucked them all out of the vacuum." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The medical system said she was getting better and that the rest was good. It worried Alex, though. Not because she needed the sleep, but because maybe she didn't actually need it and was pretending to. Being here with Holden and Amos and Naomi was a bone-deep relief." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He wanted it to be the end of their separation, everything come back into its right place like nothing had ever happened." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But it wasn't. Even talking to Amos, Alex thought he could feel little differences in the man. A kind of abstraction, like he was thinking of something else all the time and only pretending to give Alex his undivided attention. Naomi had been in medical debriefing since they'd arrived, and the physicians hadn't allowed anyone in to see her except Holden. If Naomi was finding excuses to stay isolated from them, that could be a very bad sign." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They still didn't know all of what she'd been through that she'd wound up with the Free Navy and then escaped from it, but that it had been a trauma seemed obvious." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And so he tried to enjoy the peace and pleasure of having his crew again and ignore the anxiety growing in the back of his mind, the sense that—just like with the governments and planets and system of the solar system—things here had changed.\n\nAmos' hand terminal chirped. He sucked down half a glass of beer then bared his teeth. \"I gotta go do a thing.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"All right,\" Alex said, pouring the rest of his beer into the sink." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Where are we going?\"\n\nAmos hesitated, but only for a fraction of a second. \"Dock. Got something I need to move into my shop.\"\n\n\"Great,\" Alex said. \"Let's go.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The stations on Luna were the oldest non-terrestrial habitation humanity had." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They sprawled across the face of the moon and sank below its surface. The lights set into the walls glowed with a warm yellow and splashed across vaulted ceilings. The gravity—even lighter here than on Mars or Ceres or Tycho—felt strange and pleasant, like a ship ambling on without being in a rush to get anywhere. It was almost possible to forget the tragedy still playing out a little under four hundred thousand klicks over their heads." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Almost, but not quite." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amos went on about everything that had happened while he was down the well, and Alex listened with half his attention. The details of the story would be grist for a hundred conversations once they were back in the ship and going somewhere. It didn't matter that he get all of it now, and the familiar cadences of Amos' voice were like hearing a song he liked and hadn't listened to in a long time.\n\nAt the dock, Amos looked up and down the halls until he saw someone he knew sitting on a plastic storage crate." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The crate was blue with white curls of scrapes along the side like a painting of waves." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The woman was thickly built with black cornrows, dark brown skin, and an arm in a cast.\n\n\"Hey, Butch,\" Amos said.\n\n\"Big man,\" the woman said. She didn't acknowledge Alex at all. \"This is this.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Thanks, then.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The woman nodded and walked off, her low-g shuffle a little stiffer than the people around her. Amos rented a loading mech, grabbed the crate, and started for the Roci, Alex trotting along beside him.\n\n\"Should I ask what's in that?\" Alex said.\n\n\"Probably not,\" Amos said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So anyway, there we are on this island where all the rich people used to be before they fucked off up the well, right? And the ships are pretty much not there...\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Rocinante had an actual hangar bay complete with atmosphere, not just a space on a pad and a tube to her airlocks. The new outer hull was titanium alloy and ceramic, the polished metal and flat black paint of the hull studded with PDCs and sensor arrays. The maw of the keel-mounted rail gun was like a little surprised o at her bow. In the artificial light of the hangar, she looked less dramatic than she had in the unfiltered light of the sun, but no less beautiful." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her scars were gone now, but it didn't make the ship seem less herself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amos drove the mech to the aft airlock and cycled it open without breaking the slow, easy lope of his story. Inside, Amos lowered the crate to the deck, but didn't turn on the electromagnetic clamps that would hold it there. Instead, he slipped out of the mech and went into the ship itself. Engineering, cargo bay, the machine shop." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The stern had always been Amos' domain." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So those others,\" Amos said. \"Johnson's people? They're done messing with my shit now, right?\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" Alex said. \"She's ours again. Just ours.\"\n\n\"Good.\" Amos shuffled into the cargo bay." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So the servants, the maids and chauffeurs and whatever,\" Alex said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They called security and then they just changed sides? Or... I mean how did that work?\"\n\n\"Well,\" Amos said, popping the latches on the crate. \"We had an introduction, see?\"\n\nThe folds of the crate's lid rose of their own accord." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alex jumped back, misjudged the gravity, stumbled." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A dark-haired head came up over the crate's edge, a thin ghost-pale face with ink-black eyes. Alex's heart started going triple time. Clarissa Mao, psychopath and murderer, smiled at him tentatively.\n\n\"Hey,\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alex took a long, shuddering breath. \"Ah. Hey?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"See?\" Amos said, clapping the girl's shoulder. \"Told you it wouldn't be a problem.\"\n\n\"You have to tell him,\" Alex said, keeping his voice low. Bobbie was telling Holden about the work she'd been doing with veterans' affairs in Londres Nova, so he wasn't paying attention to them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm gonna,\" Amos said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You have to tell him now. She's on our ship.\"\n\nAmos shrugged. \"She was on our ship for months when we were coming back from the slow zone.\"\n\n\"She was a prisoner. Because of all the people she killed. And now she's on our ship by herself.\"\n\n\"I'll give you that does make this situation a little different,\" Amos said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Is there a problem?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holden asked. \"What are we talking about?\"\n\n\"Little something I wanted to run past you,\" Amos said. \"It'll wait until after the dog and pony show.\"\n\nThe meeting room in the security compound was built in an outdated architectural fashion: open archways and wide, sky-blue ceilings with indirect light and subtle geometric patterning." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Everything about it was pointedly artificial, like the idea of an afternoon courtyard without the afternoon or the courtyard." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Avasarala's voice came before she did, staccato and impatient. When she stepped through one of the archways, a young, seriously dressed man at her side, Bobbie stood up. Holden followed her lead.\n\n\"—if they want a voice in the decision. We're not going to fuck around bullshit electoral posturing.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, ma'am,\" the young man said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Avasarala waved that they should sit back down as she took her own seat even as she kept talking to her assistant. \"Take it to Kleinmann first. Once he's behind me, Castro and Najjar will have the cover they need.\"\n\n\"If you say so, ma'am.\"\n\n\"If I say so?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The assistant inclined his head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"With permission, Chung is in a stronger position than Kleinmann.\"\n\n\"Are you second-guessing me, Martinez?\"\n\n\"Yes, ma'am.\"\n\nAvasarala shrugged. \"Chung, then. Now go.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "As the young man left, she turned her attention to them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Thank you all for—Where's Nagata?\"\n\n\"Medical bay,\" Holden said. \"The doctors are still deciding whether she's stable enough to release.\"\n\nAvasarala hoisted an eyebrow and tapped a message onto her hand terminal." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They can make a fucking exception. I want her here. Thank most of you for coming. I'd beat around the bush and make everyone feel at home, but I've been in meetings for the last thirty-six hours, and I'm cranky. We're all clear that Earth is fucked, yes?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hell yeah,\" Amos said.\n\n\"Good,\" Avasarala said. \"Then I won't belabor the point. Along with that, the Martian Navy just shattered into tiny little pieces and Smith's too scared to call it treason.\"\n\n\"Can I ask,\" Bobbie said, sitting forward. Her hands, splayed on the table, seemed like she was trying to brace herself against a blow." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How bad does that look?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We're not making any official statements, especially when James Holden's in the room. No offense, but your track record for blurting information at inopportune moments is the stuff of legend.\"\n\n\"I'm getting better about that,\" Holden said. \"But yeah. I understand.\"\n\n\"There's a thing that happens,\" Avasarala said, \"when unthinkable things become thinkable. We're in a moment of chaos. Everything's up for grabs. Legitimacy itself is up for grabs. That's where we are now. This turd biscuit Inaros? He's out tooling around the Jovian moons where we can watch him play pirate. He's made his play to set the narrative. The Belt has risen up after generations of oppression, and is now taking its rightful wah, wah, wah. The position I'm in—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He's not wrong, though,\" Holden said, and Avasarala's eyes hardened." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If looks could kill, Holden would have left in a bag, but he shook his head. \"If the Belters fall in line with this Free Navy thing, it's going to be because they're all out of any other kind of hope. The new systems and colonies—\"\n\n\"Have erased their niche,\" Avasarala said. \"And that's shitty, and maybe we could have found a way to support them. Put them on some kind of cooperative basic, but they put a cherry bomb up the ass of the largest functioning ecosphere in the system, and it's going to be a while before handing them free food's going to be an option for me, practically or politically.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They're never going to shut up and take handouts,\" Amos said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Those bastards are three, four generations out there because they weren't looking to live on basic. I'm against eugenics same as the next guy, but the Belt hasn't been breeding for the kind of people who just kick back and see how much they can fuck and watch entertainment feeds before they die.\"\n\n\"I'm aware of the cultural problem,\" Avasarala said. \"And as I said, it doesn't fucking matter anyway. If they'd be willing to take it, I still couldn't give it to them. So I have to find another way to cut the Free Navy off at the knees." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But since Earth's navy is going to be busy making sure we don't have any more radar-invisible rocks dropping on us and Mars is in the process of ignoring that it's suffered a minor coup, it's going to be tricky." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tomorrow, I'm going to make an announcement. You get a preview. Lucky you.\n\n\"The United Nations, with assistance from the Mars Republic and cooperation from the OPA, is going to field a task force to address the criminal conspiracy of pirates and terrorists going under the Free Navy name. Not a war. A policing task force. And that's where you all come into play.\"\n\n\"You want me to lead it,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes,\" Avasarala said, \"because literally every UN naval officer who wasn't dishonorably discharged is suddenly unavailable. For fuck's sake, Holden, I have crates of anti-herpes drugs that are more legitimately UN Navy than you are.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The old woman shook her head in disbelief and disgust. Holden's scowl was matched by a rising blush. Bobbie tried to hide her laughter, but Alex had to admit it was a little funny. Even if just to himself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bobbie was the one to step in." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What exactly are you looking for from us?\"\n\n\"I want your presence and cooperation at the debriefing, for one thing. But more importantly, I need to know what you know. What you've found. We have to figure out how a third-rate gang leader managed to beat us at every turn—\"\n\n\"He didn't,\" Naomi said, stepping in from under the spreading arches, a security escort at her side. In the shadowless light, she looked weirdly delicate." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her skin was peeling and she moved with the careful shifting of someone prepared for pain to come at any moment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But her sclera had faded from the blood-and-bone color to an ivory yellow that actually looked healthier, and her voice had lost the slushiness at its edges. A weight lifted from Alex's heart.\n\n\"The prisoner, ma'am,\" the security escort said.\n\n\"Yes, thank you, I noticed that,\" Avasarala said, then turned her attention to Naomi." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What do you mean he didn't?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Look at everything he tried to do and failed. He didn't kill Fred Johnson. He didn't kill Prime Minister Smith. He didn't take Tycho Station or destroy it. The Rocinante's in one piece. He didn't keep hold of me. It's how he works. If he wins, it was the important thing. If he loses, it just disappears.\"\n\n\"And the protomolecule sample that he stole?\"\n\nNaomi blinked, seemed to lose focus for a moment, and shook her head. \"He never said anything about that.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Would he have?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Naomi sat in the chair beside Holden. He took her hand, and she allowed it, but her attention was on Avasarala. Alex wasn't sure why that bothered him so much. The meeting wasn't an invitation for the two of them to work out their relationship status." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And still, if she'd been just a little less guarded with him..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes,\" Naomi said. \"He would have. He likes to brag.\" The intimacy of that one piece of information filled Alex's chest with a sense of deep foreboding. Holden's face was calm. Unreadable.\n\n\"Good,\" Avasarala said, a sharpness in her voice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's very good to know.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She considered Naomi silently. \"You look like you're feeling better. You heard some of what I was saying?\"\n\n\"Enough of it,\" Naomi said.\n\n\"Are you going to be able to help us?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The question hung in the air, rich with nuance and complicated importance." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not Why were you on his ship. Not How do you know him. Not Who are you to him that he brags about his plans to you. Just, Are you going to be able to help?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You okay?\" Amos murmured." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What? I'm fine,\" she replied.\n\n\"Because you're kinda fidgeting,\" Amos said at the same time Naomi said, \"I want immunity from prosecution.\"\n\nThe air seemed to go out of the room. It wasn't a confession, but it painted a picture that none of them had wanted to admit might be possible." }, { "from": "human", "value": "To ask for immunity was an admission of guilt, even if they didn't know what she was guilty of." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Avasarala's smile was indulgent and friendly and, he was almost certain, deceptive. \"Blanket immunity?\"\n\n\"For all of us.\"\n\n\"Who is 'all of us'?\" Avasarala said, forming the words carefully as she said them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Your friends in the Free Navy?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The crew of the Rocinante,\" Naomi said, and then stuttered. Paused. \"And maybe one other person.\"\n\nAlex shot a look at Amos. Did she know about Clarissa?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Was that who she meant?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Amos' smile was amiable and empty. Avasarala tapped her fingernails against the table.\n\n\"Not for Earth,\" Avasarala said. \"Dropping the rocks? No one gets immunity for that.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alex saw it hit." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tears appeared in Naomi's eyes, brimming silver and bright. \"The crew of the Rocinante,\" she said. \"The other one... I may ask for clemency and consideration later on. If the occasion arises.\"\n\n\"For Inaros?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No,\" Naomi said. \"Him, you can fucking burn.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I need to understand this fully,\" Avasarala said. \"You, as a former member of Inaros' group, are willing to exchange complete and accurate information about his activities both before and after the bombardment of Earth in exchange for blanket immunity for the crew of the Rocinante on any matter not related to the present attacks?\" That there had been no profanity in the statement gave it a solidity that unnerved Alex.\n\n\"Yes,\" Naomi said. \"That's right.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The relief on Avasarala's face was hard as flint." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Glad to hear you say that, dear. I was worried I'd misjudged you.\" She rose to her feet, then grabbed at the table, cursing under her breath. \"I miss weighing something. Half the time, I feel like I'm on a fucking trampoline. I'm going to go lie down and take a sleeping pill before I have a psychotic break, but the debriefing? It starts in the morning.\"\n\n\"We'll be wherever you want us to be,\" Holden said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We're not going to hide anything.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was still holding Naomi's hand, and her fingers had curled around his. So maybe that was hopeful after all. As to not hiding anything... Well, Amos still didn't say anything.\n\nThe meeting broke up, except that it also didn't." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Avasarala left, but the rest of them, including Bobbie, went to the security lobby, through the checkpoint, and out to the public lobby together." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The sober silence gave way slowly to more mundane conversation: whether there was anyplace with food better than the mess on the Roci. Or if not better, at least different. Whether Naomi was up to drinking alcohol, because there was a little pub on one of the lower levels that was supposed to have some pretty good beers on offer. No one asked whether Bobbie was joining them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was just assumed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As they shuffled and bounced in the thin gravity, Naomi and Holden kept hold of each other's hands. Amos and Bobbie traded dirty jokes. It was the powerfully ordinary talk that gave Alex hope. For everything that had happened, that was happening, that was still looming in the unseen and uncertain future, there were still moments like these." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And so maybe it would be all right despite it all." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At the wide slope of Chandrayaan Plaza, where the traffic of carts and mechs and half-skipping people turned down a wide ramp deeper into the body of the moon, Amos cleared his throat.\n\n\"So that immunity for the crew thing?\"\n\n\"It wasn't just for you,\" Naomi said, making it a joke, and also not one.\n\n\"Yeah, figured,\" Amos said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But here's the thing. I was thinking about maybe taking on an apprentice. You know, help flesh out the crew. Get some skill redundancy.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your next one should be approximately two sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's a good idea,\" Holden said. \"Did you have someone in mind?\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Provide four sentences as a continuation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hell no,\" Jim said when they were alone in the suite." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Absolutely no. No fucking way, no. There have got to be a billion different ways to say no, and I'd still have to cycle through them a couple times to really express the depth of no on this one. Clarissa Mao? On the Roci? How is that anything but a massive load of let's-not-do-that?\"\n\n\"And yet,\" she said, letting herself drift down to the bed, \"you told Amos you'd think about it.\"\n\nJim tried pacing, but the slight lunar gravity made it difficult for him. He gave up and sat at the foot of the bed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We just got the crew back together. And Bobbie was there. I didn't want to spoil the moment.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ah. The moment.\"\n\nShe closed her eyes. Everything hurt. Her skin hurt. Her eyes felt gritty and swollen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The joints in her hands and feet ached. Her knees hurt." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her fingertips felt raw and oversensitive. She had the kind of headache that expressed as a sense of profound fragility until she moved too fast, and then it throbbed. It was better now than it had been, though. And it would get better." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Slowly, over the course of at least days and maybe weeks, she'd come back to herself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Or some version of herself. But even if some of the damage was permanent, she'd feel better than she did now. Not yet, but soon.\n\nAlex, Amos, and Bobbie were gone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Out to get beer and food." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Their food. Pizza or falafel or sashimi. Earth food. There wasn't any good red kibble on Luna, or if there was, it wouldn't be served at the kinds of places they'd go. Part of her wished she'd had the energy to go with them. Part of her wished Jim had decided to join them instead of her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Part of her was euphoric and on the edge of tears that she was here, that she'd escaped, that it was over." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She felt like her soul was a handful of dice that were still rolling, and what came up would decide the shape that the rest of her life took.\n\n\"I mean... Clarissa Mao?\" Jim said. \"How does anyone think that's a good idea?\"\n\n\"Amos isn't afraid of monsters,\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The words tasted bitter, but not completely so." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Or no, not bitter. Complex, though.\n\n\"She is responsible for a lot of dead people,\" Jim said. \"She blew up the Seung Un. Took out a quarter of the crew. And that one body they found? The one she was carrying around in a toolbox? Do you remember that?\"\n\n\"I do.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That guy was a friend of hers. She wasn't just killing faceless enemies. She was right down, look-them-in-the-eyes killing people that she knew. That she liked. How do you go from that to 'I know, let's ship out with her'?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She knew she should stop him. He wasn't talking about her or the Augustín Gamarra or any of the other ships that had been sabotaged since using the code she wrote. He wasn't talking about Cyn, or the way he'd tried to intervene in her half-staged suicide. If he had been, there would have been more." }, { "from": "human", "value": "How could she abandon her son?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "How could she let Filip think that she'd killed herself? How could she have kept something that important hidden from the people she said she cared about? All the sins she carried that even Clarissa Mao didn't.\n\nShe knew she should stop him, but she didn't." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His voice was like tearing back scabs." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It hurt to hear, and it left her exposed and raw and painful to the touch, and the pain felt good. Worse, it felt right.\n\n\"I'm not saying she should be killed. That whole thing about how if she's ever going back to prison, Amos is going to shoot her? I understand that he's joking—\"\n\n\"He's not.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Okay, I'm pretending that he's joking, but I'm not advocating killing her. I don't want her to die. I don't even want her locked up in inhumane, shitty prisons. But that's not what we're talking about. Shipping with someone means literally trusting them with your life all the time. And, okay, I was on the Canterbury, and we had some people there who were deeply, deeply sketchy. But even Byers only killed her husband. Clarissa Mao set out to destroy me in particular. Me. I just... I don't... How does anyone think this is a good idea? Someone who does the things she did doesn't just change.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She took a deep breath, pulling air into her bruised lungs. They still gurgled a little, but she was on enough reflex inhibitors that she wasn't coughing herself light-headed anymore. She didn't want to open her eyes, didn't want to talk. She opened her eyes, sat up, her back against the headboard, her arms wrapped around her knees." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Holden went quiet, feeling the weight of what was about to come." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Naomi plucked at her hair, pulling it over her eyes like a veil, then almost angrily, she smoothed it back so her eyes were clear.\n\n\"So,\" she said. \"We need to talk.\"\n\n\"Captain to XO?\" he asked, carefully.\n\nShe shook her head. \"Naomi to Jim.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The dread that bloomed in his eyes hurt to see, but she'd also been expecting it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She felt its echo in her own chest. It was strange that after all she'd done—all the demons she'd faced and escaped—this should still be so hard. Holden's hand terminal chimed, and he didn't even look at the screen. The lines around his mouth deepened the way they did when he'd tasted something he didn't like." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His hands folded together, strong, controlled, calm." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She remembered the first time they'd met, lifetimes ago back on the Canterbury. How he'd radiated charm and certainty and how much she'd hated it at first. How much she'd hated him for being too much like Marco. And then how much she'd come to love him for not being like him at all." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And now, she would break her rule of silence, and the thing they had between them would either survive or it wouldn't." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was a terrible thought. Marco might still be able to empty her, and he wouldn't even have to spend the effort of being aware of it. Existing was enough.\n\n\"I don't,\" Jim said, then stopped. He looked up at her through his eyebrows, like he was the one feeling guilty for it all." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We all have pasts. We all have secrets. When you took off, I felt... lost. Confused. Like part of my brain was gone. And now that you're here, I am just profoundly happy to see you. This right here? It's enough.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Are you saying you don't want to know?\"\n\n\"Oh lord, no. No, I'd pretty much cut off a toe. I'm pretty much made of ragingly deep curiosity and floating jealousy. But I can deal with those. I don't have any more right to make you tell me anything you don't want to than I ever did. If there's anything you don't want to say—\"\n\n\"I don't want to say any of this,\" Naomi said. \"But I want you to know. And so we have to get through this part, no?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jim shifted, pulling his legs up under him, kneeling at the foot of the bed, his face to hers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His hair was the color of coffee with just a little cream. His eyes were blue as deep water. As evening sky was supposed to be.\n\n\"Then we'll get through it,\" he said with a simple, boundless optimism that caught her by surprise and drew out laughter, even here." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well,\" she said. \"When I was in my middle teens, I was living with a woman we called Tia Margolis and burning through the engineering courses on the networks as fast as I could, and there were ships that came through dock. Belter ships. Hard-core.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jim nodded, and then—to her surprise—it was easy. In her mind, the idea of unpacking her past to Jim—to anyone—was a thing of anger and disgust and recriminations. Or worse, of pity. Jim, who for all his faults was sometimes capable of perfection, listened carefully and completely." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She had been Marco Inaros' lover." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She'd gotten pregnant young. She'd been involved—at first without knowing it—in the sabotage of inner planets ships. She had a son named Filip who had been taken from her as a way to control her. She described the dark thoughts, and realized it was very nearly the first time she'd talked about them openly, without a veil of ironic humor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I tried to kill myself, but it didn't work." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Just saying the words out loud felt like being in a dream. Or waking up from one.\n\nAnd then, somehow in the depth of her confession, the baring of her blighted soul that was always supposed to be a trauma and a terror, it was just her and Jim having a conversation. She'd found a way to get a message out to him during the battle, and he told her about getting it, and the conversation he'd been having with Monica Stuart, and why he'd felt betrayed by her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And then backtracked to how she'd been kidnapped, and then before that to her plan to use the protomolecule sample as a Ouija board to investigate the missing ships." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And then they went back to the Chetzemoka and Marco's fallback plan, which brought up the way he always nested one scheme inside another, and before she got back around to Cyn, Alex and Amos and Bobbie were back, their voices burbling over each other like birdsong. Jim closed the bedroom door against them and, when he came back, settled beside her, his back to the headboard too.\n\nWhen she did talk about killing Cyn during her jump, Jim took her hand. They were silent for a moment while she examined her grief." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was real, and it was deep, but it was also complicated with anger at her old friend and captor." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She hadn't let herself be aware of that at the time, but looking back, her whole stretch on the Pella seemed like an exercise in retracting into herself. Except when she'd defied Marco. She remembered saying that Jim was all the things he only pretended to be, wondered whether she should tell that part of the story, and then did. Jim looked horrified and then laughed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They lost track of their stories and spent ten minutes getting the timeline back: the Chetzemoka left the Pella after Jim and Fred had already departed from Tycho, or before?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He'd told Alex to go investigate the Pau Kant before the rocks dropped on Earth? Oh right. Okay. She got it now.\n\nThey got sleepy together, her arm curled in his. The pauses grew longer, and softer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She thought Oh, we should really talk about Amos and Clarissa Mao, but then she was dreaming that she was on a ship that was burning at a full g for everyone else while she was on the float." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All the other people in the crew, pressed to the deck while she moved through the air, reaching the tools and ducts they couldn't get to. In the dream, Alex was explaining that it was because she had so much built-up inertia that the rest of them would take a while catching up. In context, it seemed to make sense.\n\nShe woke up. She didn't know how much later it was, but there were no more voices from the main room." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jim was curled on his side, his back against her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His breath was deep and slow. She stretched slowly, careful not to disturb him. The aches in her muscles and skin and joints felt a little better, and there was a warmth in her chest. A looseness.\n\nFor years, she'd kept her secrets." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Held them like she was keeping the pin in a hand grenade." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The fear and the shame and the guilt had built up without her even noticing. The things she had done wrong—and there were so many—had grown in power. Not having them gnawing at her ribs from the inside felt strange. Empty, in a way, but a peaceful kind of empty." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Not that she was suddenly made of light and happiness." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Cyn was still dead because of her. Filip was still abandoned. Abandoned again. Marco was still as much a pool of anger and hatred. Nothing about that had changed, and everything had." }, { "from": "human", "value": "An old picture made into something new by replacing the frame." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jim shifted in his sleep. The thin, dark hairs on the back of his neck had a couple paler ones among them. The first touches of gray.\n\nSomething had changed between them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Not just during her sabbatical in hell, but now that she was back from her own personal underworld." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She wasn't sure exactly who they were to each other, she and Jim, except that things would be different now. Because she was different, and her changing wasn't going to break him. He wouldn't try to make her stay the Naomi he'd imagined.\n\nThings changed, and they didn't change back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But sometimes they got better." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She got out of bed slowly, shuffling to the little desk in the corner of the room. Their hand terminals were there, and the little bottle of Jim's anticancer drugs, since he wasn't on the Roci. She reached for her terminal, paused, and picked up his. She should ask first, but he was asleep, and she didn't want to wake him, and she didn't think he'd mind." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Monica Stuart's footage of the Rabia Balkhi passing through the ring gate was unexceptional." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nothing in it seemed at all strange, except for the story around it. What had Marco done with it, she wondered. Why had he started his piracy so long before the actual coup that would permit it to go large-scale? Just the effort of doctoring all the logs from Medina would be a risk he didn't need to take." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Maybe it was something to do with the system the Balkhi was heading into...?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She shifted to her own terminal, connecting to the Roci's system and putting out a series of simple pattern matching requests. It wasn't hard to do. Most of the information Stuart had been working with was public record. And optical telescopes around the system had been trained on the Free Navy since the moment Marco had started his assault on the Martian convoy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The list of systems where ships had gone missing wasn't long, but the pattern in it wasn't obvious either." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She tried to remember if anyone on the Pella had talked about any of them: Tasnim, Jerusalem, New Kashmir. Of course, the naming conventions were also a mess. New Kashmir also got called Sandalphon, High Texas, and LM-422. She pulled up alternate names for the other systems." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Now that Jim had learned the worst of her past, she was almost eager to start the debriefing with Avasarala's team, and if there was some clue she could bring from her time on the Pella..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She scowled. Ran the matching schema again with different tolerances. Behind her, Jim yawned. When he sat up, the sheets made a hushing sound. The Roci came back with a list of possibles, and she spooled through them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Ankara Slough was an approximate match for the Rabia Balkhi, but looking through the differences she saw the drive signatures were wrong." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It would have cost less to make a new ship than to swap a whole drive complex out of an existing one. In the front room, Alex said something and Amos answered. And then—to her brief surprise—Bobbie. Jim's hand touched her shoulder." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hey. You all right?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yeah,\" Naomi said. \"Fine.\"\n\n\"How long have you been up?\"\n\nShe checked the time and groaned. \"Three and a half hours.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Breakfast?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"God, yes.\"\n\nHer back protested when she stood, but only a little. Her mind felt focused and alive and wholly her own for the first time in weeks. Maybe since the first, toxic message from Marcos had come in." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She wasn't at war with herself, and it felt good. But..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jim's hair was in wild disarray, but he looked handsome in it. She took his arm. \"Is something wrong?\" he asked.\n\n\"Don't know,\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Would coffee improve whatever it is?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Couldn't hurt,\" she said.\n\nIn the main room of the suite, Amos and Bobbie were talking about methods of unpowered travel, each of them subtly outdoing the other and both clearly aware of it and having fun. Alex grinned to her and Jim when they sat at the breakfast bar, and then poured them both demitasses of slow-pouring espresso with thick brown crème at the top. Naomi sipped, enjoying the heat and the rich complexity hidden inside the bitterness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You're looking better,\" Alex said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Feeling better. Thanks. Bobbie, the missing ships you were looking for. They were all MCRN, right? Navy?\"\n\n\"Ships. Weapons. Supplies. The whole thing,\" Bobbie said. \"I guess we know what happened to them now.\"\n\n\"No colony ships, though?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The big woman frowned." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I wasn't looking for any.\"\n\n\"What's up?\" Jim asked.\n\nNaomi swirled the espresso in her little bone-colored cup, watching the whorls form and vanish in the low gravity. \"The missing ships come in two flavors. Military vessels from Mars that the Free Navy have now, and then colony ships that went missing on their way out to new systems. And I make sixty, maybe seventy percent matches with the Free Navy ships to old military records. I can't find one match with the missing colony ships. I can't see a pattern in what systems they were going to or what they were carrying. And I don't know what hijacking them could have gained for Marco.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Amos made a low grunting sound in the back of his throat." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your next one should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yeah,\" Naomi said, as if the sound had been words. \"Something in the ring gates is eating ships.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Let's engage in a collaborative writing exercise. I'll provide a starting point, and You'll continue with 4 sentences in the style of James S. A. Corey." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I have a tracking number,\" the captain of the little freight ship said for what had to be the sixth or seventh time." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I have landing papers and a tracking number straight from Amatix Pharmaceuticals. I know the shipment arrived on Medina six months ago. I have a tracking number.\"\n\nSauveterre sipped smoked tea from a bulb as he listened. He would have preferred whiskey from a glass, but he was on duty and the Barkeith was on the float. The first did for the whiskey, the second for the glass." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Granted, the captain's office was private and he could have done whatever he pleased." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And, he supposed, he did. Keeping to his duty was a more pleasing thing for him than whiskey, which was as it should be.\n\n\"Sabez you got a tracking number, Toreador,\" the voice from Medina Station said. \"Amatix, though? Esa es Earth-based. No Earth-based companies on Medina.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Barkeith was a Donnager -class battleship." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A small city in space, run with machined precision and capable of turning not only the little freighter but Medina Station to particles smaller than grains of sand. But it and the rest of Duarte's fleet were waiting for permission from traffic control on Medina to proceed through the next ring gate and begin the second, stranger leg of their journey. It was an overabundance of etiquette on the fleet's part, but there were reasons for that. Not the least being the general reluctance to use heavy weapons too near the alien station that hung inert in the vast non-space between the rings." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They weren't ready for that to awaken again. Not yet." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A light knock came at the door. Sauveterre straightened his tunic. \"Come.\" Lieutenant Babbage opened the door, bracing with a handhold on its frame. She looked anxious as she saluted." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sauveterre let her hold the position for a moment before answering her salute and allowing her to enter." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I have been en route for ten months!\" the captain of the Toreador shouted. \"If the colony doesn't get this shipment, they're fucked.\"\n\n\"Have you been listening to this?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sauveterre asked, nodding toward the speakers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, sir,\" Babbage said. Her skin was ashen under the brown. Her lips pressed thin.\n\n\"Üzgün, Toreador,\" Medina Station said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You need to dock for medical, wir koennen—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't need to dock for medical! I need my fucking supplies! I have a tracking number that puts them on your station, and I will not—\"\n\nSauveterre cut them off and took another sip of tea. \"They've been going more or less like that for the better part of an hour. It's embarrassing on their behalf.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do you know why I wanted you to hear it?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She swallowed her fear, which was good, and her voice didn't tremble when she spoke, which was better. \"To demonstrate what happens when there is a breakdown in discipline, sir.\"\n\n\"The end point of it, anyway. Yes. I've heard you violated dress code. Is that true?\"\n\n\"It was a bracelet, sir. It belonged to my mother, and I thought...\" Her voice trailed off." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, sir. That report is true, sir.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Thank you, Lieutenant. I appreciate your candor.\"\n\n\"Permission to speak freely, sir?\"\n\nSauveterre smiled. \"Granted.\"\n\n\"With respect, sir, the dress code was MCRN regulation. If we are going to enumerate transgressions against code, there are some larger ones that might also be worthy of examination. Sir.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You mean like being here at all.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her expression was hard. She'd overplayed her hand, and she knew it. It happened. Embarrassment and the childish need to stamp her feet and say it wasn't fair. He wouldn't have gone there in her place." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But since it was on the table, it was on the table." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No way but forward.\n\n\"We are in a time of flux, that's true. With the elected government failing its obligations, Admiral Duarte has taken authority and responsibility for the fleet on himself. I, following the chain of command, am carrying out his orders. You, also following the chain of command, are expected to follow mine. This is an independent initiative of the fleet. It's not a free-for-all.\"\n\n\"Sir,\" she said. She meant Yes, sir, but she hadn't said the yes part.\n\n\"Do you know what happens if I write you up for your failure to follow fleet discipline?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I could be demoted, sir.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You could. If things continued, you could be drummed out. Removed from duty. Dishonorably discharged. Not over this, of course. This is small, but if it became large. You understand?\"\n\n\"I do, sir.\"\n\n\"If you were discharged, what do you think would happen?\"\n\nShe looked at him, confused." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He gestured with his free hand, a sweep that gave her permission to speak." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I... don't...\" she stammered.\n\n\"I don't know either,\" he said. \"Back at Mars, you'd have been released to civilian life. But where we're going, there is no civilian life. No human life at all. Do I turn you out to fend for yourself in the local food chain? Do I spend the time and resources it would take to send you back, and then back where? The forces that have taken control on Mars would see you as a traitor just the same as they would me. They'd throw you in the brig for life unless you cooperated with them. And if you were going to cooperate with them, then it wouldn't make sense for me to send you back in the first place. Would it?\"\n\n\"No, sir.\" He could see understanding beginning to dawn in her eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Only beginning to, though." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Humanity was so flawed. Not just her, but everyone. Half the population was below average intelligence. Half below average dedication." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Average adherence to duty." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The cruel law of statistics. It was astounding that as a race they'd managed as much as they had.\n\n\"Now that we are taking initiative,\" he said, \"it is more important than ever that we maintain strict discipline. We're like the first long-haul missions back before anyone had an Epstein drive. Months, maybe years, as a community of warriors and explorers. There's not room for outsiders when there is no outside. I know you're upset that—\"\n\n\"No, sir, I'm not—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I know you're upset that I'm coming down on you for something as minor as a bracelet. It seems trivial, and it is. But if I wait until it's not trivial, we come to matters of life and death very, very quickly. I don't have the latitude to take a cavalier position.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I understand, sir.\"\n\n\"I'm glad to hear you say that.\"\n\nHe held out his hand, palm up. Babbage wiped away a tear with the back of her hand, and then dug in her pocket for a moment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When she put the bracelet in his hand, she paused, holding it for just a second longer." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Whatever it meant to her, giving it over was a sacrifice. He closed his hand on the thin silver chain with its tiny sparrow-shaped pendant. He tried to make his smile gentle as he spoke.\n\n\"Dismissed.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "When she had closed the door behind her, he turned back to his system." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A new message had come in from Cortázar. His flesh crawled a little. Duarte's pet scientist had been sending more and more messages since the Belters had pulled the trigger. The man's enthusiasm unnerved Sauveterre." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The man's personality was firmly in the uncanny valley, and his pleasure in the project they were undertaking at the new Laconia Station had a feeling of anticipation that was almost sexual." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Duty, however, was duty. He put Babbage's jewelry in the recycler and opened the message. Cortázar was too close to the camera or else had chosen for reasons of his own to be slightly out of focus. His wide chin and thin, black hair should have been unremarkable." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sauveterre rubbed his hands like he was trying half-consciously to wash them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Captain Sauveterre,\" the strange little man said. \"I'm pleased to report that the sample arrived intact. Thank you very much for taking custody of it after its liberation. I am, however, distressed to hear that the fleet is running behind schedule.\"\n\n\"It's a few days over the course of months,\" Sauveterre said to himself and the screen. \"We'll make it up.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I know you are aware that both supplies and time are in short supply until the artifact has been brought to heel. In order to help make up for this shortfall, the research group has put together some plans and specifications for some of the modifications the Barkeith will need in order to dock with the artifact. Several of them can be started by your engineering teams en route. And of course, if you have any questions, I am at your disposal. Cortázar out.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The screen flipped to a series of technical drawings. There was more than enough about those to disturb him as well. They called all the alien technology by the name protomolecule, but of course, that far-traveled set of life-hijacking microparticles was only one object in a much grander toolbox. And if Cortázar had interpreted the top-clearance data from the MCRN probes correctly, what they had found would be much easier for humanity to tame and make use of." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Still, the changes Cortázar wanted for the Barkeith were unpleasantly organic." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Less like they were fitting a new model of airlock on the ship, and more like they were carving it into some kind of colossal prosthesis.\n\nIt's the beginning of something very new and very powerful, and if good people don't step in to accept the power, bad ones will. It was what Admiral Duarte had told him the night he'd brought Sauveterre into the fold. It had been true then, and it was true now." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He switched on the camera, adjusted his hair, and began recording." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Message received. I will take the plans to my engineers at once. If they have any concerns, we will be in touch.\" Short, to the point, minimalist without being rude. Efficient. He hoped it would come across as efficient. He rewatched it to be sure and considered rerecording it and changing concerns to questions, but decided he was overanalyzing it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As he sent it off, his system chimed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Captain, we have clearance from Medina.\"\n\n\"Do we now, Mister Kogoma? Kind of them. What was the resolution of their tracking number situation?\"\n\n\"The freighter is moving in to dock with the station, sir.\"\n\nWell, there was another ship for the skinnies to commandeer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If the Toreador had known which way the wind was blowing, they'd have hightailed it back to whatever hardscrabble planet they'd come from and tried to make do without whatever they had lost anyway." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As it was, the Free Navy would just keep gobbling up the ships that came through, starving out the colonies. Weakening them. By the time the Belters figured out they were fighting a rearguard action against history, Duarte would be in position.\n\nWar, Sauveterre thought as he pulled himself to the command deck, had long since ceased to be about controlling territory. The job of a military was to disrupt its enemies." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Generations of low-scale war in the Belt hadn't been an attempt to hold Vesta Station or Ceres or any of the dozens of little floating supply hubs in the vast emptiness." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It had always and only been about keeping the OPA or any other Belt force from coalescing into an organized force. Until the rules changed, and that organized force became useful. The Free Navy would have made itself decades before if men like Duarte had let it. Now that the Belt finally had it, they would find just how useless it was." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As long as it kept Earth and what was left of Mars busy for a few years." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After that... The reward of audacity was the chance to steer history.\n\nThe command deck was in trim. Everyone in their couches, the displays freshly cleaned, the controls polished. The Barkeith would arrive at Laconia Station as smart and sharp as she had left Mars." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And they wouldn't be wearing bracelets." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He drew himself down to his command station and strapped himself in.\n\n\"Mister Taylor, sound the acceleration alert. Mister Kogoma, inform the fleet and Medina Station that we are proceeding.\"\n\n\"Sir,\" the tactical officer said, \"permission to open weapon ports.\"\n\n\"Are we expecting action, Mister Kuhn?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Not expecting, sir. An abundance of caution.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kuhn didn't trust the skinnies either. That was fair. They were a bunch of thugs and cowboys who thought that because they had guns, they had power. Sauveterre thought it was early for the Free Navy to start double-crossing Duarte, but they were stupid and impulsive. It didn't do to assume an amateur force would make the same decisions as a professional." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Permission granted. And warm up the PDCs while you're at it. Mister Kogoma, please advise the fleet to do likewise.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, sir,\" Kogoma said.\n\nThe Klaxon sounded and Sauveterre settled into his couch, the sensation of weight returning over the course of seconds. The transit to the Laconia ring was short. The space between the rings was almost claustrophobic compared with the vastness of real, open vacuum. And dark. Starless." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The physics wonks said that there wasn't any space on the other side of the rings." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That whatever bubble they all existed in ended not in a barrier, but in some more profound manner that he couldn't picture. He didn't need to.\n\nThe Laconia gate drew closer, a handful of stars burning solid and clear on the other side of it, and growing as they came near. The exhaust plumes of the fleet vanguard glowed brighter as they passed through." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There would be new constellations there." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A different angle on the galaxy, like a whole new sky.\n\n\"Approaching the ring, sir,\" Keller said from the navigation controls. \"Passing through in three. Two...\"\n\nKeller fell apart. No, that wasn't right." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Keller was where she had been, sitting as she had been sitting." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But she was a cloud now. All of them were clouds. Sauveterre held up his hands. He could see them so perfectly: the ridges of his fingertips, the spaces between the molecules, the swirl and flow of his blood beneath them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He could see the molecules in the air—nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide all bouncing madly against each other, obscuring some more profound space between them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A vacuum that penetrated them all.\n\nI'm having a stroke, he thought. And then, No. Something else is wrong.\n\n\"Kill the drive!\" he shouted. \"Turn about!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "And the waves of his words passed through the visible but invisible air in an expanding sphere, bouncing against the walls, shuddering where they intersected with the cries of fear and a blaring Klaxon. It was beautiful." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The cloud that was Mister Keller moved her hands and miraculously didn't slip through the vast emptiness of her control deck.\n\nHe saw the sound coming in the rush of molecules before it reached him and he heard the words. \"What's going on? What's happening?\"\n\nHe couldn't see the image on the screens to know if the stars were there." }, { "from": "human", "value": "All he could sense were atoms and photons of the thing itself, not the pattern they made." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Someone was screaming. Then someone else.\n\nHe turned and saw something move. Something else, not another cloud like himself, like the others, like matter. Something solid but obscured by the emptiness of material like a shape in the fog." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Many shapes, neither light nor dark, but some other thing, some third side of that coin, passing through the spaces between the spaces." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your next one should be approximately two sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rushing toward them. Toward him.\n\nSauveterre did not notice his death." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Task: Cooperative storytelling\nMy role: Provide a brief opening\nYour role: Expand upon my opening with 4 sentences, emulating the writing style of R. L. Stine." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't want to stay here. Please don't leave me here.\"\n\nEvan Ross tugged his mother's hand, trying to pull her away from the front stoop of the small, gray-shingled house. Mrs. Ross turned to him, an impatient frown on her face.\n\n\"Evan—you're twelve years old. Don't act like an infant,\" she said, freeing her hand from his grasp." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I hate when you say that!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Evan exclaimed angrily, crossing his arms in front of his chest.\n\nSoftening her expression, she reached out and ran her hand tenderly through Evan's curly, carrot-colored hair. \"And I hate when you do that!\" he cried, backing away from her, nearly stumbling over a broken flagstone in the walk." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't touch my hair. I hate it!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Okay, so you hate me,\" his mother said with a shrug. She climbed up the two steps and knocked on the front door. \"You still have to stay here till I get back.\"\n\n\"Why can't I come with you?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Evan demanded, keeping his arms crossed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Just give me one good reason.\"\n\n\"Your sneaker is untied,\" his mother replied.\n\n\"So?\" Evan replied unhappily. \"I like 'em untied.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You'll trip,\" she warned." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Mom,\" Evan said, rolling his eyes in exasperation, \"have you ever seen anyone trip over his sneakers because they were untied?\"\n\n\"Well, no,\" his mother admitted, a smile slowly forming on her pretty face.\n\n\"You just want to change the subject,\" Evan said, not smiling back. \"You're going to leave me here for weeks with a horrible old woman and—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Evan—that's enough!\" Mrs. Ross snapped, tossing back her straight blonde hair." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Kathryn is not a horrible old woman. She's your father's aunt. Your great-aunt. And she's—\"\n\n\"She's a total stranger,\" Evan cried. He knew he was losing control, but he didn't care. How could his mother do this to him?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "How could she leave him with some old lady he hadn't seen since he was two?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What was he supposed to do here all by himself until his mother got back?\n\n\"Evan, we've discussed this a thousand times,\" his mother said impatiently, pounding on his aunt's front door again. \"This is a family emergency. I really expect you to cooperate a little better.\"\n\nHer next words were drowned out by Trigger, Evan's cocker spaniel, who stuck his tan head out of the back window of the rented car and began barking and howling." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Now he's giving me a hard time, too!\" Mrs. Ross exclaimed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Can I let him out?\" Evan asked eagerly.\n\n\"I guess you'd better,\" his mother replied. \"Trigger's so old, we don't want him to have a heart attack in there. I just hope he doesn't terrify Kathryn.\"\n\n\"I'm coming, Trigger!\" Evan called." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He jogged to the gravel driveway and pulled open the car door." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With an excited yip, Trigger leapt out and began running in wide circles around Kathryn's small, rectangular front yard.\n\n\"He doesn't look like he's twelve,\" Evan said, watching the dog run, and smiling for the first time that day.\n\n\"See. You'll have Trigger for company,\" Mrs. Ross said, turning back to the front door. \"I'll be back from Atlanta in no time. A couple of weeks at the most. I'm sure your dad and I can find a house in that time. And then we'll be back before you even notice we're gone.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yeah. Sure,\" Evan said sarcastically." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The sun dipped behind a large cloud. A shadow fell over the small front yard.\n\nTrigger wore himself out quickly and came panting up the walk, his tongue hanging nearly to the ground. Evan bent down and petted the dog's back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He looked up at the gray house as his mother knocked on the front door again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It looked dark and uninviting. There were curtains drawn over the upstairs windows. One of the shutters had come loose and was resting at an odd angle.\n\n\"Mom—why are you knocking?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "he asked, shoving his hands into his jeans pockets." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You said Aunt Kathryn was totally deaf.\"\n\n\"Oh.\" His mother's face reddened. \"You got me so upset, Evan, with all your complaining, I completely forgot. Of course she can't hear us.\"\n\nHow am I going to spend two weeks with a strange old lady who can't even hear me? Evan wondered glumly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He remembered eavesdropping on his parents two weeks earlier when they had made the plan." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were seated across from each other at the kitchen table. They thought Evan was out in the backyard. But he was in the hallway, his back pressed against the wall, listening.\n\nHis father, he learned, was reluctant to leave Evan with Kathryn." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She's a very stubborn old woman,\" Mr. Ross had said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Look at her. Deaf for twenty years, and she's refused to learn sign language or to lip-read. How's she going to take care of Evan?\"\n\n\"She took good care of you when you were a boy,\" Mrs. Ross had argued.\n\n\"That was thirty years ago,\" Mr. Ross protested.\n\n\"Well, we have no choice,\" Evan heard his mother say." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There's no one else to leave him with. Everyone else is away on vacation. You know, August is just the worst month for you to be transferred to Atlanta.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, excuuuuse me!\" Mr. Ross said sarcastically. \"Okay, okay. Discussion closed. You're absolutely right, dear. We have no choice. Kathryn it is. You'll drive Evan there and then fly down to Atlanta.\"\n\n\"It'll be a good experience for him,\" Evan heard his mother say. \"He needs to learn how to get along under difficult circumstances. You know, moving to Atlanta, leaving all his friends behind—that isn't going to be easy on Evan either.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Okay. I said okay,\" Mr. Ross said impatiently." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's settled. Evan will be fine. Kathryn is a bit weird, but she's perfectly harmless.\"\n\nEvan heard the kitchen chairs scraping across the linoleum, indicating that his parents were getting up, their discussion ended.\n\nHis fate was sealed. Silently, he had made his way out the front door and around to the backyard to think about what he had just overheard." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He leaned against the trunk of the big maple tree, which hid him from the house." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was his favorite place to think.\n\nWhy didn't his parents ever include him in their discussions? he wondered. If they were going to discuss leaving him with some old aunt he'd never seen before, shouldn't he at least have a say? He learned all the big family news by eavesdropping from the hallway." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It just wasn't right." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Evan pulled a small twig off the ground and tapped it against the broad tree trunk.\n\nAunt Kathryn was weird. That's what his dad had said. She was so weird, his father didn't want to leave Evan with her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But they had no choice. No choice." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Maybe they'll change their minds and take me to Atlanta with them, Evan thought. Maybe they'll realize they can't do this to me.\n\nBut now, two weeks later, he was standing in front of Aunt Kathryn's gray house, feeling very nervous, staring at the brown suitcase filled with his belongings, which stood beside his mother on the stoop.\n\nThere's nothing to be scared of, he assured himself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It's only for two weeks. Maybe less." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But then the words popped out before he'd even had a chance to think about them: \"Mom—what if Aunt Kathryn is mean?\"\n\n\"Huh?\" The question caught his mother by surprise. \"Mean? Why would she be mean, Evan?\"\n\nAnd as she said this, facing Evan with her back to the house, the front door was pulled open, and Aunt Kathryn, a large woman with startling black hair, filled the doorway." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Staring past his mother, Evan saw the knife in Kathryn's hand." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And he saw that the blade of the knife was dripping with blood." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Task: The user will write a bit then you need to write around four sentences continuing directly from the user's text.\n\nAuthor style: R. L. Stine" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Trigger raised his head and began to bark, hopping backward on his hind legs with each bark.\n\nStartled, Evan's mother spun around, nearly stumbling off the small stoop.\n\nEvan gaped in silent horror at the knife.\n\nA smile formed on Kathryn's face, and she pushed open the screen door with her free hand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She wasn't anything like Evan had pictured." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had pictured a small, frail-looking, white-haired old lady. But Kathryn was a large woman, very robust, broad-shouldered, and tall.\n\nShe wore a peach-colored housedress and had straight black hair, pulled back and tied behind her head in a long ponytail that flowed down the back of the dress. She wore no makeup, and her pale face seemed to disappear under the striking black hair, except for her eyes, which were large and round, and steely blue." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I was slicing beef,\" she said in a surprisingly deep voice, waving the blood-stained kitchen knife." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She stared at Evan. \"You like beef?\"\n\n\"Uh... yeah,\" he managed to reply, his chest still fluttery from the shock of seeing her appear with the raised knife.\n\nKathryn held open the screen door, but neither Evan nor his mother made any move to go inside. \"He's big,\" Kathryn said to Mrs. Ross." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"A big boy. Not like his father. I used to call his father Chicken. Because he was no bigger than a chicken.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She laughed as if she had cracked a funny joke.\n\nMrs. Ross, picking up Evan's suitcase, glanced uncomfortably back at him. \"Yeah... he's big,\" she said.\n\nActually, Evan was one of the shortest kids in his class." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And no matter how much he ate, he remained \"as skinny as a spaghetti noodle,\" as his dad liked to say." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You don't have to answer me,\" Kathryn said, stepping aside so that Mrs. Ross could get inside the house with the suitcase. \"I can't hear you.\" Her voice was deep, as deep as a man's, and she spoke clearly, without the indistinct pronunciation that some deaf people have.\n\nEvan followed his mother into the front hallway, Trigger yapping at his heels." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Can't you get that dog quiet?\" his mother snapped." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It doesn't matter. She can't hear it,\" Evan replied, gesturing toward his aunt, who was heading to the kitchen to put down the knife.\n\nKathryn returned a few seconds later, her blue eyes locked on Evan, her lips pursed, as if she were studying him. \"So, you like beef?\" she repeated.\n\nHe nodded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Good,\" she said, her expression still serious." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I always fixed beef for your father. But he only wanted pie.\"\n\n\"What kind of pie?\" Evan asked, and then blushed when he remembered Kathryn couldn't hear him.\n\n\"So he's a good boy? Not a troublemaker?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Kathryn asked Evan's mother." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mrs. Ross nodded, looking at Evan. \"Where shall we put his suitcase?\" she asked.\n\n\"I can tell by looking he's a good boy,\" Kathryn said. She reached out and grabbed Evan's face, her big hand holding him under the chin, her eyes examining him closely." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Good-looking boy,\" she said, giving his chin a hard squeeze." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He likes the girls?\"\n\nStill holding his chin, she lowered her face to his. \"You've got a girlfriend?\" she asked, her pale face right above his, so close he could smell her breath, which was sour." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Evan took a step back, an embarrassed grin crossing his face. \"No. Not really.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes?\" Kathryn cried, bellowing in his ear. \"Yes? I knew it!\" She laughed heartily, turning her gaze to Evan's mother.\n\n\"The suitcase?\" Mrs. Ross asked, picking up the bag." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He likes the girls, huh?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kathryn repeated, still chuckling. \"I could tell. Just like his father. His father always liked the girls.\"\n\nEvan turned desperately to his mother. \"Mom, I can't stay here,\" he said, whispering even though he knew Kathryn couldn't hear. \"Please—don't make me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hush,\" his mother replied, also whispering." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She'll leave you alone. I promise. She's just trying to be friendly.\"\n\n\"He likes the girls,\" Kathryn repeated, leering at him with her cold blue eyes, again lowering her face close to Evan's.\n\n\"Mom—her breath smells like Trigger's!\" Evan exclaimed miserably.\n\n\"Evan!\" Mrs. Ross shouted angrily." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Stop it! I expect you to cooperate.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm going to bake you a pie,\" Kathryn said, tugging at her black ponytail with one of her huge hands. \"Would you like to roll out the dough? I'll bet you would. What did your father tell you about me, Evan?\" She winked at Mrs. Ross. \"Did he tell you I was a scary old witch?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No,\" Evan protested, looking at his mother." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, I am!\" Kathryn declared, and once again burst into her deep-throated laugh.\n\nTrigger took this moment to begin barking ferociously and jumping on Evan's great-aunt. She glared down at the dog, her eyes narrowing, her expression becoming stern. \"Look out or we'll put you in the pie, doggie!\" she exclaimed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Trigger barked even harder, darting boldly toward the tall, hovering woman, then quickly retreating, his stub of a tail whipping back and forth in a frenzy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We'll put him in the pie, won't we, Evan?\" Kathryn repeated, putting a big hand on Evan's shoulder and squeezing it till Evan flinched in pain.\n\n\"Mom—\" he pleaded when his aunt finally let go and, smiling, made her way to the kitchen. \"Mom—please.\"\n\n\"It's just her sense of humor, Evan,\" Mrs. Ross said uncertainly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She means well. Really. She's going to bake you a pie.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But I don't want pie!\" Evan wailed. \"I don't like it here, Mom! She hurt me. She squeezed my shoulder so hard—\"\n\n\"Evan, I'm sure she didn't mean to. She's just trying to joke with you. She wants you to like her. Give her a chance—okay?\"\n\nEvan started to protest, but thought better of it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm counting on you,\" his mother continued, turning her eyes to the kitchen." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They could both see Kathryn at the counter, her broad back to them, hacking away at something with the big kitchen knife.\n\n\"But she's... weird!\" Evan protested.\n\n\"Listen, Evan, I understand how you're feeling,\" his mother said. \"But you won't have to spend all your time with her. There are a lot of kids in this neighborhood. Take Trigger for a walk. I'll bet you'll make some friends your age. She's an old woman, Evan. She won't want you hanging around all the time.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I guess,\" Evan muttered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His mother bent down suddenly and gave him a hug, pressing her cheek against his. The hug, he knew, was supposed to cheer him up. But it only made him feel worse.\n\n\"I'm counting on you,\" his mother repeated in his ear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Evan decided to try and be braver about this." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll help you carry the suitcase up to my room,\" he said.\n\nThey carried it up the narrow staircase. His room was actually a study. The walls were lined with bookshelves filled with old hardcover books." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A large mahogany desk stood in the center of the room." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A narrow cot had been made up under the single, curtained window.\n\nThe window faced out onto the backyard, a long green rectangle with the gray-shingled garage to the left, a tall picket fence to the right. A small, fenced-in area stretched across the back of the yard. It looked like some sort of dog run." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The room smelled musty." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The sharp aroma of mothballs invaded Evan's nose.\n\nTrigger sneezed. He rolled onto his back, his legs racing in the air.\n\nTrigger can't stand this place either, Evan thought. But he kept his thought to himself, smiling bravely at his mother, who quickly unpacked his suitcase, nervously checking her watch." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm late. Don't want to miss my plane,\" she said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She gave him another hug, longer this time. Then she took a ten-dollar bill from her pocket-book and stuffed it into his shirt pocket. \"Buy yourself a treat. Be good. I'll hurry back as fast as I can.\"\n\n\"Okay. Bye,\" he said, his chest feeling fluttery, his throat as dry as cotton." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The smell of her perfume momentarily drowned out the mothballs." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He didn't want her to leave. He had such a bad feeling.\n\nYou're just scared, he scolded himself.\n\n\"I'll call you from Atlanta,\" she shouted as she disappeared down the stairs to say good-bye to Kathryn." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her perfume disappeared." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The mothballs returned.\n\nTrigger uttered a low, sad howl, as if he knew what was happening, as if he knew they were being abandoned here in this strange house with the strange old woman.\n\nEvan picked Trigger up and nose-kissed his cold, black nose. Putting the dog back down on the worn carpet, he made his way to the window." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He stood there for a long while, one hand holding the curtains aside, staring down at the small, green yard, trying to calm the fluttering in his chest." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After a few minutes, he heard his mother's car back down the gravel drive. Then he heard it roll away.\n\nWhen he could no longer hear it, he sighed and plopped down on the cot. \"It's just you and me now, Trigger,\" he said glumly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Trigger was busily sniffing behind the door." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Evan stared up at the walls of old books.\n\nWhat am I going to do here all day? he asked himself, propping his head in his hands. No Nintendo. No computer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He hadn't even seen a TV in his great-aunt's small living room." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What am I going to do?\n\nSighing again, he picked himself up and walked along the bookshelves, his eyes scanning the titles. There were lots of science books and textbooks, he saw. Books on biology and astronomy, ancient Egypt, chemistry texts, and medical books." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Several shelves were filled with dusty, yellowed books." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Maybe Kathryn's husband, Evan's great-uncle, had been some sort of scientist.\n\nNothing here for me to read, he thought glumly.\n\nHe pulled open the closet door.\n\n\"Oh!\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Hey can you write like R. L. Stine and use whatever i write as a jumping off point?" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Evan staggered back in fear as the warm blackness crept over him.\n\nIt took him a few seconds to realize what it was. His heart still thudding in his chest, he reached up and pulled the screeching black cat off his face.\n\nThe cat dropped silently to the ground and padded to the doorway." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Evan turned and saw Kathryn standing there, an amused grin on her face." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "How long had she been standing there? he wondered.\n\n\"Sarabeth, how did you get in there?\" she asked in a playfully scolding tone, bending down to speak to the cat. \"You must have given the boy a fright.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The cat mewed and rubbed against Kathryn's bare leg." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Did Sarabeth scare you?\" Kathryn asked Evan, still smiling. \"That cat has a strange sense of humor. She's evil. Pure evil.\" She chuckled as if she'd said something funny." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm okay,\" Evan said uncertainly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Watch out for Sarabeth. She's evil,\" Kathryn repeated, bending down and picking the cat up by the scruff of the neck, holding her up in the air in front of her. \"Evil, evil, evil.\"\n\nSeeing the cat suspended in the air, Trigger uttered an unhappy howl. His stubby tail went into motion, and he leapt up at the cat, barking and yipping, missed, and leapt again, snapping at Sarabeth's tail.\n\n\"Down, Trigger! Get down!\" Evan cried." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Struggling to get out of Kathryn's arms, the cat swiped a clawed black paw at her, screeching in anger and fear." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Trigger barked and howled as Evan struggled to pull the excited cocker spaniel away.\n\nEvan grabbed hold of Trigger as the cat swung to the floor and disappeared out the door. \"Bad dog. Bad dog,\" Evan whispered. But he didn't really mean it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was glad Trigger had scared the cat away." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He looked up to see Kathryn still filling the doorway, staring down at him sternly. \"Bring the dog,\" she said in a low voice, her eyes narrowed, her pale lips pursed tightly.\n\n\"Huh?\" Evan gripped Trigger in a tight hug.\n\n\"Bring the dog,\" Kathryn repeated coldly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We can't have animals fighting in this house.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But Aunt Kathryn—\" Evan started to plead, then remembered she couldn't hear him.\n\n\"Sarabeth is a bad one,\" Kathryn said, not softening her expression. \"We can't get her riled, can we?\" She turned and started down the stairs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Bring the dog, Evan.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Holding Trigger tightly by the shoulders with both hands, Evan hesitated.\n\n\"I have to take care of the dog,\" Kathryn said sternly. \"Come.\"\n\nEvan was suddenly filled with dread. What did she mean, take care of the dog?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "A picture flashed into his mind of Kathryn standing at the doorway with the bloody kitchen knife in her hand." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Bring the dog,\" Kathryn insisted.\n\nEvan gasped. What was she going to do to Trigger?" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "I'll be your writing partner today. I will set the scene, and you will continue the story with 4 sentences, channeling the voice and techniques of R. L. Stine.i'll kick things off by writing a bit, then you'll take over and write the next 4 sentences in the distinctive voice of R. L. Stine.Ive got a bit of writers block, im gonna send you something then keep it going 4 sentences at a time, also im going for a R. L. Stine sorta thing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I will take care of you, doggie,\" Kathryn repeated, frowning at Trigger." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The dog whimpered in reply.\n\n\"Come, Evan. Follow me,\" she said impatiently.\n\nSeeing that he had no choice, Evan obediently carried Trigger down the stairs and followed his aunt to the backyard. \"I'm prepared,\" she said, turning to make sure he was following." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Despite her age—she was at least eighty—she walked with long, steady strides." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I knew you were bringing a dog, so I made sure I was prepared.\"\n\nTrigger licked Evan's hand as they walked across the yard to the long, fenced-in area at the back. \"It's a special place for your dog,\" Kathryn said, reaching up to grab one end of the rope that stretched across the run. \"Attach this to the collar, Evan. Your dog will have fun here.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She frowned disapprovingly at Trigger." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And there will be no problems with Sarabeth.\"\n\nEvan felt very relieved that this was all Kathryn wanted to do to Trigger. But he didn't want to leave Trigger tied up in this prison in the back of the yard. Trigger was a house dog." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He wouldn't be happy by himself out here." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But Evan knew he had no way of arguing with his aunt. Kathryn is smart in a way, he thought bitterly as he hooked Trigger's collar to the rope. Since she won't learn sign language and won't lip-read, it means she gets to do whatever she wants, and no one can tell her no.\n\nHe bent down and gave Trigger's warm head a pat and looked up at the old woman." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She had her arms crossed in front of her chest, her blue eyes glowing brightly in the sunlight, a cold smile of triumph on her face." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's a good boy,\" she said, waiting for Evan to get up before starting back to the house. \"I knew when I looked at you. Come to the house, Evan. I have cookies and milk. You'll enjoy them.\" Her words were kind, but her voice was hard and cold.\n\nTrigger sent up an unhappy howl as Evan followed Kathryn to the house." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Evan turned, intending to go back and comfort the dog." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But Kathryn grabbed his hand in an iron grip, and, staring straight ahead, led him to the kitchen door.\n\nThe kitchen was small and cluttered and very warm. Kathryn motioned for him to sit at a small table against the wall. The table was covered with a plastic, checkered tablecloth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She frowned, her eyes studying him, as she brought over his snack." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He downed the oatmeal raisin cookies and milk, listening to Trigger howl in the backyard. Oatmeal raisin wasn't his favorite, but he was surprised to find that he was hungry. As he gobbled them down, Kathryn stood at the doorway, staring intently at him, a stern expression on her face.\n\n\"I'm going to take Trigger for a walk,\" he announced, wiping the milk mustache off his upper lip with the paper napkin she had given him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Kathryn shrugged and wrinkled up her face." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Oh. Right. She can't hear me, Evan thought. Standing at the kitchen window, he pointed to Trigger, then made a walking motion with two fingers. Kathryn nodded.\n\nWhew, he thought. This is going to be hard." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He waved good-bye and hurried to free Trigger from his backyard prison." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A few minutes later, Trigger was tugging at the leash, sniffing the flowers along the curb as Evan made his way up the block. The other houses on the street were about the same size as Kathryn's, he saw. And they all had small, neatly trimmed, square front yards.\n\nHe saw some little kids chasing each other around a birch tree." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And he saw a middle-aged man in bright orange bathing trunks washing his car with a garden hose in his driveway." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But he didn't see any kids his age.\n\nTrigger barked at a squirrel and tugged the leash out of Evan's hand. \"Hey—come back!\" Evan called. Trigger, disobedient as always, took off after the squirrel." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The squirrel wisely climbed a tree." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But Trigger, his eyesight not what it once was, continued the chase.\n\nRunning at full speed, calling the dog's name, Evan followed him around a corner and halfway down the block before Trigger finally realized he had lost the race.\n\nBreathing hard, Evan grabbed the leash handle. \"Gotcha,\" he said. He gave the leash a tug, trying to lead the panting dog back to Kathryn's street." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Trigger, sniffing around a dark tree trunk, pulled the other way." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your next one should be approximately two sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Evan was about to pick up the stubborn dog when he was startled by a hand grabbing his shoulder.\n\n\"Hey—who are you?\" a voice demanded." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Expand the story by adding four sentences." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Evan spun around to find a girl standing behind him, staring at him with dark brown eyes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why'd you grab my shoulder like that?\" he asked, his heart still pounding.\n\n\"To scare you,\" she said simply.\n\n\"Yeah. Well...\" Evan shrugged." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Trigger gave a hard tug at the leash and nearly pulled him over." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The girl laughed.\n\nShe was pretty, he thought. She had short, wavy brown hair, almost black, and flashing brown eyes, and a playful, teasing smile. She was wearing an oversized yellow T-shirt over black spandex leggings, and bright yellow Nikes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So who are you?\" she demanded again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She wasn't the shy type, he decided. \"I'm me,\" he said, letting Trigger lead him around the tree.\n\n\"Did you move into the Winterhalter house?\" she asked, following him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He shook his head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No. I'm just visiting.\"\n\nShe frowned in disappointment.\n\n\"For a couple of weeks,\" Evan added. \"I'm staying with my aunt. Actually, she's my great-aunt.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What's so great about her?\" the girl cracked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Nothing,\" Evan replied without laughing. \"For sure.\"\n\nTrigger sniffed at a bug on a fat brown leaf.\n\n\"Is that your bike?\" Evan asked, pointing to the red BMX bike lying on the grass behind her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yeah,\" she replied." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's cool,\" he said. \"I have one like it.\"\n\n\"I like your dog,\" she said, eyeing Trigger. \"He looks real stupid. I like stupid dogs.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Me, too. I guess.\" Evan laughed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What's his name? Does he have a stupid name?\" She bent down and tried to pet Trigger's back, but he moved away.\n\n\"His name's Trigger,\" Evan said, and waited for her reaction.\n\n\"Yeah. That's pretty stupid,\" she said thoughtfully." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Especially for a cocker spaniel.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Thanks,\" Evan said uncertainly.\n\nTrigger turned to sniff the girl's hands, his tail wagging furiously, his tongue hanging down to the ground.\n\n\"I have a stupid name, too,\" the girl admitted. She waited for Evan to ask." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What is it?\" he said finally." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Andrea,\" she said.\n\n\"That's not a stupid name.\"\n\n\"I hate it,\" she said, pulling a blade of grass off her leggings. \"Annndreeea.\" She stretched the name out in a deep, cultured voice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It sounds so stuck up, like I should be wearing a corduroy jumper with a prim, white blouse, walking a toy poodle. So I make everyone call me Andy.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hi, Andy,\" Evan said, petting Trigger. \"My name is—\"\n\n\"Don't tell me!\" she interrupted, clamping a hot hand over his mouth.\n\nShe certainly isn't shy, he thought.\n\n\"Let me guess,\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Is it a stupid name, too?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yeah,\" he nodded. \"It's Evan. Evan Stupid.\"\n\nShe laughed. \"That's really a stupid name.\"\n\nHe felt glad that he made her laugh. She was cheering him up, he realized." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A lot of the girls back home didn't appreciate his sense of humor." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They thought he was silly.\n\n\"What are you doing?\" she asked.\n\n\"Walking Trigger. You know. Exploring the neighborhood.\"\n\n\"It's pretty boring,\" she said." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "The user will write a bit then you need to write around 4 sentences continuing directly from the user's text. Try to mimic the style of R. L. Stine.Produce 4 sentences using the prose and structure of R. L. Stine every time its your turn using what the user wrote as a seed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Okay,\" Evan said. \"Let's check out the town.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I have to go to a toy store and look for a present for my cousin,\" Andy said, hoisting her bike up by the handlebars.\n\n\"How old are you?\" Evan asked, tugging Trigger toward the street.\n\n\"Twelve.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Me, too,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Can I try your bike?\"\n\nShe shook her head as she climbed onto the narrow seat. \"No, but I'll let you run alongside.\" She laughed.\n\n\"You're a riot,\" he said sarcastically, hurrying to keep up as she began to pedal." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And you're stupid,\" she called back playfully." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Hey, Annnndreeeea—wait up!\" he called, stretching the name out to annoy her.\n\nA few blocks later, the houses ended and they entered town, a three-block stretch of low two-story shops and offices. Evan saw a small brick post office, a barbershop with an old-fashioned barber pole out front, a grocery, a drive-through bank, and a hardware store with a large sign in the window proclaiming a sale on birdseed.\n\n\"The toy store is in the next block,\" Andy said, walking her bike along the sidewalk." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Evan tugged Trigger's leash, encouraging him to keep up the pace." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Actually there are two toy stores, an old one and a new one. I like the old one best.\"\n\n\"Let's check it out,\" Evan said, examining the cluttered window display of the video store on the corner.\n\nI wonder if Aunt Kathryn has a VCR, he thought. He quickly dismissed the idea. No way...." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The toy store was in an old clapboard building that hadn't been painted in many years." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A small, hand-painted sign in the dust-smeared window proclaimed: Wagner's Novelties & Sundries. There were no toys on display.\n\nAndy leaned her bike against the front of the building. \"Sometimes the owner can be a little mean. I don't know if he'll let you bring your dog in.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well, let's give it a try,\" Evan said, pulling open the door." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tugging hard on his leash, Trigger led the way into the store.\n\nEvan found himself in a dark, low-ceilinged, narrow room. It took awhile for his eyes to adjust to the dim light.\n\nWagner's looked more like a warehouse than a store." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There were floor-to-ceiling shelves against both walls, jammed with boxes of toys, and a long display counter that ran through the center of the store, leaving narrow aisles that even someone as skinny as Evan had to squeeze through." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At the front of the store, slumped on a tall stool behind an old-fashioned wooden cash register, sat a grumpy-looking man with a single tuft of white hair in the center of a red, bald head. He had a drooping white mustache that seemed to frown at Evan and Andy as they entered.\n\n\"Hi,\" Andy said timidly, giving the man a wave.\n\nHe grunted in reply and turned back to the newspaper he was reading." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Trigger sniffed the low shelves excitedly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Evan looked around at the stacks of toys. It appeared from the thick layer of dust that they'd been sitting there for a hundred years. Everything seemed tossed together, dolls next to building sets, art supplies mixed in with old action figures Evan didn't even recognize, a toy drum set underneath a pile of footballs.\n\nHe and Andy were the only customers in the store." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do they have Nintendo games?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Evan asked her, whispering, afraid to break the still silence.\n\n\"I don't think so,\" Andy whispered back. \"I'll ask.\" She shouted up to the front, \"Do you have Nintendo games?\"\n\nIt took awhile for the man to answer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He scratched his ear." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't carry them,\" he grunted finally, sounding annoyed by the interruption.\n\nAndy and Evan wandered toward the back of the store. \"Why do you like this place?\" Evan whispered, picking up an old cap pistol with a cowboy holster." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I just think it's neat,\" Andy replied." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You can find some real treasures here. It's not like other toy stores.\"\n\n\"That's for sure,\" Evan said sarcastically. \"Hey—look!\" He picked up a lunchbox with a cowboy dressed in black emblazoned on its side. \"Hopalong Cassidy,\" he read. \"Who's Hopalong Cassidy?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"A cowboy with a stupid name,\" Andy said, taking the old lunchbox from him and examining it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Look—it's made of metal, not plastic. Wonder if my cousin would like it. He likes stupid names, too.\"\n\n\"It's a pretty weird present,\" Evan said.\n\n\"He's a pretty weird cousin,\" Andy cracked. \"Hey, look at this.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She set down the old lunchbox and picked up an enormous box." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's a magic set. 'Astound your friends. Perform one hundred amazing tricks,'\" she read.\n\n\"That's a lot of amazing tricks,\" Evan said.\n\nHe wandered farther back into the dimly lit store, Trigger leading the way, sniffing furiously. \"Hey—\" To Evan's surprise, a narrow doorway led into a small back room." }, { "from": "human", "value": "This room, Evan saw, was even darker and dustier." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Stepping inside, he saw worn-looking stuffed animals tossed into cartons, games in faded, yellowed boxes, baseball gloves with the leather worn thin and cracked.\n\nWho would want this junk? he thought.\n\nHe was about to leave when something caught his eye. It was a blue can, about the size of a can of soup." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He picked it up, surprised by how heavy it was." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bringing it close to his face to examine it in the dim light, he read the faded label: Monster Blood. Below that, in smaller type, it read: Surprising Miracle Substance.\n\nHey, this looks cool, he thought, turning the can around in his hand.\n\nHe suddenly remembered the ten dollars his mother had stuffed into his shirt pocket." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He turned to see the store owner standing in the doorway, his dark eyes wide with anger." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your next one should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What are you doing back here?\" he bellowed." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "expand on the story like R. L. Stine would" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Trigger yipped loudly, startled by the man's booming voice." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Evan gripped the leash, pulled Trigger close. \"Uh... how much is this?\" he asked, holding up the can of Monster Blood.\n\n\"Not for sale,\" the owner said, lowering his voice, his mustache seeming to frown unpleasantly with the rest of his face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Huh? It was on the shelf here,\" Evan said, pointing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's too old,\" the man insisted. \"Probably no good anymore.\"\n\n\"Well, I'll take it, anyway,\" Evan said. \"Can I have it for less since it's so old?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What is it?\" Andy asked, appearing in the doorway." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't know,\" Evan told her. \"It looks cool. It's called Monster Blood.\"\n\n\"It's not for sale,\" the man insisted.\n\nAndy pushed past him and took the can from Evan's hand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Ooh, I want one, too,\" she said, turning the can around in her hand." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There's only one,\" Evan told her.\n\n\"You sure?\" She began searching the shelves.\n\n\"It's no good, I'm telling you,\" the owner insisted, sounding exasperated.\n\n\"I need one, too,\" Andy said to Evan." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Sorry,\" Evan replied, taking the can back." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I saw it first.\"\n\n\"I'll buy it from you,\" Andy said.\n\n\"Why don't you two share it?\" the owner suggested.\n\n\"You mean you'll sell it to us?\" Evan asked eagerly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The man shrugged and scratched his ear." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How much?\" Evan asked.\n\n\"You sure you don't have another one?\" Andy demanded, going back to the shelf, pushing a pile of stuffed pandas out of her way. \"Or maybe two? I could keep one and give one to my cousin.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Two dollars, I guess,\" the man told Evan." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But I'm telling you, it's no good. It's too old.\"\n\n\"I don't care,\" Evan said, reaching into his shirt pocket for the ten-dollar bill.\n\n\"Well, don't bring it back to me complaining,\" the man said grumpily, and headed toward the cash register at the front of the store.\n\nA few minutes later, Evan walked out into the bright daylight carrying the blue can." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Trigger panted excitedly, wagging his stubby tail, pleased to be out of the dark, dusty store." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Andy followed them out, an unhappy expression on her face.\n\n\"You didn't buy the lunchbox?\" Evan asked.\n\n\"Don't change the subject,\" she snapped. \"I'll pay you five dollars for it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She reached for the can of Monster Blood." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No way,\" Evan replied. He laughed. \"You really like to get your way, don't you!\"\n\n\"I'm an only child,\" she said. \"What can I tell you? I'm spoiled.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Me, too,\" Evan said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I have an idea,\" Andy said, pulling her bike off the storefront wall. \"Let's share it.\"\n\n\"Share it?\" Evan said, shaking his head. \"For sure. I'll share it the way you shared your bike.\"\n\n\"You want to ride the bike home? Here.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She shoved it at him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No way,\" he said, pushing it back toward her. \"I wouldn't ride your stupid bike now. It's a girl's bike, anyway.\"\n\n\"It is not,\" she insisted. \"How is it a girl's bike?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Evan ignored the question and, pulling at Trigger's leash to keep the old dog moving, started walking back toward his aunt's." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How is it a girl's bike?\" Andy repeated, walking the bike beside him.\n\n\"Tell you what,\" Evan said. \"Let's go back to my aunt's house and open up the can. I'll let you mess with it for a while.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Gee, swell,\" Andy said sarcastically." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're a great guy, Evan.\"\n\n\"I know,\" he said, grinning.\n\nKathryn was seated in the big armchair in the living room when Evan and Andy arrived. Who is she talking to?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "he wondered, hearing her voice." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She seemed to be arguing excitedly with someone.\n\nLeading Andy into the room, Evan saw that it was just Sarabeth, the black cat. As Evan entered, the cat turned and haughtily walked out of the room.\n\nKathryn stared at Evan and Andy, a look of surprise on her face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"This is Andy,\" Evan said, gesturing to his new friend." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What have you got there?\" Kathryn asked, ignoring Andy and reaching a large hand out for the blue can of Monster Blood.\n\nEvan reluctantly handed it to her. Frowning, she rolled it around in her hand, stopping to read the label, moving her lips as she read." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She held the can for the longest time, seeming to study it carefully, then finally handed it back to Evan." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As Evan took it back and started to his room with Andy, he heard Kathryn say something to him in a low whisper. He couldn't quite hear what she had said. It sounded like, \"Be careful.\" But he wasn't sure." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He turned to see Sarabeth staring at him from the doorway, her yellow eyes glowing in the dim light." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"My aunt is completely deaf,\" Evan explained to Andy as they climbed the stairs.\n\n\"Does that mean you can play your stereo as loud as you want?\" Andy asked.\n\n\"I don't think Aunt Kathryn has a stereo,\" Evan said.\n\n\"That's too bad,\" Andy said, walking around Evan's room, pulling back the window curtains and looking down on Trigger, huddled unhappily in his pen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Is she really your great-aunt?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Andy asked. \"She doesn't look very old.\"\n\n\"It's the black hair,\" Evan replied, setting the can of Monster Blood on the desk in the center of the room. \"It makes her look young.\"\n\n\"Hey—look at all these old books on magic stuff!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Andy exclaimed. \"I wonder why your aunt has all these.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She pulled one of the heavy, old volumes from the shelf and blew away a layer of dust from the top. \"Maybe your aunt plans to come up here and cast a spell on you while you're sleeping, and turn you into a newt.\"\n\n\"Maybe,\" Evan replied, grinning. \"What is a newt, anyway?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Andy shrugged. \"Some kind of lizard, I think.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She flipped through the yellowed pages of the old book. \"I thought you said there was nothing to do here,\" she told Evan. \"You could read all these cool books.\"\n\n\"Thrills and chills,\" Evan said sarcastically." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Replacing the book on the shelf, Andy came over to the desk and stood next to Evan, her eyes on the can of Monster Blood." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Open it up. It's so old. It's probably all disgusting and rotten.\"\n\n\"I hope so,\" Evan said. He picked up the can and studied it. \"No instructions.\"\n\n\"Just pull the top off,\" she said impatiently." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He tugged at it. It wouldn't budge." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Maybe you need a can opener or something,\" she said.\n\n\"Very helpful,\" he muttered, studying the label again. \"Look at this. No instructions. No ingredients. Nothing.\"\n\n\"Of course not. It's Monster Blood!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "she exclaimed, imitating Count Dracula." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Now write approximately five sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She grabbed Evan's neck and pretended to strangle him.\n\nHe laughed. \"Stop! You're not helping.\"\n\nHe slammed the can down on the desktop—and the lid popped off.\n\n\"Hey—look!\" he cried.\n\nShe let go of his neck, and they both peered inside the can." } ]