Asterion Noir: The Complete Collection (Amaranthe Collections Book 4)

by G. S. Jennsen

  She folded up one of the jacket’s arms and pressed it against the man’s throat. “Theo? Can you hear me? I’m getting an emergency response unit over here right now. You’re going to be fine.”

  The man’s lips moved wordlessly as blood bubbled up from his throat to soak Joaquim’s jacket and Perrin’s hands. He blinked twice, and after the second blink his eyes locked open, staring into the nothingness.

  Perrin’s brow knotted as she pressed more fervently on the wound.

  Joaquim laid a hand on her shoulder. “He’s gone.”

  “No…oh, godsdammit!” She leapt unsteadily to her feet, only to stumble backward and trip on an upended slab of concrete behind her.

  He scrambled over to where she’d landed half on the slab. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah….” Desolation consumed the murmured response, and her chin fell to her chest.

  He crouched in front of her and lifted her chin back up with a fingertip. Tears streaked through the layer of dust covering her face, and anguish darkened her normally bright eyes. “Are you sure?”

  “Is anything we do ever going to be enough? It feels like the harder we fight, the more loss and destruction crashes down on us. On everyone.”

  “I honestly don’t know. But we have to keep trying.”

  “I am trying. I’m trying so damn hard. That guy? He was the recruit I met the other week at Serpens Sate. He was finally stepping up and taking control of his own life and now…I don’t know where he kept his backups or how we’ll ever find them. He might be dead forever. Why?”

  “There’s no good answer, Perrin. Nothing that will fix this.”

  “I know. I just wish—”

  “Clear the area. Only emergency response units are allowed inside the barricades.”

  He scowled at the dyne looming over them, then took a deep breath and helped Perrin to her feet. “Sounds like it’s time for us to make ourselves scarce. We’ve done all we can.”

  14

  * * *

  MIRAI

  “HOW MANY?”

  “Atomized? We’re estimating between one hundred eighty and two hundred thirty people. Here in Mirai One, that is.”

  Adlai sagged against the nearest intact wall. His head dropped back to rest on the surface as he pinched the bridge of his nose in a desperate struggle to keep hold of a few scraps of professional detachment.

  The numbers were simple data points; if he thought of them as lives, he wouldn’t be able to do his job. And people needed him to do his job. “We can use the surveillance footage and security logs from prior to the incident to identify some of the people who were atomized…but not all of them. We’ll never find out who many of them were. Unless someone reports a person missing and places them in the vicinity of the transit hub tonight, this will be the end for those people.”

  Justice means final death.

  But this wasn’t Justice’s doing, dammit. At least, not so far as he knew. But he didn’t know much, did he? “Keep going.”

  Spencer hesitated, then joined him against the wall. “Upwards of one hundred fifty people suffered total body loss, but at least in those cases there are bodies we can identify. A minimum of three hundred more people suffered damage serious enough that body replacement might be required, and when you include the fires and other collateral damage, we’re looking at around a thousand people with less severe damage. Three of the surrounding buildings were destroyed, and another six likely won’t pass inspection and will need to be razed. As of five minutes ago, all but two of the fires are out, and both of those are under control.”

  “What else?”

  “Early reports indicate five of the paired gates imploded at their destinations as well. No firm casualty numbers are available for those other locations yet.”

  Adlai considered the flames still pouring out of two of the crumbling buildings across the crater. The first rays of sunlight reflected off the chrome exteriors of the aerial drones that circled the buildings dispensing fire retardant chemicals. Dawn was bringing with it one hells of a long, hard day.

  “Thank you for making the rounds and putting all the updates together. I’ll leave a couple of officers here to help the dynes keep the scene secure until the forensic teams finish their work.” Which was going to take…a while. “What I meant to say was, I’ll set up security shifts for the next several days. Give me a few minutes to handle that, then let’s go review the surveillance footage.”

  Video from an overhead corner cam located on the maintenance and power control level showed two men huddled together in front of the primary power distribution regulator. They muttered to one another in hushed whispers, and Adlai made a note to have an audio refinement routine isolate and capture the whispers.

  One of the men reached out toward the regulator controls and—

  “Bloody hells!” Far more profane curses flared in Adlai’s mind when the limb augment burst to virtual life around the man’s hand and began manipulating a variety of controls.

  He could predict how the story unfolded from here, but he forced himself to keep watching to the end.

  After two minutes of what appeared to be directionless fiddling on the man’s part and an increasing number of alarms triggered, two security dynes rushed into the room, Glasers raised. “Desist your actions immediately.”

  The primary offender held up his non-augmented hand in their direction and mumbled something in response.

  The security dynes advanced. “Step away from the equipment and present valid credentials or you will be restrained and taken into custody.”

  The augment appendages stretched to new lengths to reach a control near the top of the unit—

  The video ended there. So did a lot of innocent lives.

  Adlai exhaled as calmly as he could manage, then reversed the footage five seconds and froze it. He zoomed in on the face of the man with the limb augment.

  He knew that face, because he’d just seen it in a file the morning before.

  The door behind him opened, and Spencer returned carrying two coffees. The officer stopped in his tracks when he saw Adlai’s scowl. “You found something?”

  “You could say so. I found Tristan McLeros.”

  15

  * * *

  THE PLATFORM

  Mirai Orbit

  WHEN ADLAI TRUDGED into the Guides’ chamber, shoved forward by a wave of righteous indignation, he hadn’t slept in thirty-eight hours. How many hours it had been since a depri session, he hadn’t bothered to notice.

  “Advisor Weiss, please update us on this terrible accident at the Mirai One transit hub.” Guide Anavosa could have been asking for details on his lunch meal, for all the emotion the question conveyed.

  “Accident? Whatever made you believe it was an accident?”

  “Are you suggesting this was a deliberate act of sabotage? Who is to blame?”

  He laughed bitterly. “You are.”

  “Advisor! What—”

  “Your nifty little virutox? The one you were so insistent be allowed to run free in order to save the Dominion? It’s destroying the Dominion instead.”

  “Advisor Weiss, mind your tone. We realize you are under tremendous strain, but this does not excuse your failure to observe basic courtesies.”

  He made a show of squaring his shoulders and lifting his chin. A poor show of it, one which likely came off as mocking even if he hadn’t intended it to. “Apologies, Guide Anavosa. It’s merely that I’ve been mired elbow-deep in a massacre for the last…actually, I don’t know what time it is currently. Since last night.”

  “As I said, we do recognize the circumstances. Now, what could the explosion at the Mirai One transit hub possibly have to do with the limb augment virutox?”

  “The two gentlemen responsible for the transit hub explosion both had the limb augment installed. One of them was also responsible, albeit unintentionally, for infecting Advisor Iona Rowan with the virutox, and we all know where that led.” Analysis algorithms had
identified the second man from the surveillance video, as well as confirmed the identification of Tristan McLeros.

  “These men must be apprehended and incarcerated!” Unlike Anavosa, every syllable of Luciene’s words dripped with sentiment—that of acrimony and vitriol.

  “I would, if I could locate a single atom of their remains.”

  “Regen them and prosecute them.”

  “As you wish, Guide Luciene, but they’ll need to wait in line for a regen behind a long list of innocent victims. The ones we can identify. Over two hundred people on three worlds permanently and irrevocably lost their lives. How does anything about this tragedy help to save the Dominion?”

  “The tragedy does not, but the virutox does. ‘How’ is not your concern. What is your concern is that we’re seeing a worrying decrease in arrests and convictions on Mirai.”

  He almost laughed in Guide Iovimer’s face. “I should hope so. I’ve confiscated every limb augment I can find here, and I’m starting to make a dent in the supply on Kiyora and Ebisu.”

  “You defied our order?”

  “It wasn’t an order, Guide Iovimer. It was guidance.”

  “We explained to you how—”

  “You didn’t explain a damn thing to me. You combined vague, dire warnings with vague, dire threats. I made a judgment call.”

  “Then we order you to follow our guidance or—”

  “Or what—you’ll psyche-wipe me? I’d advise against it, and not solely out of my own self-interest. I’ve taken precautions. If I disappear, you won’t be able to conceal it with a hand-wave the way you did with Nika Kirumase.”

  A portentous silence hung in the air for several seconds. He thought less of himself for how much he enjoyed it.

  Finally Guide Anavosa tilted her head in a slow, careful gesture. “Of course we will do no such thing. Psyche-wiping is a horrific crime, and you offend us by insinuating we may have or would ever commit it. But we can revoke your Advisor status.”

  “For following the Charter and enforcing the laws according to their stated intent? For preventing crimes from being committed and saving people from a criminal invasion of their psyches?” He swallowed hard and puffed his chest out. “Do it, and we’ll see how that gambit plays out.”

  “Advisor Weiss, you do not appreciate the intractable position you are putting us in. We are trying to save our people and their way of life, and you are frustrating our efforts to achieve this goal.”

  “So tell me about the intractable position you’re in, Guide Anavosa. Tell me what’s driving your actions. Tell me how the Dominion is at risk. Tell me, and I’ll do everything in my power to help save it.”

  “That won’t be necessary. Our word should be enough.”

  “Once upon a time, it was. But not today. Not when your actions are costing countless lives. Not when every time I turn around, I’m washing the blood your actions are spilling off my hands. There is no conceivable greater good that can outweigh this level of harm.”

  “So you will not cease your confiscation of the limb augment units?”

  “No, Guide Anavosa, I respectfully will not.”

  “Very well. You are dismissed.”

  Spencer and Erik were waiting for him outside Mirai Tower. They were deep in conversation, but they broke it off and faced him wearing matching expressions—a blend of expectant, hopeful and anxious—as he approached.

  As soon as they got a good look at him, their expressions lost the hope in favor of dread. Spencer winced visibly. “How did it go?”

  Adlai rubbed at his eyes then slapped himself across both cheeks, on the slim chance he might awaken from the nightmare. But no such luck. “If you haven’t secured full psyche backups recently and set up a receivership contingency for your finances, you need to do so today. Right now, in fact.”

  Erik frowned deeply. “Can I ask why, sir?”

  “Because we are well and truly screwed.”

  16

  * * *

  THE PLATFORM

  DELACRAI: “IT SEEMS WE HAVE LOST Advisor Weiss.”

  Luciene: “The regrettable truth is that he has always been more loyal to Advisor Ridani than to us.”

  Delacrai: “It sounded to me as though his loyalty is to the Asterion people.”

  Anavosa: “Then he should have heeded our wisdom, because this is where our loyalties lie as well. But he did not, and we have no choice but to address his disobedience, though I suggest we take him at his word when he says he has taken precautions against reprisals.

  “If we remove him from his position or take more drastic steps against him, we risk the exposure of the Rasu Protocol to the public at large. Yet his insubordination is damaging our own efforts, and if it continues we will need to revise downward the number of units we expect to be able to field in the next delivery. Since the Rasu have demanded a greater number, this is a problem.”

  Selyshok: “Advisor Satair is already working on our behalf on related matters. Send him in to take charge of Justice operations on Mirai while we initiate an official investigation of Advisor Weiss’ fitness to serve—an investigation that will uncover sufficient malfeasance to discredit any hysterical claims he floats to the public.”

  Luciene: “I don’t care for it. Advisor Weiss is a threat who needs to be neutralized immediately. But if our best option is a swift neutralization in the coming days, so be it.”

  Delacrai: “Are we not going to discuss the substance of Advisor Weiss’ remarks? How the virutox is spreading and mutating in ways we did not foresee? How it is costing lives and fomenting the very instability and chaos we sought to avoid when we chose this path and decided to keep the Rasu Protocol a secret?

  “We now have two of our greatest citizens—three if we make an evident assumption regarding Advisor Ridani’s position—telling us in every conceivable way they can that we are making a grievous mistake, yet we blithely ignore them. We ignored Nika Kirumase five years ago and though she has extended an offer of diplomacy, we continue to ignore her today. We stand here now and choose to ignore Advisor Weiss. How many more defections will be required before we start to listen?”

  Luciene: “Do you forget the structure we operate under, the structure which has served us for hundreds of millennia? They advise, but we decide.”

  Iovimer: “Regardless, there is nothing to be done for the issues Advisor Weiss raised. We allowed for the possibility of collateral damage from the beginning. The virutox remains the best among bad choices, as Advisor Kail’s research indicates the use of newly awakened bodies is a suboptimal option.”

  Anavosa: “All our options are suboptimal. They always have been. Still, Delacrai raises a fair point: we should always be reevaluating the situation. We will use the current victims of the virutox as we must, but perhaps we should not encourage its spread or introduce additional virutoxes into the population. This tool is not so easily controlled as we imagined.”

  Selyshok: “Neither are our Advisors.”

  Luciene: “This is precisely why we need to neutralize the threat Advisor Weiss represents, and why we must run Nika Kirumase and Advisor Ridani to ground then eliminate them. We cannot allow the people to learn of the nature of the Rasu Protocol. To your comment, Delacrai, I fear even the greatest of our people are becoming increasingly emotional beings with every generation. Irrational and illogical. Soon they will be indistinguishable from mere organics.”

  Anavosa: “If our civilization survives long enough for devolution to become an issue, we can address it at such time. Our focus now will continue to be on survival.”

  Luciene: “Which means delivery of more units to the Rasu. The problem with the virutox in its current incarnation is not that it cannot be controlled. On the contrary, as it spreads beyond our expectations, this can work in our favor by producing the needed numbers.

  “The problem, rather, is that it was too handily identified and blocked—by criminals, by terrorists, by our own Justice Division. I believe the NERE dust transmissio
n we’ve previously discussed addresses these flaws, and I propose a limited, controlled test of this method of delivery.”

  Delacrai: “You are talking about gassing our own people.”

  Luciene: “It is no different than what we’ve done using the limb augments. The only distinctions are the method of delivery and the speed of infection. Do not choose a minor technicality to proclaim a conscience now, Delacrai.”

  Delacrai: “Do not presume to judge the nature of my conscience, Luciene.”

  Anavosa: “Petty barbs do nothing to help our situation. We are not squabbling primitives. I dislike the NERE dust mechanism, but we cannot afford to foreclose any option. If we keep the test both small and contained, I am willing to approve it.”

  In the privacy of her chamber, Delacrai closed off all her sensory functions until a featureless void enveloped her. From her perspective, it might be the vacuum of space or the abyssal depths of an endless ocean. It didn’t matter, for here she existed only as thought. Analysis and result.

  Luciene had labeled the adversaries in their midst emotional, irrational, illogical. But each of the Guides fell victim to their own failures of rationality and logic. Confident in their intellectual superiority, they failed to check their own processes for unsupported assumptions, unaccounted-for possibilities and unresolved variables. In common parlance, blind spots. Prejudices. Weaknesses.

  Delacrai’s own hubris was not so great that she did not recognize she must have her own as well. She had always placed a higher value on life, individual and en masse, than other considerations. Perhaps too high a value. But doing so shaped her analyses and results into those of a living being, not an algorithm. It made her Delacrai—an individual who existed as something more than a sophisticated machine.