Star Crossed

by C. Gockel

  Huffing, Noa shook her head. “I had nothing to do with that.”

  “You could have put in a good word for me,” Dan snapped.

  She snapped right back, “Get to the point. Why are you helping us? Just to gloat? To show off your shiny new tech?”

  Dan sniffed. “Maybe.” He tilted his head. “Although I am curious as to how you escaped the camp.” He leaned closer to Noa. “That would seem to be a feat that would require divine assistance.”

  James almost jerked back at the word “divine,” and felt all his nanos and neurons fire at once. The Luddeccean Guard had broadcast the falling of an “Archangel.” Had Dan heard the broadcast? Had he somehow pieced together James’s “identity?” What would it mean if he had?

  Without missing a beat, Noa said, “What are you getting at, Dan?” James didn’t think he’d be able to speak as smoothly.

  Dan’s brow furrowed and a light went on in his neural port. “The Archangel Project. I know you were involved.”

  All the neurons and nanos in James’s skull lit again, and the charge spread to every inch of his skin. Dan knew … he had to know James was the supposed Archangel. And then another neuron flickered brightly in his mind. Noa had never said she was involved in the Archangel Project.

  Noa’s jaw dropped. Her eyes flitted to James. Did she look guilty, or just confused?

  “Dan,” she said, meeting the man’s gaze. “I’m not part of the Archangel Project.” She sighed. Bowing her head, she leaned on her elbows, her shoulders slumping. “But you’re not the first person to ask me about it. The Luddeccean Guard asked me about it when … ” Noa shifted in her seat. “I’d never even heard of the project,” Noa finished, “Not until they asked.”

  A light flashed near Dan’s neural port. “But how did you escape?”

  Meeting Dan’s gaze, Noa tapped a rapid staccato beat on the table top with a finger. “It’s not a pretty story. I don’t want to talk about it.”

  Dan leaned back, touched his neural port, and the light went out. “I believe you.” His forehead furrowed.

  “What do you know about the Archangel Project?” Noa asked, leaning toward Dan.

  Dan snorted. His eyes flicked to James, and for the first time James felt as though he was being looked at instead of looked through. Looking away, Dan blinked rapidly and waved a hand. “That the time of angels has come. Or aliens, or devils, or djinn. Who knows?”

  “You’re too smart to believe any of that, Dan,” said Noa.

  Narrowing his eyes at Noa, Dan frowned. “It’s Ghost.” And then he looked away and wiped a hand down his face. “Surveying my options … ” He muttered in a voice so low it was almost inaudible. “Hoped you had something special … ”

  “What do you mean?” Noa asked.

  Dan glared at her. James’s eyes fell on the ignored IDs on the table. On a whim, he plucked them up and flipped through them briefly. He saw Noa’s holographic image in one, another woman who looked startlingly similar to Noa’s ulterior appearance in the second – he supposed that was what he looked like. The third had a picture of Dan’s holographic avatar. James read the name “Hung See.” And suddenly James knew why Dan had approached them. Sliding the IDs to Noa, James said, “He’s on the run, too. That’s why he’s hiding his identity from the Guard, and he’s looking for help.”

  Dan sat up very straight. He glared at James. Noa, by contrast, smiled. “Last I heard, the new Luddeccean Premier had hired you on; in your words, they ‘recognized your talent.’ Why would one of their own be hiding?”

  Dan looked away. “I’m not one of them, obviously. They barely appreciated me. I built their non-ethernet dependent systems—a closed system that could never be infected by external influence. I gave them the computing power of a time gate at a scale that is … ” His eyes closed and a look of bliss passed over his features. “ … At a scale that is impossibly small.”

  “And they turned on you,” Noa said. Her avatar’s jaw appeared to harden. “Because the mind that could build that sort of computing power—”

  “Luddites,” Dan hissed.

  “By definition, actually,” said James, remembering the origins of the Luddeccean name.

  Dan scowled at him. Noa’s lips flattened, not like she was angry, but like she was trying to conceal a smile.

  James’s own lips wanted to pull up—but didn’t. He touched the side of his mouth self-consciously.

  Leaning toward Dan, Noa practically crooned, “You need help, Dan. Which is why you helped us.”

  Dan sat perfectly still. He didn’t blink, or swallow, but his necklace flickered, and for a moment, James could see the red eyes and sweaty face of the real man. A passing barman, a bowl of peanuts and boiled soybeans in either hand, stopped and gaped.

  Noa said quickly, “We’d like to see a menu, we’re hungry.” The man put the two bowls of snacks on the table, nodded, and left quickly.

  James’s eyes fell heavily on the peanuts. He could see their oil glistening in the low light. Before he’d even thought about it, he’d scooped up the contents of the bowl and shoveled them into his mouth.

  “How lady-like,” said Dan. James shrugged. The taste of the peanut oil and salt on his tongue made his taste buds sing.

  “Your makeup is running, Dan,” Noa said.

  Dan blinked, and Noa tapped her necklace meaningfully. Dan’s eyes went wide. He tapped his necklace and the hologram flickered back to life. Gaze shifting around the room, he picked up the fake IDs from the table and said, “We need to get out of here. Follow me if you want my help.”

  Without looking back, Dan slipped out of the booth and walked toward the back door.

  Palming the soybeans, James looked at Noa—or the hologram that concealed her face. “He let us keep the hologram projectors,” he said.

  Noa looked past him and her brow furrowed. Following her gaze, James saw the bartender pointing in their direction and whispering to a patron sitting alone at the bar. James’s mind whirled through his recent memories. He was certain he hadn’t seen that patron before.

  “Because he knows we have to follow him,” Noa said.

  The patron at the bar got up and walked with quick steps to the front door.

  Noa’s eyes got wide. Slipping from the booth, she whispered, “And we have to hurry!”

  Barging through Hell’s Crater’s backdoor, Noa plunged into the alley beyond. From the main street she heard a shout. “Patrol, this way.”

  “I see Dan,” James said, grabbing her arm and pulling her in the opposite direction. Noa blinked. There were no streetlights, and she was unable to see anything. She let herself be drawn in that direction, trusting James’s augmented vision.

  She heard pounding footsteps behind them. She plugged the sound of the steps into a Fleet app. Her gut twisted. “There’s ten of them.” She remembered the stunners and laser pistols they’d carried, and their threats to rip her port out—she wasn’t sure which would be better.

  James yanked her sideways into another alley at a four-way intersection. It had stopped raining; they passed under several rows of clothing hung out to dry. The pavement was still slick though, and everything smelled damp. The alley was partially blocked with dumpsters, and they bent low to hide behind the dumpsters’ bulks.

  “I saw him go this way,” James said. “He took off his disguise.”

  “Because the light they emit is a beacon in these dark alleys,” Noa gasped, ripping her necklace off and jamming it into her pocket.

  James did likewise. “Nice to have you back,” he murmured. Someone shouted, and the group that had been following them split in opposite directions.

  “Five still after us,” she said. “Keep moving.” James nodded, and set off at a quick trot. Behind them Noa heard the Guards knocking on doors and banging their rifle butts on dumpsters. A shot made her jump, and both of them quickened their pace. They ran under another row of clothing, and past a hover on cinder blocks, and found themselves at a main thoroughfare
. Late night shoppers and some men who looked as though they had just finished work at the boat yards were walking down the street. Over the sound of her loud, raspy breathing, Noa heard the whir of antigrav as a hover bus took off.

  James stopped and peered left around a corner. “Patrolmen, three more of them. But Dan went right, I saw him—see him!”

  Behind them there was another shot into a dumpster. “We have to make a break for it.” Noa said, gritting her teeth. Her lungs burned and her ears rang with the sound of bullets impacting on metal.

  “Right,” whispered James. Grabbing her arm again, he said, “Now, before I lose sight of him!” He gave a yank, and they bolted to the right. She heard the patrolmen on the street shout, “There they are!” Noa urged her legs to go faster … she was a very fast runner. Was. Past tense. But James pulled her along. “Down this alley,” he said, yanking her left.

  They tore down another alleyway with laundry above. Noa’s eyes widened. It was one of the alleys they’d passed through earlier.

  James yanked her right, and left, and Noa saw the main thoroughfare where the cab had first put them down. She heard troops shouting ahead and behind. Noa’s breath was ragged in her ears. Her skin was clammy with the ambient humidity.

  James stopped. “I saw him go this way … but we should have caught up to him … he wasn’t moving that fast.”

  Tearing her arm away, Noa looked for something that she could use as a weapon, a broken bottle, an old two-by-four, anything. “No garbage, nothing I can use to bash someone’s head in,” Noa hissed. “I’m really not liking the new regime, even if there are no rats.”

  “This wasn’t sticking out last time we were here … ” James said.

  Noa looked over her shoulder. James was staring at a brick protruding from a wall where the outer layer of stucco was peeling away. Before she could tell him to stop worrying about it, he pushed it into the wall. It moved with a scrape … and a portion of the wall flickered … or rather, did the inverse of flickering. It went darker, reappeared, and went dark again. The unflickering wall was barely wider than Noa’s shoulders, and no higher than her chest.

  “Another hologram,” James whispered, just audible over the sound of footsteps closing in on the intersections at either end of the alleyway. He took a step back and put a hand to his chin as though pondering a deep and weighty question.

  If the situation hadn’t been so dire, Noa might have laughed. “Just the time for your inner professor to pop out,” she muttered.

  “What?” said James, blinking at her.

  Without a word, she spun him sideways. “Down!” she whispered, pushing him through the unflickering space. A heartbeat later she followed. She felt rather than saw stone walls scrape against her back as she passed through the narrow space. And then her side hit something firm even as the walls fell away in front and behind her. Stumbling, she found herself gasping for breath, side pressed to James’s chest, staring back the way she came. “Shhhhh … ” James said, and she realized he meant her breathing. She took one last deep gasp and tried to relax her demanding lungs. Looking back the way she came, she found herself staring through the hole in the wall they’d just come through. On this side, it looked like a flickering curtain of light … if it was flickering on the outside too …

  Before she could finish the thought, the curtain of light abruptly stabilized just as Luddeccean troops converged right in front of the space. For a moment she thought they’d seen James and her disappear. She bit her lip, afraid to hope and afraid to move, lest the sound of their steps give them away. A man she identified as a captain by his uniform said, “Did you see them?”

  Outside, a sergeant said, “No, sir,” and gulped audibly.

  Noa’s body sagged in relief, and James, perhaps thinking she was about to faint, wrapped his arms around her. She almost pulled away, out of habit or pride or both, and then realized she was shaking, and her legs were weak. What was wrong with her?

  The captain looked back and forth down the alleyway. “You must have mistaken the direction they took.” From his hip, he pulled a device slightly larger than the “cell” phones that the characters in the old tee-vee programs used. Putting it to his face, the officer pressed a button. The device buzzed, and he spoke into it. “Patrols, I want you at the corners of … ” He walked away before Noa could hear the rest.

  The patrol split in opposite directions, and their footsteps faded down the alleyway.

  Closing her eyes, Noa took a breath so long and deep she could feel it stinging in her lungs.

  James whispered in her ear, “I think it’s safe to move.”

  Noa didn’t want to move. The way her legs were trembling, she was afraid she really might faint. She wanted to catch her breath, and stay safely supported in James’s arms. Instead she pulled away. Finding the necklace in her pocket, she clicked the edges together—it lit a scant few centis of dark, and then abruptly shut off. It hadn’t been enough to see past a lizzar’s nose, and Noa didn’t even bother to ask for James’s. Instead, peering into the blackness, she asked, “Can you see?” There was a wall behind James, that much she was sure of. Maybe it was some sort of hallway?

  James didn’t answer. When she glanced back, she found him staring down at her. In the dim light he looked like he was glowering. “You’re not well.”

  “I’m—” She almost said “fine.” But then a cough wracked through her. She barely muffled it with her hand. “ … recovering.”

  James did not move until Noa caught her breath again. Then, squinting into the dark, he said, “I see a door.”

  “Let’s go,” Noa said—though it came out more a gasp. “Lead the way.”

  Instead of walking ahead of her, he put a hand on the small of her back and guided her down the hall. With only the faint light of the hologram behind them, it was soon pitch black. The world was only her breathing, their footsteps, the smell of old mortar, her sweat, and James. As usual, he smelled good. It made her a tiny bit jealous. James took slow steps, either because he was afraid to tire her out, or because he couldn’t see well. She almost wished she’d had her vision augmented—and then her mind conjured up Ashley and her missing limb. Would her captors in the camp have removed her eyeballs, if she had had nano-augmented night vision? The thought made her shiver, and James pressed his hand on her back more firmly.

  “I’m fine,” she muttered proactively.

  She heard James exhale, felt his breath close to her ear, and shivered again. “And my eyes are not rolling,” he said in his deadpan tone.

  A laugh that sounded too much like a cough cracked out of her, and tears prickled the corners of her eyes. “I will be fine,” she said. She pressed a hand to his side reassuringly—reassuring to him, to her, she wasn’t sure. And then she caught herself, realizing how inappropriate the gesture was. She pulled away, but not before she felt the warmth of his skin through his shirt, and the tautness of the muscles of his abdomen.

  James said nothing and Noa’s mind wandered in the dark and near silence. “It was lucky you saw that brick ...” They had passed through so many alleys that all looked nearly identical.

  “Stop here,” James said, not dropping his hand.

  As Noa obeyed, a thought occurred to her. “Do you have some sort of holographic memory app running at all times?”

  The hand on her back stiffened. For a too long moment there was silence, and then James said, “I didn’t have a holographic memory before the accident … but … I … believe I do … now.”

  Noa felt a flash of concern. “James, you have to turn that off.” Noa had a holographic memory app like all Fleet personnel. But standard procedure was to dump the contents. Keeping so much data on hand tended to bog down normal processing of the nano and neural variety.

  She felt a brush of his breath against her temple. “I ... don’t think I can.”

  The stutter in his voice … he was just as broken as she was. Noa’s hand slipped to where his upper arm would be—and found
it. She gave him a pat … the same sort of pat she’d give to a fellow pilot, she told herself. “We’ll find someone who can make you better, James. As soon as we get out of here, I promise.”

  “Thank you,” he whispered, and she felt his breath on her forehead, and realized their bodies were facing one another, with scant centis between them. Unaccountably flustered, Noa spun around and threw out her arms. “Which way is that door?” In the same breath, she found a knob. She gave it a twist. It didn’t budge. She rolled back on her feet. “Figured that he’d lock it … ”

  James murmured, “I’d thought … hoped … he’d left the brick out on purpose for us to find and escape our pursuers.”

  Putting a hand on her hips, Noa scowled in the dark. “Pfft. Nope, that was an accident, I’m sure.”

  She heard James exhale softly. “How far do you trust this Dan?”

  “Not further than I can see,” Noa said, running a hand over the seam between the door and the wall. “He is a malignant narcissist. He imagines he is a genius, and he is; but not that much of a genius.”

  “If he invented the necklace holograms, his genius is exceptional. The light of the holograms had nothing to reflect off of. Presumably he was manipulating individual photons … but such utilization of quantum mechanics outside of a closed environment isn’t possible.”

  “Not yet,” Noa countered. “But it’s been speculated about for years.” That much had been reported in the press, that she could speak about. It was also one of the Fleet Intel’s projects.

  “Speculated about, maybe,” James said. “But I haven’t heard of any working prototypes.”

  “Neither have I,” Noa muttered, her shoulders falling. Not even in the classified briefings she’d attended. She shook her head. “But Ghost—Dan—isn’t that smart.” She stamped her foot and looked at the door—or tried to in the pitch blackness. “More of a problem is that he is a coward.”

  “Should we seek help from someone else?” James asked. “You don’t like him or trust him—which makes me not like or trust him.”