So the Pod Pals were psychic, as she had suspected. That’s why Mala hated them so much. And if they could read minds, there really would be a lot of secrets finding their way into Damaal’s hands. Everything was coming together.
Well, almost everything. Eva hadn’t counted on Josh being a jerk, and if they didn’t get him and his information out of there, a lot of people were going to be very unhappy. Including her, probably from the inside of a prison cell.
“I am surprised at the pleasure you are taking in this situation,” Damaal said, emanating a spark of curiosity. “It will be interesting to participate in your reeducation.” This time she didn’t gesture, but the Watchers flanking her clearly got the message, because they immediately proceeded to approach Eva, their stun batons extended and humming with energy.
Before Eva could yell an order at Mala, Damaal loosed a psychic sea urchin of spiky emotions: surprise, fear, and even anger, sharp and hot as a laser.
A shadow passed overhead, blotting out the stars. A transport, large enough to carry at least a dozen people by Eva’s estimate. It slowly descended, forcing everyone beneath it to move or be crushed, and Eva took the opportunity to edge closer to the console where Mala was engaged in her shenanigans.
Was this a resistance vessel, taking advantage of the situation to help rescue their allies? No, that made no sense—the security forces would be attacking already if it were, but no one was making anything resembling a violent motion.
Ay, no, Eva thought. Por favor, no, not now, not here.
A hatch opened in the side of the transport after it landed, and a ramp extended from it. A line of uniformed people filed out, their weapons holstered but clearly visible, their commlinks openly broadcasting that they were BOFA agents requesting immediate compliance with all pertinent regulations. Eva couldn’t contain a groan as a sharply dressed figure in a hoverchair followed them down the ramp, her magenta hair neatly combed and styled, her makeup impeccable as always.
Regina Alvarez certainly knew how to make an entrance.
At least my isohelmet is still active, Eva thought. Until the pigs tell me to turn it off, anyway.
A small furry form moved in her peripheral vision. Mala, still slowly creeping all over the console. Another Pod Pal emerged, this one like a plump bipedal rabbit with pink fur. It also waited quietly for a command, eerily motionless.
“Prime Damaal,” Regina Alvarez said politely, floating up to the woman herself. “Qué lástima. I had hoped you weren’t involved in all this, but here you are.” She appeared to be ignoring the resistance and their attendant Watchers—not BOFA’s problem, presumably.
“I apologize for any confusion, Administrator,” Damaal said, emanating confidence and authority. “I am not sure I take your meaning, however. What am I involved in?”
Regina smiled, a smile Eva knew very well. It was the one she put on when she knew Eva had done something wrong, and knew that Eva was lying about it, but was waiting to see just how many lies Eva was going to tell before she realized she was jodida.
“This facility wasn’t on the records you submitted to us,” Regina said, making a show of looking around with great interest.
“An unfortunate omission,” Damaal agreed. “The officials tasked with ensuring completion and accuracy of those materials will be reprimanded and reeducated promptly.”
The word “reeducated” wiped the smile off Regina’s face, and Eva snorted. What did her mom think was going on here? Happy tourist times for everyone?
“Certainly those forms will need to be revised and resubmitted,” Regina said. She hovered to one side, peering at the Pod Pals in front of the wall of capsules and the various holoscreens and instruments nearby.
“It will be my supreme pleasure to ensure that it is done,” Damaal said. She continued to emanate calm and authority, her hands now clasped in front of her, enormous eyes following Regina’s every move. “May I assist you with anything else?”
Regina’s smile returned. “I am so glad you asked. But first, I’ll give you a moment to take the comms notifications you’re about to receive, assuming you aren’t mind-linked to anyone at your various warehouse facilities.”
Damaal’s emanations went away entirely, as if she’d activated a suppressor or other masking device. Convenient. Her tail, which she had wrapped around her waist, twitched as if it were being poked. Moments later, the Watchers also went blank, their lack of tonality as eerie as when Vakar didn’t smell like anything.
Eva almost laughed. She had no idea what was going on, but she knew resingado when she saw it, and Damaal was definitely in a whole galaxy of trouble.
Mala opened another capsule, then another. There were now seven Pod Pals quietly sitting near the far wall—she must have opened others when Eva wasn’t looking.
“So, Prime,” Regina said politely. “Perhaps you can explain why all the facilities that are meant to be storing a specific inventory of items ranging from light fixtures to construction equipment are, in fact, entirely empty?”
Light fixtures. An image of her mother tapping on her hoverchair and mumbling numbers flashed through Eva’s mind. She’d been counting. Well, what had Eva thought an audit entailed? Numbers on a spreadsheet? Sure, but those numbers meant something, like a cargo manifest. And clearly they hadn’t been adding up.
Pete had pulled this kind of shit before. Buy a bunch of stuff and call it something different on the official records to hide it. Guns became guidance-system parts, flash bombs were power cables—the receipts were rarely detailed enough for it to be difficult to fudge them, and if the seller was complicit, the process was seamless. Or buy stuff and then resell it on the black market and use the funds to buy what you actually wanted, or make a direct trade for it if that worked better. Sometimes you lost a little money that way, but you were probably more than making up for it somewhere else.
And as long as an auditor didn’t stroll in wanting to see all those power cables you ordered—which they wouldn’t, because there weren’t enough of them to cover every small business in the universe—nobody would have the slightest clue what you were up to.
Apparently, when a whole planet was getting audited, things went a little differently. Simultaneous raids at multiple locations differently, if Eva was picking up what her mother was putting down.
“I am at a loss to explain the situation, Administrator,” Damaal said finally. “But my Watchers will engage in a thorough investigation to determine—”
“No need, Prime,” Regina interrupted, raising a hand. “My agents are also investigating the other . . . omitted facilities we located, here and in multiple star systems. I’ll have a comprehensive inventory of their contents before the end of the cycle.” She made a circular motion with her forefinger. “This facility as well, now that we’ve managed to lower all the shields.”
Eva snickered. This was worse than the time her mom found her stash of sex toys and berated her for not only wasting hard-earned money on poor-quality products, but also failing to properly store them.
Damaal’s posture stiffened, and she seemed to gain a few centimeters of height. “Regulations do not permit you to observe portions of facilities that are designated as containing vital trade secrets, Administrator.”
Regina nodded. “You’re absolutely right, Prime. Unfortunately for you, since these facilities weren’t designated as such, I’m legally permitted to search them. In fact, you might say I’m legally obligated to do so, especially if I suspect criminal wrongdoing.” Her eyes widened for a moment as her smile brightened to near-blinding levels.
That was the end of that, then. As soon as BOFA figured out what Damaal had been up to here, it was all going to be shut down. At least the resistance would get part of what they wanted out of this whole shitshow; no more Pod Pals being constructed or distributed, especially if . . . coño carajo.
Especially if Regina and her agents found the evidence of Proarkhe technology being used here. BOFA didn’t play around with tha
t, not even slightly—hell, they’d shut down Sue and Josh’s entire home planet and relocated everyone to another world because of a Proarkhe ruins discovery. Anyone who could be proven to be complicit in the intentional use of such tech would be going to prison for a very long time.
Eva stole a glance at Josh, who was apparently having a similar conversation with himself, and had turned as red as a ripe pitanga. Damaal was still suppressing her psychic emanations, so her large black eyes revealed nothing, even as her tail continued to twitch.
“And what of those of us who are not involved in this?” Sapri asked. Eva rolled her eyes and wished she could kick him from where she stood.
Regina raised an eyebrow. “Intraplanetary politics are beyond the scope of BOFA concerns, except inasmuch as they might impact related investigations,” she replied, as if reciting from a manual. “You clearly knew what was happening here and failed to report it to the proper authorities, which arguably makes you complicit.”
“We were trying to stop it!” Sapri said, emanating indignation.
“Stop it, or use it for political gain?” Regina asked coolly.
Both, Eva thought. Fucking politics. They were like those two-headed snake things from Snerth whose fanged mouths were also assholes.
Regina’s gaze swept over Eva and Sue, and if she recognized them, she said nothing. “That said, I’m inclined to consider you all witnesses rather than accessories, assuming you cooperate with us.”
Sapri’s emanation became more thoughtful, despite its edge of dismay. The other resistance members had similar reactions, though Damaal and the Watchers were still showing absolutely no emotion whatsoever.
It was a good offer, frankly. Nice and tidy. Might bring down a substantial part of the existing regime, depending on what evidence they unearthed, which could help the rebels in other ways as well.
Except Eva didn’t have time to be holed up in a BOFA witness-protection program for however long it took to finish the investigation, and she sure as hell wasn’t interested in showing up in any courts if it came to that. She suspected Nara was having similar thoughts, given that it was tough to get paid as a merc when you were cooling your heels instead of working. Maybe her contracts included clauses for such situations—a daily rate or something—but that didn’t guarantee the payments would keep finding their way to her account if her employers were similarly tied up.
And Josh getting arrested meant she wouldn’t get paid, so Eva had to get him out of here, too.
Naturally, just as Eva was wrangling her brain into formulating a plan, one of the BOFA agents strolled up to Regina holding a large, lidded container. He opened it and showed her the contents, which made Regina’s frown deepen as her eyebrows furrowed.
“Bueno,” she said. “That certainly complicates things. They’re using these to power their little animal machines?”
The agent nodded, and Regina glanced at the small crowd of Pod Pals that Mala had already released. There were at least a dozen, and who knew how many more still in their capsules behind them.
“We’ll have to find out how many have already been distributed,” Regina said. “Get these loaded onto the ship immediately and prepare the planet for quarantine.”
Apparently, that was the cue for the shit to hit the air filters, because everyone started to move at once.
Josh made a strangled sound, then ran for a door in the side of the cliff.
“Restrain him,” Regina said. An agent immediately produced an isosphere and raced after Josh. Eva groaned. Now how was she going to get him out of here, much less off-planet?
Damaal and the Watchers took this opportunity to run for the edge of the platform. Presumably they were all wearing antigrav belts and could handle a jump, especially if there were transports on lower levels to get them away entirely. The BOFA agents rushed to catch them, pulling out more isospheres for the purpose.
Nara busted open her restraints—a feat Eva would never have thought possible, but then again, the xana had basically put standard cuffs on a mech—and took off running, in the direction of the cliff.
“Where are you going?” Jei called after her, but Nara ignored him and the other equally dismayed resistance fighters. The wounded expression on Jei’s face gave Eva a brief pang of empathy, but if Jei didn’t know who Nara was by now, that was his problem.
Mala must have managed to find an option to open all the capsules at once, because Pod Pals flashed into being all over the platform, the crowd of a dozen quickly expanding into fifty or more. There were furry quadrupeds and carapaced flyers and smooth-skinned bipeds and all sorts of other forms that Eva had never seen and couldn’t find the words to describe. They didn’t move, just waited for commands that were unlikely to come since their controllers were busy trying to escape along with everyone else.
“Me cago en la hora que yo nací,” Regina said, glaring at the bots. “Can someone get those things back in their capsules?”
“Sue,” Eva said over private comms. “Override the Ball Buddies, now!”
Moments later, the robotic Attuned moved as if awakening from cryostasis. And because they’d been instructed to behave as wild animals, and they were currently all clustered together regardless of species, they simultaneously went batshit fucking loco.
Regina shouted, “We’ve got to catch them all!” as the now-aggressive or rapidly fleeing Pod Pals began attacking each other, or racing toward the platform’s edge after the escaping xana, or trying to climb the cliff or fly away into the starlit sky. Some of her agents responded, while others continued their pursuit of Damaal and her accomplices.
Josh, meanwhile, was towed into the waiting BOFA ship, fists banging futilely against the impenetrable bubble he was encased in. Eva’s stomach was full of rocks soaked in kerosene and set on fire. After all this effort—coming back to Garilia, dealing with Damaal and the resistance and her own mother—the mission was a failure. There was no chance she could make it across a platform swarming with dangerous robots and armed BOFA agents, bust into a government vessel, and rescue Josh without endangering him, her crew, herself, and probably Regina. She’d done some risky things before, but this was just asking to be restrained and dragged off to prison, which was where Josh would likely end up now, given what he’d done.
For someone who had just escaped from The Fridge’s confinement, it seemed a cruel thing to lock him up again. Waste of a brilliant mind. Then again, given what he’d done to his own family and almost done to the whole universe, maybe it was for the best.
Whatever boosts Nara had in her boots let her take a mighty leap that put her on the roof hanging over the platform, and from there she jumped again and clung to a rocky outcropping, more than far enough away to avoid getting nabbed by an isosphere. She gave a quick salute—to Eva or Jei or someone else, it wasn’t clear—and proceeded to climb in boot-augmented bursts. Eva had no idea how the merc planned to get back to civilization, much less off the planet, but Nara had been in worse situations before and managed.
Besides, Eva had to worry about getting her own people out.
“Sue, bring down a few of the big flying ones,” Eva said. “Enough to carry us out of here.”
“What about Josh?” Sue asked.
“I’m sorry,” Eva said. “There’s no time. We get out of here now, or we end up on that ship with him.”
She raced over to Pink’s side, examining her friend’s restraints while muttering a string of curses under her breath. A random Pod Pal ran up, and Eva kicked at it to shoo it away.
“We can get these things off later,” Pink said. “First, we need to get gone.”
“We will stay,” Sapri said, surprising Eva. He emanated a strange amount of calm given the chaos around them.
“What?” Eva asked. “Why?”
“We will cooperate with the administrator,” he replied. “Given the circumstances, this seems more likely to yield a positive change than our other efforts to undermine the current regime. And even if we are a
pprehended, the resistance will continue without us.” The other rebels murmured agreement, except Jei, who scowled as was his custom.
“I don’t want to be stuck here dealing with BOFA,” Jei said. “I need to get back to Dr. Lucien and see what he wants to do.”
“If we don’t get out before the quarantine, we’ll all be stuck,” Eva said, glancing at her mother. Regina was still shouting orders, ignoring the resistance since they weren’t doing anything objectionable at the moment. She was ensconced in her own isosphere as protection from the rampaging animal bots now, which gave Eva a small measure of relief.
With a great gust of wind from its enormous wings, a white Pod Pal landed behind the rebels, raising its crested head to the sky and loosing an ear-splitting cry. It looked like a cross between a flying todyk and a bird, and was easily five meters long, with talons big enough to carry off any one of them. Eva went for her pistol, then realized it was reaching out a claw and waiting rather than attacking.
“I think our ride is here,” Eva said.
“Yes, I’m controlling that one,” Sue said, popping up behind her. “Technical specs say it should be able to carry three of us.”
Her crew was sorted, then. She turned to Jei. “What about you?” Eva asked. “Can your dog get you back to where you were staying?”
“I believe so,” he replied. “But as you said, I will have no way to leave the planet after that.”
“What, you don’t want to keep running errands for the resistance?” Eva asked.
Jei glanced back at the rebels, clearly torn. “I support their cause, yes, but to be trapped for an uncertain amount of time due to a planetary quarantine . . .”
Eva grinned. “I can give you a ride, if you don’t mind being trapped with us for a few cycles until we reach a Gate.” Assuming we can even make it to La Sirena Negra before the quarantine shuts down the spaceport, she thought.
“I . . . thank you, I will consider that,” Jei replied, his expression unreadable. He bowed to the resistance members, who all touched their tails to their foreheads.
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