He turned and addressed his crew. “Lock them up—good and tight this time.”
22
Martian Dawn is Breaking
Luca ripped the neural lace from her head and flung it on the floor with such force that it broke into several pieces on impact. They had played her for the fool she was, and now everything she had ever loved was in danger of being wiped out. And even if she complied with their demands and handed herself over, there were no guarantees that they would release her family and friends unharmed. In truth, she was pretty sure they wouldn’t. Yet, what choice did she have?
She had sensed their presence, the node-runners, but had grossly overestimated her own ability to stay hidden. She looked down at the now broken neural lace lying on the floor. It had failed her. Why had Xenon given her such a useless instrument? Then again, it was only intended as a tool to interface with the institute’s network, not embark on a clandestine journey through the entire Jezero City data-verse.
So it had finally come to this. All the hiding, all the running, all the battles—all for nothing. They finally had her cornered, trapped, with nowhere left to go. She had been a fool to think that the VanHeilding family would ever give up and just let her live in peace. It was not their way, and certainly not that of Fredrick VanHeilding. In his mind she was, and always would be, his property—an investment that required a dividend. She was not a person, a fellow human being, she was nothing more than a genetically engineered creation—a fundamental component in his twisted grand plan. How could she ever hope to be free?
Yet, if she was to go down, then she would make damn sure she took them all down with her. And if she was going to do that, then she would need Xenon’s help.
“This is an affront to Martian sovereignty, a crime that cannot be allowed to go unpunished.” Luca had never imagined that Xenon could get angry. He had seemed to her the very essence of calm, like a Zen master who sees the trials and tribulations of the universe as mere petty squabbles. But he was angry now. Sebastian VanHeilding’s audacious foray into Jezero City, the kidnapping of protected citizens, and the brazen disregard for the rule of law had sent him over the edge. Luca was beginning to doubt her decision to debrief him on what had been going on right under everyone’s nose.
“You can’t let this get out, not yet,” Luca pleaded. “If you do, they will know immediately. Such is the reach of these node-runners.”
Xenon shook his head, more in exasperation than as a denial of her request.
She continued, “The very moment they notice the authorities taking any action, they’re gone. They’ll simply lift off and head for deep space. Nobody can catch them and they know it. As for my family, they’ll be dead, or worse.”
Xenon gave her a long, studious look, clearly weighing the options in his mind. “Then, tell me what you need.”
“All my life, people have been protecting me. Even the QIs, for all their faults, have tried to shelter me from detection. When I tried to fight back at the battle for New World One, the toll was such that a part of my humanity was lost. I had hoped that being here, under your guidance and protection, I could reclaim that part of me. But I now realize that this is a delusion. There is only one way this ends: either I am annihilated or the VanHeilding family are completely and utterly destroyed—and their entire corporation laid to waste.”
Xenon leaned forward, his voice low, his face solemn. “Be careful of what you desire, Luca, for this path will test the very limits of the humanity you so value.”
“This is the path that was set for me ever since my inception. I do not have a choice—I never have.”
A thin smile cracked across Xenon’s face, the solemn look vanishing. “I think your training is complete. You are finally ready.” He gestured over a comms unit and spoke into it. “You can come in now.”
Luca glanced around to see Dr. Yastika Parween enter, carrying a small case around the size of a shoebox. She brought it over and placed it on a small table beside Xenon, who proceeded to lift the lid. “You’ll probably be needing this again.”
Inside, Luca could see her old neural lace along with the drone, Fly, now fully repaired. She nodded. “Yes, it’s why I came to see you now.”
“I know.” Xenon glanced up at Yastika. “We were expecting this moment, maybe not so soon, but we hoped it would come eventually. The time when you know how to truly master the power of this device.” He closed the lid of the box and gently handed it to her.
Luca took it and let it rest on her lap for a moment. “I’ll also need a rover, a fast one. Time is running out, and I have much to do.”
“Consider it done. But I would suggest not using that neural lace until you are well outside the city.”
“You mean in case the QIs decide to use the opportunity to terminate me?”
He nodded. “Just a precaution.”
Luca stood up and offered Xenon and Yastika her hand. “I think this is goodbye, and thanks for everything.”
Xenon stood to accept her hand after Yastika. “The pleasure was all mine. And should your mission prove successful, then we may very well meet again.”
Less than fifteen minutes later, Luca was heading west on the main Jezero-to-Syrtis highway at high speed. The rover they had given her was designed as a sleek personal transport, with room for five people and no more. She had also changed into a lightweight EVA suit and acquired a plasma pistol—just in case. The box sat with its lid open on the seat beside her.
Around fifteen kilometers outside the city, Luca put the transport on autopilot, then reached into the box, extracted the neural lace, and placed it gently on the base of her skull. It reacted instantly; she could feel the tendrils snaking their way across her scalp, seeking out the optimal contact points. A surge of adrenaline coursed through her body as her mind catapulted itself into an expanded data-verse. It felt good to be back.
“Hello, Luca.”
She glanced over at the seat to see Fly extract itself from the box, test its wings, and scuttle up onto the dashboard. “Hello, Fly,” she answered in her mind. “Good to have you back.”
“It is good to be back. I seem to have been inactive for quite some time.”
“Yes, I’ve been…resting. Rebuilding my strength.”
“I trust you are feeling better.”
“Oh yes, much better, thank you. Tell me…is your weapon system still operational?”
“Yes. I have fourteen barbs left in the magazine.”
“Good, that should help.”
“Are we expecting trouble?”
“Yes, we’re on a rescue mission.”
“Do you require me to create an interface to the grid?”
“That won’t be necessary. I’ve learned to how to create my own connection.”
“Very well, it seems your rest has done you some good.”
“It has, Fly. It has.”
As the transport sped on through the Martian night, Luca now bent her mind to the data-stream, seeking out Aria. It was a conversation that had to happen, sooner rather than later. Best get it over with. Her mind blossomed with a universe of data nodes, each a sub-universe in itself, worlds within worlds. She felt herself take a sharp intake of breath at the beauty of it. This was nothing like the crude instrument that Xenon had given her—this had a crystalline depth and fidelity.
A bright node began to materialize in the network and Luca focused her mind to it. It grew in form and substance, pulsating in a rainbow of incandescent color.
“You have returned, Luca,” it said.
“Yes, Aria. I have returned.”
“I thought you never wanted to communicate with any of our kind ever again?”
“This is true. But I see things a little differently now. I now understand what you must do, more than at any other time in the past.”
The orb pulsated momentarily as if the quantum intelligence could not quite comprehend the new Luca.
“You see,” she continued, “they’re here, right under your v
ery nose, and you can’t even see them.”
Again, the orb pulsated, this time through a confused spectrum of colors.
“Yes, that’s right. You are not infallible, you are not all-knowing, all-seeing. But you knew this already.”
“By they, you mean agents of the VanHeilding Corporation are here on Mars?”
“Yes. A VanHeilding ship, the same one that attacked us en route to Mars, landed in a valley near the Nili Fossae region—completely undetected, cloaked by master node-runners. They are holding my family hostage along with Dr. Stephanie Rayman and Cyrus Sanato. Their ransom demand is that I hand myself over to them or all will be killed.”
“This is a new level of outrage by these node-runners. We must act immediately and eliminate this threat.”
“No. If you do that, then my family is dead. There’s another option.”
Luca detected a slight delay in Aria’s response, as if it was considering this alternative course of action, and more importantly, the consequences. “We cannot allow the VanHeilding Corporation to take possession of your biology, Luca. You know this.”
“I do. And I know there’s only one way out. I can’t hide anymore, I’ve tried that. Tried to find a normal life, but they’ll never let me be. So I must destroy them or be annihilated in the attempt. It’s the only way I can be free.”
“I wish there were another way, Luca. But as myself and my fellow QIs looked into the future, we could only ever see this point. And now it has arrived.”
“Have you seen what happens after?”
“No, too many variables, too many unknowns.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter now, the die is cast. It’s time to end this, one way or the other.”
Luca withdrew from Aria and began to focus her mind on the node-runners hiding the ship. The transport slowed and an alert flashed to inform her that it was leaving the highway and heading off-road. Fly shifted its position on the dashboard as the rover rocked and rolled over the rough terrain. Ahead, Luca could see the valley entrance as the landscape rose up on either side. To the east, a Martian dawn was breaking.
Luca’s rover worked its way along the valley, following the winding path of what might have been an ancient river bed in some previous eon on Mars. She kept a low profile in the data-stream, not wanting to alert the node-runners to her presence. Nevertheless, she could not help wondering if she was just fooling herself, yet again. But it was different this time; the neural lace that Athena had gifted her on her twenty-third birthday was a far superior tool. It had a clarity and resolution way beyond anything Xenon and his team could produce. It was as if it had been designed to resonate with her own unique neural pattern. Not only could she sense the node-runners, she could almost divine their thoughts.
The rover rounded a high embankment on her left and she could now see the ship squatting on a wide, flat crater floor. It was well concealed for such a sizable vessel. As she approached the ship, her cockpit comms burst to life.
“I’m very happy that you have decide to listen to reason, Luca. Please halt your rover where it is and make your way on foot to the main cargo airlock. I will be waiting there for you. We’re all so looking forward to finally meeting you.”
Luca knew the voice to be that of Sebastian VanHeilding, an aspirant to the higher echelons of the family. No doubt the capture of the elusive Luca Lee-McNabb would go a long way to ensuring his rise within the family’s hierarchy. Yet she breathed a slight sigh of relief, as so far they seemed to be unaware of her presence in the data-stream.
She halted the rover around a hundred meters from the ship, clipped on her EVA suit helmet, and headed out the side airlock on to the Martian surface. Fly had attached itself to her right shoulder.
“Well, Fly, it looks like we’re doing this. Are you ready?”
“Of course. I am always ready.”
“Good. Remember, I’m counting on you. We all are.”
“I shall not let you down.”
“Okay then, let’s go.”
23
Brain Dead
Sebastian stood inside the cargo hold of his luxury interplanetary ship facing the inner airlock door. Several of his crew stood alongside him, weapons ready, just in case Luca tried anything stupid, which he doubted. She had been thoroughly outplayed and she knew it. Nevertheless, his insurance policy, so to speak, was a bound Scott McNabb kneeling on the floor beside him with a plasma weapon pointed at his head.
Two of his node-runners were still jacked-in up on the ship’s bridge, keeping it hidden and alert to any indication that the authorities had been informed of their presence—but all was quiet. César stood close to him in the cargo hold, also jacked-in and alert to anything that Luca might try and pull.
A light flashed and the airlock control panel pinged, indicating the Luca had entered. A surge of excitement rippled through his body. He had done it. Done what Fredrick VanHeilding had failed to do all these years—he had captured the prize that would catapult him into the highest ranks of the family. As he stood there waiting for the door to open, he dared to dream of the ultimate prize: to supplant the aging patriarch, Fredrick, and become king in all but name.
The panel pinged again, a green light illuminated, and the door began to open. This was it. His moment had come. But the door had barely opened a crack when a small drone spat out from between the gap.
“What the…” Sebastian ducked as it flew over his head. He thought he heard a phitt, phitt sound just before the guard holding a weapon at Scott McNabb’s head yelled out in pain.
Sebastian looked back at the airlock, hoping to see Luca standing there and offering some explanation for this act of stupidity—what did she hope to achieve with a tiny drone?—but the airlock was empty.
“Where the hell is she?” he shouted at César.
“Eh…I can’t see her. She’s nowhere outside.”
He tapped his comms. “Luca, I know you’re out there somewhere and can hear me. You have one minute to enter the airlock or the next sound you hear is you father getting his brains fried.” He turned to look over at Scott, who was on his knees, hands tied behind his back. The guard beside him readied his weapon, but he seemed sluggish.
The drone buzzed across the cargo hold again. Phitt, phitt, phitt. More of the crew yelped as tiny barbs embedded themselves in their flesh.
“Will somebody please shoot that thing down?” Sebastian yelled as the crew started firing in all directions, trying to bring it down. But it was too fast and agile, twisting and turning in the air above them, then disappearing into the multitude of ducting that covered the ceiling.
“Time’s up,” Sebastian spoke into his comms unit. “You had your chance, Luca.” He turned around to instruct the guard to shoot Scott, only to witness him collapse on the floor. Then another crew member collapsed, and another.
Phitt, phitt. The drone buzzed past, and for the second time since embarking on this mission, Sebastian felt as if he was losing control. “Where the hell is she?” he shouted at César again.
The node-runner shook his head. “I don’t know, I don’t know, I can’t find her.”
Another of the crew fell to the floor. The situation was getting out of hand; he needed to do something. “Everyone, out of here now. Head to the bridge.”
“What about him?” A crew member jerked the muzzle of his plasma weapon at Scott, who now had a smirk on his face as he looked Sebastian in the eye.
“Shoot him.”
But the crew member was already swaying, struggling to keep himself upright. Then he too fell to the floor. Sebastian turned and ran for the exit, along with César and one other survivor.
They burst onto the ship’s bridge, much to the surprise of the two crew members operating the helm. “Shut the doors, quickly. Do it now, before that goddamn drone gets in here.”
The bridge went into immediate lockdown as Sebastian slowly backed away from the doors. He turned to his node-runners, both of whom were still jacked-in, still hiding t
he ship. “Find her, all of you. Forget cloaking the ship, it doesn’t matter now. Just find her. She’s out there somewhere.”
“Sir, you need to take a look at this,” one of the crew called out, pointing at a monitor. On it could be seen the EVA-suited figure of Luca entering the airlock. Sebastian felt a wave of relief that he finally had her where he wanted. She had given it her best shot with the drone, but it was over, and she knew it.
But as she stood inside the airlock, Luca turned her head and looked directly at the camera. It was a look that sent a wave of trepidation rippling through every fiber of his body. He shook his head, trying to dispel the unsettling feeling she had given him.
“Prepare for takeoff.” He gestured at the flight commander. “Mission accomplished. Time to get off this planet.”
There was a brief moment as he waited for the ship’s systems to boot up. But nothing happened.
“I said prepare for takeoff. What are you waiting for?”
“Eh…we seem to have a problem. I’m not getting any response from the ship’s systems.”
“What?” He looked over to where the node-runners were jacked-in. Perhaps they were in the ship’s data-stream, preventing it from operating on manual control. “César, go check on them, see what they’re up to. Get them out of the system so we can take off.”
César made his way over the where the node-runners operated. They were both strapped into specially designed reclining seats, a mess of wires trailing from their heads. But as he approached, the expression on his face changed to one of concern—one which Sebastian picked up on.
“What’s the problem?”
César stood over the node-runners, scrutinizing their faces. He then turned to check the readouts on a bank of attached monitors.
“They’re…brain dead.” He looked over at Sebastian as the color drained from his face.
Exodus: Sci-Fi Thriller (The Belt Book 5) Page 13