Spaceside

by Michael Mammay

  “Why not, sir? She needs to pay.”

  “We’re not in a spot to make anybody pay,” I said. I wasn’t sure she did need to pay, but that wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have where people might hear me. “There are some dangerous people out there, and until I know what they’re up to, I think it’s better to sit back for a while.”

  “So what can we do?” asked Ganos.

  I thought about it. While I didn’t want to involve Ganos any further, I didn’t have any other assets. I justified it by telling myself that I had to give her something to do, or she’d strike out on her own. This had gone beyond getting answers about the breach at Omicron. This involved me personally, and telling Ganos to stay out would offend her. We’d served together. That meant something to both of us, not just me. “Remember when you told me that I should get you inside the Omicron network?”

  “Yes. How are we going to do that?”

  “Slow down,” I said. “It’s just a thought right now. I need to think it through. This isn’t the place to talk about it.”

  She nodded, her whole body almost bobbing with the action. “When you figure it out, let me know. I’m in.”

  “I will. But Ganos . . . promise me you’ll be careful until you hear from me.”

  She snorted. “Of course, sir. Who are you talking to?”

  That’s exactly what I was worried about.

  Nobody else came by to see me, which made me happy. I half expected Dernier to stop in, which would have forced me to make up some more stuff to keep him away from the reality of the hybrids.

  Plazz didn’t visit, but she did call. “You’re all over the news. It’s amazing how much trouble you’ll go through to avoid me.”

  I liked her. No BS about my health or “oh, it was so horrible.” Straight to business. “Yeah. Can you do something about calling off the media? Those are your people.”

  She laughed. “Sure. I’ll tell everybody to stop covering it when we all get together for our media agenda meeting.”

  “You mean it doesn’t work that way? What if I get somebody to dress a kitten up like a robot?”

  “Don’t worry. Give it another day and it will blow over. This thing doesn’t have any legs. You’re a famous person caught up in a shooting, that’s all.”

  “That’s good. I’d hate to have to sneak out of the hospital.”

  “Of course it could run longer, if you told me what it was really about.” She kept her voice light, joking, but left a sliver of a real question.

  “Like you said. Just a semi-famous guy caught up in a random shooting.”

  “You know I don’t believe you, Carl.”

  “I’m hurt. I thought we had a trust thing going.”

  “Ha! I don’t know anything about what happened in this situation, but I do know you. If you’re involved, it’s anything but random.”

  I tried to decide if I’d been complimented or insulted. “Don’t force me to lie to you. I don’t have the energy to make things up right now.”

  “I hear you,” she said. “I had to try.”

  “I understand.”

  “You know how I knew you were lying?” she asked.

  “How’s that?”

  “Because the last time we talked you asked me to get information about the Gylika case and you didn’t call me back. That means you’re probably hiding something.”

  Huh. I hadn’t thought about that. She was right in that I’d avoided calling her, though Gylika had shifted to a somewhat lower priority. “You know, I forgot all about that.”

  “You forgot about a murder.”

  “A bullet in the leg will do that,” I said.

  “That’s fair. Hey, if you do decide you’re going to talk about it, call me first, okay?”

  “Of course.”

  Gunfire popped against the wall above my head, throwing shards of concrete off that ticked against my faceplate. My heads-up display showed one soldier down, another seriously wounded. The extraction bird was four minutes out, but we didn’t have four minutes. We didn’t have one.

  “Rockets,” I shouted, though my transmitter would have picked up a whisper. My ears rang from all the explosions and I had a hard time controlling my voice.

  “Rockets, roger.” At least five separate voices acknowledged my order. Good. Using all our remaining rockets would leave us woefully low on firepower, but not using them would leave us low on breathing. Easy choice. We had to make them count, though, which meant somebody had to designate targets. That was me.

  “Stand by for targets.” I kept my voice quieter, this time. I took two deep breaths, then leaped to my feet, pushing my head up over the wall that gave me cover. The targeting array in my helmet sought out the enemy. I needed three seconds to make sure I had accurate data. I probably had two seconds until they saw me and started shooting me in the face.

  I counted in my head. Halfway between two and three I transmitted the firing solution. A split second later my faceplate shattered—

  I couldn’t breathe. I woke, gasping, clawing at the covers. A mechanical chime brought me back to reality. I glanced at it—my heart-rate monitor. One hundred sixty-two. Medical devices created a slight glow in the room, augmented by a bit of light streamed in through the cracked-open door, allowing me to quickly figure out where I was, which calmed me some.

  It hadn’t been bad, as far as my dreams go. A real memory. A battle with a group of insurrectionists, a long time ago. One of my first. My faceplate saved my life, and I got off with a slightly fractured neck from the kinetic energy that snapped my head back. It had landed me in a place much like the one where I lay now. I like to think that the younger me hadn’t had the same sense of dread, the same worry about what waited outside his door. Maybe I was too young to know better back then.

  I didn’t want to drag Ganos into whatever mess I’d found, but the more I thought about it, the more I suspected a connection between the Cappan hybrids and the breach at Omicron. The Phoenix Project, whatever it was, established too much of a coincidence; I couldn’t let it go. And if I went back to work and talked to Javier, he would probably pull me from the case, and I’d lose that connection forever. I could let go of Omicron—that was business.

  The hybrids . . . they made it personal.

  I spent the day scanning through the huge pile of data that Dernier had put in our shared folder, trying to find another way. In under two hours I wanted to slam my face through my screen. I kept realizing that I’d read multiple screens of information, unable to recall any of it, and having to scroll back. My brain was full, and if there had been something in Dernier’s files, I’m not sure I’d have found it. The answers that always seemed to resolve for me when I did something mindless didn’t come. Hopefully, by marking the files read, Dernier would at least feel like I appreciated his efforts. Maybe that would keep him off my back for a bit.

  I kept going back to what Ganos had said about getting inside Omicron, then pushing it out of my head. I needed somebody to bounce my ideas off of, but I didn’t have anybody I could trust enough. Certainly not Dernier. I thought about Serata, but once I brought him in, I’d lose control of the investigation. He might feel obligated to inform somebody in the military, and that would close off whatever lead I might have into Omicron before I could figure out the connection.

  I think if I could have shared my ideas, if somebody could have helped me make sense of them, it would have helped. I think if I’d had that, everything might have turned out different. But two years of isolating myself on purpose, avoiding people and especially close relationships . . . I was paying the price for that. Getting close to people brought them into my world, and nobody needed to live like that.

  I called Ganos.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The concept was simple enough: Get Ganos on to the Omicron network. As an idea, it lacked finesse, but my other choice was to go after the Cappan hybrids again. They’d disappeared, from what I could tell, and if they hadn’t, the last time I trie
d to confront them I got shot. I preferred to avoid that outcome again, and whatever my plan for Omicron lacked, the corporate headquarters probably wouldn’t resort to gunfire.

  To set things in motion I called Omicron’s director of human resources—a man named Turkov—and let him know that I was considering a change in employment. He took the bait and set up a meeting, which I steered toward his office by hinting that I needed to keep things quiet, and oh by the way could he try to make sure I stayed off camera during my visit, because I didn’t want word getting back to my employer. The plan had holes, but I didn’t have any better ideas.

  I gathered Ganos and headed to Omicron’s headquarters, taking three separate private cars along the way to make sure nobody followed us. The hybrids concerned me most, but I also couldn’t rule out a tail from VPC. Ganos had replaced her blue hair with a businesslike brown, and she wore a gray pantsuit that made her look like any middle-level employee at one of a thousand different companies. Bringing her put her at risk, but I didn’t have anybody else I could trust, and she was extremely insistent.

  “Nice hair,” I said.

  “Glad you like it, because you’re paying for the dye job.”

  I laughed. “Fair enough.”

  The Omicron lobby reminded me of every corporate lobby, with possibly a little bit more fake polished stone, if that was possible. It even smelled the same, all processed air and some chemical that fell in the spectrum between astringent and perfume. Ganos’s low-heeled shoes clacked on the floor, and when I looked at her I could hardly keep a straight face. I doubted even Parker would recognize her.

  I headed to reception, Ganos trailing a pace behind me. I didn’t make eye contact with the gentleman behind the counter until I stood right in front of him.

  “Can I help you, sir?” he asked, in a polite corporate tone.

  “I have a meeting with Mr. Turkov,” I said.

  The man sat up straighter hearing the name. Name dropping the VP of human resources would do that. “Yes, sir. He’s on the seventeenth floor. Elevators are right over there.”

  I looked him directly in the eyes and gave him a fake corporate smile. “Thank you”—I glanced at his nametag—“Aaron.” I wanted his attention on me and not Ganos. The fewer people who could identify her, the safer she’d be if things went to crap.

  “My pleasure, sir,” he said, but I’d already turned away and headed for the elevator.

  Disembarking on the seventeenth floor, I continued to play my part as another corporate guy who thought a little too much of himself. It made me nearly invisible. I found Turkov easily enough since he had the biggest office on the floor, and everybody knew him. His fancy outer office came complete with a secretary, a tall man whose eyes jumped to us the moment we entered. He sat alone in the room full of high-grade corporate carpet and dark, fake wood. A second desk sat across from his, used but currently unoccupied.

  “Can I help you?” the man asked.

  “I’m here to see Mr. Turkov,” I said, as flatly as I could manage, trying to appear bored. I didn’t look back at Ganos, who I assumed stood a bit behind me.

  Before the secretary could respond, an overweight man in a suit a half size too small appeared from the inner office, consuming the doorway. “Colonel Butler. I’m Yergei Turkov. Come in.”

  “Thanks for seeing me on such short notice,” I said, once we’d entered the inner office. Ganos followed me, avoiding the door when Turkov tried to shut it on her. “I know you’re a busy man.”

  “Don’t mention it,” he said. “Can I get you something? Water, coffee? Whiskey?”

  “I’m good, thanks.” I appreciated that the man had done his research.

  “So what can I do for you?” His eyes settled on Ganos, questioning.

  “Excuse me,” I said. “This is my assistant, Ms. Gabbert.”

  “Your . . . assistant,” said Turkov.

  I looked away, not meeting his eyes, trying to project shame. I glanced at Ganos, who stood there as if we weren’t speaking about her. I sighed. “Ms. Gabbert isn’t really my assistant.”

  Turkov sat down in his faux-leather chair and leaned back, hands behind his head. He didn’t speak, but his look asked for an explanation.

  I glanced at Ganos again, keeping the look longer than I needed to, then back to Turkov. I tried to appear nervous. “Ms. Gabbert is with corporate security at VPC.” I gave him a meaningful look, trying to convey that she was more than just security.

  “You need security?” asked Turkov, right on cue.

  “The company feels that I’m an important asset. They don’t want me to . . . they don’t want anything to happen to me.” I looked at Ganos harder this time, daring her to speak. She stood there implacably, as we’d rehearsed.

  Turkov smiled the smile of a man who thought himself clever. “I thought that might be the case.”

  I smiled back. People never suspected the second lie. They expected you to lie once, but when they caught you, invariably they believed the next thing you told them. Turkov didn’t disappoint. “I’d like to talk to you about an . . . opportunity.” I glanced at Ganos quickly, then back at Turkov. I wanted him to believe I needed to talk to him alone, but I couldn’t say it in front of Ganos.

  “Why don’t I show you around the facility?” Turkov stood and came around his desk.

  I paused. “Yes. That would be great.” I looked at Ganos. “I’m sure I’ll be completely safe, Ms. Gabbert.”

  Ganos glanced at Turkov, then back at me, nervous. “Sir . . . I’m really supposed to stay—”

  “He’ll be fine, Ms. Gabbert,” said Turkov.

  “I’ll be fine, Ms. Gabbert,” I said. “I won’t need to explain any problems with your work to Mr. Sanchez.”

  Ganos looked back and forth between us, then down at the floor. “I’ll wait here.”

  Turkov hustled his bulk around his desk and quickly led me out the door. “We’ll be out of the office for a few minutes,” he told his secretary as we passed by.

  “Thanks for understanding.” I wanted to look at Ganos, but I didn’t. I hoped that her end of the plan worked. More important, I hoped she didn’t get caught.

  He smiled. “Of course. Did you really want to see the company?”

  “Not really, no,” I admitted. “I wanted to get away from my corporate minder so I could speak without it getting back to my boss. It’s so annoying.”

  “I’ll bet. So what can I do for you?”

  “I’m exploring my options. I know you were interested when I first came on the market, and I’m thinking it might be time to make a change, if I found the right situation. Things at VPC . . . well let’s say I feel like I could be happier somewhere else.”

  His face lit up. I had him. “What kind of situation are you looking for?”

  I rolled my shoulders, suddenly pretending not to be as interested. I had to play the game the way he expected to make it feel real. “I could be open to a lot of things.”

  He suppressed a chuckle. “Of course. Any particular job you feel you’re qualified for?”

  “One that doesn’t involve someone from the company following me when I leave the building?”

  This time he did laugh. “That I’m sure we can arrange. I can’t say exactly what we’d put on the nameplate on your door, but that doesn’t really matter much, does it?”

  “I’m flexible, as long as it’s in the same tier I’m at now. Or higher.”

  He nodded. “Let me look around. Talk to some people. Brief the boss. But I don’t see that being an issue.”

  “Not an issue is good,” I said.

  “Come on,” he offered. “I’ll show you a little bit of the place. That way your . . . assistant . . . won’t suspect anything.”

  “I appreciate your discretion,” I said.

  Ganos and I left Omicron without talking and headed to her apartment, making another car change along the way. I’d wanted to go somewhere else, but she had the equipment she needed and I didn’t. Ganos’s
apartment surprised me in its efficiency and cleanliness. I think because she usually dressed without a lot of care, I equated that to how she’d live. Her space rivaled mine in size but seemed larger due to the sparse furniture. She had one comfortable chair and three stools that sat at the bar that surrounded her efficiency kitchen. The tile floor sparkled, and dust didn’t seem to exist. The entire far wall of the main living area drew the eye. She had three tables, end to end lengthwise, all buried in high-tech machinery. Five monitors formed a semi-circle on the center table in front of a captain’s chair, which looked like it might be the most expensive piece of furniture in the room. Lights danced through towers of processors and Mother knows what other technologies.

  Everything stood in perfect order, except a little two-kilogram fuzzy terror, which bounded across the floor, barking at me as if it wasn’t the size of my shoe.

  “Nice dog,” I said.

  “Francisco! Sit! He’s okay.” The fuzzy rat backed off half a meter and stopped barking, but he kept eye contact. “Don’t mind Cisco. He’s all bark.”

  “He’d have to be. What else is he going to do? Savage my ankle?”

  “He keeps me company,” she said.

  “Of course. So Omicron . . . what did you find out?”

  “Nothing,” she said. “Well, I learned that you shouldn’t leave yourself logged in when you leave your office. But we knew that already. Not that it would have mattered. I’d have cracked his terminal anyway.”

  “So you got in?”

  “Of course I got in, sir. But I didn’t get any information. I didn’t have time, and if I did, someone would have seen stuff flowing to Turkov’s terminal that probably shouldn’t have been, and it would have raised a red flag. Not something we want to do when we’re in their building.”