Trickster

by J. C. Andrijeski

  We might as well try to gather some useful intel first, before we huddled around organic heaters with the locals, sharing bottles of cheap vodka and eating whatever crap remained in their frozen stores.

  The snow was starting to come down thick, though.

  Those dense, white sheets of large flakes likely motivated the penned seers to end their disturbance a lot faster than the prods and batons of the guards. My own people barely got into the fray before the job was done, leaving us to walk around like impotent storm troopers in our dark armored suits, carrying a few hundred thou in organic weaponry.

  It was crap detail, and we hadn’t even been needed for it.

  I saw only a few seers outside those cement-block enclosures now, including an old male collecting fresh snow in buckets and dragging it back to the cement walls.

  I watched him hand those buckets over and through the glass-less slats, where younger-looking sets of pale hands took them from him eagerly.

  The snow must be for drinking water inside the pens.

  In any case, seconds later, the pails got handed back to the old male, empty, and he repeated the ritual, looking for fresh snow drifts.

  Like all seers in the pens and cell blocks, the aged male wore a sight-restraint collar around his neck, one of the modern organics with a two-way block. Even so, I found myself thinking they probably kept him around like an old brood mare with racing horses––to keep the others calm, and provide services the guards didn’t want to perform.

  Like fetching fresh water, presumably.

  I scanned the nearby Barrier space again and frowned.

  That weird fucking signal again.

  Was someone really lurking out here? Now? With a blizzard starting? Or was I picking up someone who actually worked here, someone who was supposed to be in the construct, screwing around at the edges of the enclosure fences?

  Whoever he was, his aleimic markers weren’t registered with the locals.

  “Anything?” I sent around the link.

  Cat answered at once, from a half-click ahead, near the trees.

  “No,” she said. “You?”

  “I’m getting something,” I said, frowning. “Near you. Can you get eyes on it?”

  I highlighted the relevant area of the construct for her, which seemed to live directly across the fence from the slanted, cement block shed with the open, glass-less and screen-less windows. Probably another shelter crammed to the walls with dirt-bloods, all of them huddled together for warmth against the snow and cold.

  I couldn’t even imagine how fucking cold it must get out here at night.

  That old man was hardy as fuck, just from being alive.

  Grimacing, I showed Cat, along with Deseri and Orcai, who were with her, the specific signature a second time.

  “Got it?” I said. “He’s protected, right?”

  “By these dirt bloods?” Solai sounded doubtful. “You really think someone’s got a cell operating out of here, boss?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “I’m feeling distortion. A Barrier field of some kind, and I can’t get a lock on the exact signature.”

  “Rebels?”

  I didn’t answer, but let them feel me shrug.

  “Can we trace it back later?” Cat said. “Just pick them up for now?”

  I frowned. “Don’t do anything yet. Just find him. But I’d like a source for that shield before you close on him. They’re going to rabbit the second he gets picked up. If they’re any good, they could also wipe any trace of the shield before we get a solid imprint, so be careful.”

  Cat pinged me that she understood.

  I looked up at the cloud-filled sky, watching fat snow-flakes drift down as Cat, Orcai and Solai checked out the unknown’s light signature, as well as the distortion caused by the Barrier shield I sensed around whoever this joker was.

  As I waited, I grew aware of my body again.

  My shoulder ached from holding up the plexiglas riot shield, and my back still twinged from a hit I took back in Cairo, from a board wielded by an angry protester screaming about seers’ rights. Popping pain killers and stimulants on the way from Moscow made me forget about the injury, but now the effects were wearing off.

  I found myself wishing we’d just done the one pass and gone back to the compound.

  Whatever we found out here, Central would probably order us to leave it alone, anyway.

  Maybe the snow storm would be a blessing in disguise.

  I needed to give my people a rest after this.

  All of us were punchy after the four, back-to-back assignments, all of them involving seer protests. As much as we all pretended otherwise, having our own brothers and sisters constantly throwing rocks and bottles at our heads got to us.

  Being called traitor and worm-fucker got to us, too.

  One could only block out so much, for so long.

  There were rules about how many drugs we could use to take the edge off that kind of thing. Central and SCARB both overlooked a lot of “personal habit”-type stuff, however, as long as a particular team performed, and our team had the highest tag and intercept counts in our operational section. Still, I didn’t want to lose my best people to burnout––or addiction.

  I knew it happened.

  It happened often enough that Central felt the need to make it a rule.

  Sweat seeped through my uniform shirt and under my arms in the heavy coat and armored vest, making me shift my feet in a sort of underlying discomfort, even apart from the weight of the gear. I knew I’d probably be freezing once we returned to the cement rabbit warren of the barracks, but for now, different parts of my body fluctuated between temperature extremes that made me wish I could remove a few layers and maybe get all of us moving faster.

  It was getting colder, though.

  And wetter.

  Wet, cloying snow stuck to my clothes and hair.

  My sensitive seer ears picked up the low-level buzzing from the nearby perimeter fence, and somehow that was making it hard for me to focus behind the Barrier, and to watch what Cat and the others were doing.

  I found myself thinking about Manaus again.

  However-much I bitched about the snow and cold, I still preferred it vastly to being back in that shithole in the jungle. In Brazil, the insects alone were like an alien life form, much less the heat and the snakes and whatever else. I remembered feeling my feet slosh in the sweat of my boots, and me thinking about them rotting in there, which brought back ugly flashbacks of Vietnam, probably my least favorite war in a string of bad and ugly human wars.

  Like most seers, I definitely preferred the cold.

  “Yeah,” Cat said, her voice rising in the link. “I got it, boss. Definitely a live one. I’m not getting a weapons reading, but could be they’re using dead metal. You want me to go in? See if I can flush him out?”

  “Alone?” I said. “No. We’ll come to you. Just don’t let him run.”

  “All of us?” Whalen said.

  “Yes.”

  “Who’s protecting him, do you think?” Paulo was already walking around from the other side of the pen. “Rebels?”

  “Who knows?” I muttered, thinking softer, We’re not supposed to fucking ask that, remember?

  I felt Paulo react, maybe catching a whiff of that packed missive, or maybe just feeling the emotion behind it.

  He seemed to get the message, in any case, because he didn’t ask again.

  I shrugged.

  “We’re probably snowed in tonight, anyway, brothers and sisters,” I said. “Might as well pretend we’re infiltrators while we’re here, na? I doubt there are many unwilling bars this far from Candara.”

  Orcai gave a low laugh, audible through the sub-vocal channel.

  Despite my flippant tone, my light was on high alert again.

  A part of me felt the truth of my own words. Right or not, I did want to know if they had rebel plants working out of this camp. I suspected Central would still rather I left that problem with the locals
, but I could convince myself I didn’t know that, not for certain.

  Anyway, if they really didn’t want us out here, they’d order us back in.

  Still pushing those thoughts and others around my mind, I scanned a few of the nearby prisoners. I came up blank on any of the terrorism flags we’d been given, although I knew that wouldn’t be enough to discern even a semi-competent deep-cover agent.

  It was enough to give me an overall flavor of the group huddled in those cement bunkers, but that was about it.

  It crossed my mind that we could still do this the slow way, since we were already on the ground. We’d been given clearance to talk to the camp rats. I could bring them in for interrogations, one by one.

  I could do it all night, if I so chose.

  Looking around, though, I frowned, wondering if there was any real upside to potentially annoying my superiors with a gambit like that. No one had told me not to do it, but there was a damned good chance I’d be seen as overstepping.

  It might also be seen as indirectly thumbing my nose at Central, possibly even using the blackout to my own advantage, since that radio silence also meant me and my people were flying under the radar of Central more than usual, too.

  “Find me that jumper.” I hesitated only a breath before adding, “We’ll get him and bring him in. Then we’re done here.”

  Once I said it aloud, I exhaled in a kind of relief.

  I wasn’t going to fight this battle. Not this time.

  There was absolutely no reason to.

  Even as I thought it, I felt some higher vibration in my light start to loosen.

  So. Someone was watching me down here. I couldn’t help wondering who it was… then I remembered that didn’t matter, either.

  I exhaled again, doing another quick scan.

  I watched Cat approach the edge of the trees along the highest part of the fence.

  “I’m still not getting a threat-warning, but don’t be stupid,” I warned her. “This guy comes after you, or anyone protecting him, and you drop the fuckers. Use batons, if you have to. I’ll re-designate if things look bad enough and we’ll get the guards to come out here, too, help us haul them all in. But I don’t want to do that unless they give us a damned good reason.”

  “Should I close on the other side, boss?” Orcai said.

  “No. I want you where you are,” I said, sharp. “See if you can pinpoint the block. They’ll probably feel it when we get close enough, and I want whoever’s protecting this clown.”

  Cat and Orcai both sent me affirmative pings.

  Glancing around at the work camp grounds, I could see a group of camp rats standing by the fence, not far from where Cat was headed. I couldn’t tell what they were looking at, but they all seemed to be staring into the trees.

  Touching a setting on my headset, I used virtual to zoom in on the five seers standing there.

  The one in the middle, who stood there like he led the rest of them, was a muscular, Asian-featured seer, and tall––far bigger than your usual camp rat. I could see tattoos on the back of his neck and his arms where they were bare to the elbow.

  Looked like pantheon stuff. Religious.

  That meant kneeler.

  Seven. Maybe rebels.

  From the intel I’d seen, the rebels were even bigger religious nuts than the Seven.

  Exhaling, I began to walk, heading in the direction of Cat.

  With the work camp rats just standing there, I didn’t see any point in trying to sneak up on whoever was in those trees. The prisoners would have clued off whoever it was that they had guards closing in on them already.

  “Belay the last order,” I growled into my headset. “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me you had inmates over there?”

  “Just saw them boss. Sorry.”

  “You just saw them?” I said, disbelieving. “You’re right on top of them, Cat.”

  “Yeah, but something’s interfering with their signals, too.”

  I scanned, still walking fast, the rifle clutched in my right hand. I could feel what she meant now. Something was interfering with the Barrier signatures of those inmates. Something close to them. Maybe even the same target we were tracing.

  “How close are you?” I said.

  “Maybe one hundred yards,” she said. “If I wasn’t in cover, we’d be in visual range. I can feel the target and the work camp prisoners now, sir, using your coordinates. No one seems to be rabbiting, but we still can’t source the shield.”

  “Ditto here, boss,” Orcai added.

  “Same,” Paulo sent with a ping.

  I exhaled, annoyed. “All right. Stay there. I’m coming.”

  I squinted at that line of prisoners by the fence, feeling sweat trickle down my back as I increased my pace. Sweat ran down from my hairline too, stinging my eyes.

  My mind remained mostly in the Barrier.

  I watched the construct along with Orcai as Ringu and Solai paced him from behind, also holding their guns. The prisoners seemed to be watching me now, especially the big guy in the middle, the one with the tattoos and the Chinese-looking features. The guy was even more pumped up than I’d realized from a distance, so he couldn’t have been here long.

  He was built like a fucking tank.

  I found myself wondering what his sight rank was.

  Maybe he’d make an interesting recruitment opportunity, even if he was, or had been, one of these rebel fucks. Something about his light struck me as interesting, and despite the shield, I got the sense it might be highly structured.

  “Can you see the big guy?” I sent into the headset. “The one in the middle?”

  I got four pings in return.

  “Map his light,” I said. “As much as you can. Do you have an ID?”

  “No, sir,” Cat replied. “Just sent the markers back to the locals, to see what they have on file. Are you thinking he’s the plant?”

  “I’m thinking that fucker is trained,” I said. “Maybe we should talk to him.”

  Cat acknowledged my words with another ping.

  She didn’t bother to point out that they directly contradicted what I’d said only a few moments before, about us wrapping this up and heading back in.

  I split my light and focus between my view through virtual reality, or VR, and what I could see behind the Barrier. I looked for the areas of overlap, so I could begin to construct a marker map.

  I could see Cat now, too, in the trees––with my light, anyway.

  Just then, Orcai’s voice rose over the sub-vocal.

  “Sir. You need to check this guy out.”

  “Send me the specs.”

  “I… can’t,” Orcai admitted, his light shimmering with confusion.

  “Why not?” I said.

  “He’s…” Orcai hesitated again. “He’s blocking me, sir. Completely. I can see him. I can even see his light, right now, but he won’t let me send you any imprints.”

  I tensed, my fingers tightening on the butt of my gun. “Who’s blocking you? The tattooed seer? The big guy?”

  “No, sir. The primary target. The one standing outside of the fence.”

  I frowned. I hadn’t felt anyone standing outside of the fence.

  I still felt the target, but I figured he was somewhere out in those trees. Now, staring at that space where the prisoners all stood, I realized I could make out the outline of a sixth figure, and he did appear to be standing on the opposite side of the fence as the prisoners.

  “Di’lanlente a’ guete,” I swore in Prexci, half-under my breath. “What the fuck is that?”

  “Don’t know, sir,” Orcai said frankly. “Should I try to talk to him?”

  “No.” I felt my patience fray, even as I clenched my jaw. “I’m almost there.”

  “We’ll cover you, sir,” Cat affirmed.

  Biting my lip in irritation, I sent her a ping of acknowledgement.

  I felt Orcai listening, and sent a wordless pulse in the Barrier, telling him to remain where he was, but
to keep his eyes open for that shield.

  “Drop the grid down on their heads if you have to,” I growled through my headset, throwing caution to the wind when I added, “You don’t follow protocol to a T on this one, and I’m writing you up. I mean it. We’re being watched, goddamn it.”

  No one answered me at all that time.

  I felt them acknowledge my words, though.

  What the hell was going on here?

  Who were these jokers by the fence? And who the fuck were they talking to? How had he gotten this deep into the camp without setting off the alarms?

  I wouldn’t have thought such a thing possible. People didn’t just walk up to enclosure fences at military-grade work camps, goddamn it.

  Either way, there was no point trying to sneak up on them now.

  I jogged the rest of the way around that section of fence, through fresh snow that continued to sift down, making visibility with my eyes alone nearly nonexistent.

  Solai and Ringu jogged behind me to keep up, and I realized how dim the light had gotten out here already, as the snow grew more intense. We probably only had another hour or two before being out here could become a security issue of its own, solely due to weather.

  I passed by the area of trees where I felt Cat crouching with two of the others, and felt her fall in behind my smaller group.

  All of our weapons were now aimed at the same section of fence.

  I saw Nulu crouched down in the snow right in front of me then, only a dozen or so yards from the seers clustered on either side of the fence. I realized Cat must have sent her ahead to act as a sort of sniper, maybe to take out the trespasser if he tried to flee.

  Made sense, since no one seemed able to read past this guy’s shield.

  My eyes shifted to the group by the fence, even as two of the guards next to me pulled out stunners, flipping them open with sharp cracks of their wrists so the telescoped batons lengthened.

  I only noticed that with one part of my mind, though.

  I could see them now, even with my actual eyes.

  Twenty-One

  Love

  West Paddocks, External Perimeter

  Parvat Shikhar Work Camp