by Patty Jansen
It was dark inside, because Emi was already asleep. Thayu had told me that Pykka and Amay and Nalya also slept in the room. We sneaked into the room and no one had stirred by the time we got into bed.
I was exhausted, but not enough to skip a certain activity.
Ynggi and Jaki came in when I was about to doze off in Thayu’s arms. I didn’t know where they’d been. Most likely Ynggi had wanted to show Jaki rabbits, but it was cold and wet out there, so I wasn’t sure how successful that would have been.
The constant level of exhaustion caught up with me. It was as if, now that we’d decided what to do, my mind had been freed of the indecision.
I slept and didn’t wake until it was light. The two Pengali kids stood giggling at the side of the bed.
Nalya said, “Don’t be stupid.”
Thayu lifted her head. “What is stupid?”
“They are,” Nalya said. “They were saying dumb things about you.”
Thayu pulled back the blanket and patted for him to come into bed. Like a little boy, he did.
When he lay on the pillow next to his mother, the similarities between them were obvious. Not only did he have the same nose and same thoughtful expression, but he expressed himself in the same reserved way.
Thayu spoke in a low voice. “I’m sure they don’t mean what they’re saying or don’t understand what they’re saying.”
I had a pretty good feeling that the Pengali would have been talking about our night-time activity. Pengali were overly fascinated by how things worked for other types of people and other creatures. The adults were much better at hiding this fascination than the kids.
“I still think it is stupid,” Nalya said.
“You’re getting a bit tired of being with us?” Thayu asked.
“Why do you think that?” The horrified tone in his voice disturbed me. I knew that this kid couldn’t possibly have a happy life back in Athyl. Not with a family like that.
I put a hand on Thayu’s arm, hoping that she might get the message and ease off, but like a true Coldi person, she ploughed on.
“Because of Larrana’s obsession with his collection?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I think Larrana understands that we don’t like it. He’s been better recently.”
That was true. He had.
“Because you don’t like babysitting small kids?”
“You have to get used to small kids. They can be annoying, but they get better when you know that they don’t understand you because they can’t.”
He’d been very protective of the young kids. The first time I watched him with Emi on his lap had brought home to me just how isolated and lonely he was. At thirteen, he had no idea how to hold a toddler.
And Emi was all over Ayshada. She thought Larrana was cool, but she had no idea what to do with Nalya, her own half-brother.
It came not from his awkwardness, but because he desperately wanted it to work, despite having no experience and skills.
“We’ll be very busy this morning. Do you want to give Emi her breakfast?” I asked.
His eyed widened briefly, and then he sprang out of bed.
“Emilu!” He never called her Emi.
“You chased him off,” Thayu said.
“Watch him.”
He went to the bag with our supplies and retrieved a pre-packed cube that contained sweet porridge from the Asto military supplies.
Emi was such a human vacuum cleaner that she’d go after anyone who took something from this bag, no matter who they were.
Nalya opened the packet. He sat on the ground. Emi dropped to her backside in front of him, her mouth open.
Thayu and I watched the two of them.
“I don’t want to send him back to that horrible family,” Thayu said in a low voice.
“I’m sure we can keep him at our house a bit longer.”
We got up as well, grabbed some breakfast and packed up.
Everyone gathered in the large corner room where most of the team had slept.
The day was bleak and windy, and low-hanging clouds promised more rain.
Nicha had been up for several hours already, trying to figure out the best way to return to the city.
We only had two driverless cabs here. All of us could fit in, but it would be too cramped for a longer distance. Also, we could not split the team into a small spearhead group and a larger group with the children.
Nicha said that the next town had a train station. It also had a driverless cab hub, and hopefully if we abandoned the vehicles there, it wouldn’t raise too much suspicion.
Reida had also monitored the area and had detected some activity from people who may have tracked us after we escaped our followers in the city. Of course, the police still had seen no reason to arrest us, so we weren’t officially under investigation.
But we had to be careful, especially with this step of the plan. Things could go pear-shaped very quickly.
We split up when we came to the cab terminal. We entered the train station in four small groups and made sure that we travelled on different carriages.
I entered the second carriage of the train with Thayu and Veyada and Mereeni and the children.
The trip was uneventful, taking us through country with rolling fields that still lay barren after winter, even if a few flowers already grew in the road verges.
It was not very busy in the train. Several people spoke to us to inform us that they thought going to the city with young kids was a bad idea. Did we know there had been alien attacks on the city?
More than in Europe, the people here were of mixed ethnic origin. I’d read that during the Second Civil War, many non-whites had fled to Atlantia or across the border to Mexico, like Mariola and her family, but it was another thing to see it in front of you. I was by far the whitest person on the train, and my Coldi entourage, or even Evi and Telaris, whom I could see at the end of the carriage, didn’t look out of place.
Thayu got a message from Deyu, who sat in another carriage, that she had established contact with the Exchange. I could only imagine the consternation in Amarru’s office when she realised that we had disappeared. Whatever else happened, at least that manoeuvre had been worth it.
Thanks to the Atlantian air force and my stubbornness, we knew where these drones came from. I was not sorry about leading Amarru up the garden path at all.
The train arrived at the station. We got off at a busy platform where many people with bulging bags were waiting to get on. Families were still trying to escape the city.
Several soldiers stood at the platform.
We kept to our small groups. Each of us made our separate ways out of the station and got into separate driverless cabs.
Government Hill was a pretty parkland area situated across the water from the city centre. I understood it had once been the home of the famous Statue of Liberty, but it had been damaged through rising water levels and in the Second Civil War, removed, restored and was now housed in a museum—I forgot which one—because the footings of the original monument were under water.
These days, the area held the governor’s residence and offices, and some government buildings.
The park was pleasant and well-maintained. Rows of trees lined wide boulevards. They were still without leaves, but dandelions bloomed in the grass.
Modern buildings stood well back from the streets, behind stone walls and metal gates. The streets were closed to all private traffic, but the driverless cabs were allowed to enter at slow speed.
The day had turned sunny and families were out walking. Compared to the devastation downtown, the scene was surreal.
But I didn’t feel peaceful. I’d be happy when we had completed this part of the plan successfully and we were on our way to Athens.
We got out of the vehicle at the very end of the boulevard where a heavy metal gate barred the way. From here, you c
ouldn’t see the governor’s official residence, but I’d seen pictures of the glass and concrete modern building that looked out over the water.
The group that included Deyu had also gotten out of their cab. We gathered on the grass like a bunch of friends meeting for a picnic. Nicha had done his job admirably and had even noticed a pancake stand—and had looked up the times it opened. We bought several boxes and sat eating them to add to the impression that we were just day trippers.
But while we were eating, and the children played on the grass, several of us were hard at work.
Anyu went for a walk around the series of ponds that lay on the other side of the residence and office. Reida monitored who went into the office and who came out and where they did this.
We only had a short time to find out how to get in, and the team needed to fine-tune the plan.
I’d once barged into Danziger’s office in the presence of heavily armed guards, but that was to scare Danziger. I wanted to convince the governor, so I needed a more delicate approach. Still, without Reida and Anyu, I would never get in. I needed all the help I could get for one of the more brazen moments in my career.
Chapter Thirty-Three
While we had been sitting in the park, I had noticed groups of black clad people about. They had been too far away for me to see if they were Coldi, but I’d been reasonably sure that they were. I’d seen these types often enough to recognise them by the way they watched and observed, and always wore clothing that was slightly odd, usually in dark colours. Usually very sturdy, often too thick for the weather.
When discussing our plan last night, Sheydu had warned me we might need to ask for “assistance from others”. That they were from the Asto military went unspoken. But I had not imagined there to be so many military people. The only ones I had seen were the seven at the safe house in Los Angeles. There were more than seven. A lot more.
They walked around, strolling along the tree-lined paths. They never had children or dogs as company. They didn’t talk to each other, and now that I had started to notice them, there were really a lot of them.
Creating a security breach was a critical part of the operation, and while I said that Anyu and Reida could do it, Sheydu had said that she didn’t want any of our team on the front line, in case something went wrong.
The plan was to release a bug that created a security issue. They’d released it before we came here. Now they needed to establish which of the building’s systems were down and how security was covering the problems. Presumably they also knew this by now.
The final blow would be to release a further bug that attacked a part of the system that was already weak.
I was very much not up to speed with the meaning of those terms. I understood that the jargon could apply to both computer systems that controlled the flow of information between members of a security team, or physical items like cameras, locks or face recognition scanners.
Those things would be reprogrammed to let us through, or to convince the guards that I had a legitimate appointment with the governor. It was a delicate operation and none of it was in my hands. My task was to talk once we got in.
The military people walked past the gate.
The fact that they weren’t casual tourists was painfully obvious to me. Would it be as obvious to the guards at the gate, who had barely seen Coldi people in the course of their duty, let alone Asto military? How good were these guards?
Reida said that while our not-tourists strolled past the gate and the tall walls that surrounded the compound, they released scanning routines which would allow them to judge the weak points of the site. Were there guards on the other side of the wall? Was there just a camera that fed back to a security station?
I’d impressed upon Sheydu and her team that I wanted no violence. In that light, her earlier comments about the large numbers of local military put me somewhat at ease.
Sheydu had a healthy respect for all her opponents. Underestimating one’s adversary was a sure way to disaster. I was sure she wouldn’t do that. She’d want to stay well clear of that local military.
Now the local police… that might be a different story. They’d roughed us up already. For what aim, I could only guess. They didn’t seem to have a learned a lot, and although they would be following us around, monitoring what we did, they didn’t seem to act with any kind of purpose. If they believed they had reason to detain us, they would have done so already. Either they didn’t know that we’d broken into the military depot—which I found hard to believe—or they were waiting to see what we would do now. Something was about to come to a head.
Reida now rose and went to the group sitting on a park bench. They spoke briefly, and then he came back, while the group got up and joined the others closer to the compound.
“We have to wait here. There will be action soon,” he said.
He would have spoken with hand signals for the others, but this was to the benefit of all of us.
I looked around the park where many people were still enjoying picnics. It was surreal.
Jaki and Ynggi sat with the kids on a park bench. The Pengali kids were playing a game with acorns, Larrana watched them, and Nalya watched us. He knew something was up.
I hoped someone would take these kids to a safe place once the plan was underway.
Thayu sat next to her son, but looking or acting motherly was not in her arsenal today.
Zyana crouched on the other side of her. He kept glancing at a device in his pocket. I was reminded that I intended to speak with him one on one to establish his history other than having worked for the Third Circle guards. You did not catch Sheydu’s attention while working for the Third Circle guards.
Deyu sat on a stone wall with her backpack casually at her feet. It looked like a normal pack one might bring for a day trip, but it contained the transmitter that everyone was using to talk to each other.
We waited. We watched.
Then, some action started at the far end of the central tree-lined road that lead through the park. This road was off-limits to vehicles because of a row of bollards at the park’s entrance.
Now, a great number of uniformed men arrived on heavy duty motorbikes. The bollards went down. People in the park stopped to watch.
The riders advanced in a phalanx to clear the road of pedestrians. As they went, individuals peeled off the group and stationed themselves along the roadsides. They were wearing communication headsets and helmets. They wore weapons slung across their backs.
Curious park visitors converged along the roadsides, held at a distance by these guards.
Well, crap. It looked like a VIP was arriving. That was not the sort of action we’d expected.
My team sprang into action.
Sheydu made a few hand signals. She indicated that I should stay seated and listen to Thayu.
Deyu heaved her backpack onto her shoulders. She and Anyu set off in the direction of the wall surrounding the governor’s residence. A large group of people had gathered at the complex’s gates, but three dark-clad people stood off to the side. They looked and acted like guards and didn’t look out of place at all. But I noticed something else. A fourth person was with them.
Ynggi had earlier declared that he needed to visit the amenities. He hadn’t returned to us, but I now noticed him sheltering behind the much larger members of this group.
As the crowd cheered, as everyone was watching the empty road while waiting for what they probably assumed to be the governor’s car, Ynggi simply… vanished.
Crap. Invisibility nets.
One of the group’s members extended his arm to lean against the wall. A shimmering patch hovered at his shoulder, then jumped up to a support strut that held a light, from there to a small recess in the concrete that probably held a security camera—and what was the bet that the camera was already disabled through a bug sent by Reida?—and from there to the top of the wall.<
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The patch vanished. Ynggi was in the compound of the governor’s residence. Crap, what had I said about not wanting my team members involved in illegal activities? Knowing Ynggi, he’d probably offered.
While this was happening, most other members of my team packed up their picnic things and casually strolled in the direction of the road, as if they were going to join the crowd in groups of two and three.
Deyu and Anyu were already there.
Reida and Sheydu went closer to the gate into the compound. Another group of Coldi military people was already there.
Thayu, Nicha and Veyada stayed with me.
Jaki and Mereeni took the children. Mereeni carried Ileyu in a sling. Nalya carried Emi, his face very serious. The two Pengali kids hitched a ride on Larrana’s shoulders. They walked in the direction of the three guards who had helped Ynggi over the wall.
Then Thayu got up. Nicha and Veyada got up. I followed them across the grass to the area where the crowd was the thickest: the entrance to the compound.
A dark coloured van followed the motorbikes, then a dark coloured car and another one, followed by more bikes.
The column of vehicles progressed slowly along the path. People gathered along the road cheered and waved. All vehicles had darkened glass windows that made it impossible to see the drivers or passengers.
The governor was in that car? Had my team known this?
The gate to the compound opened, letting the dark van into the compound.
But it stopped halfway inside the gates, so that the next car, presumably the governor’s, was half out of the gate. Apparently, there was a hold-up in the middle of the compound. Some issue created by Ynggi?
We had now arrived at the back of the crowd that had gathered there. The people parted. A man yelled protest at being shoved to the side. That was Deyu’s doing.
Nicha walked through, followed by Veyada. Then I followed and Thayu was behind me.
We walked straight up to the gate. While most of the motorcycle guards at the gate were occupied with the commotion ahead, one of them had gotten off his bike. He greeted me.