Waypoint Kangaroo

by Curtis C. Chen

  “Stop talking.” Jessica points toward the elevator. “Go away.”

  “I can’t believe you of all people are passing up the opportunity to achieve a potentially paradigm-shifting scientific breakthrough!”

  “One of us has two advanced medical degrees. The other one has been ordered to leave the planet.” She pulls open the door to the stairwell. “I’ll have a better idea of what’s possible after you get back. Good-bye.”

  The door closes. I stare at it. Nanobots. Who knew?

  If my department survives this audit, things are going to be very interesting when I get back from Mars.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Earth—the Atlantic Ocean—Beanstalk anchor platform

  10 hours after Paul told me to leave town

  Pearson’s Beanstalk is a commercial space elevator anchored off the east coast of Florida. Its carbon nanotube cable rises forty thousand kilometers to geosynchronous orbit and beyond, counterweighted by a small asteroid. Construction of the Beanstalk was cofinanced by the Ellis-Baker Global Amusement Partnership, which had the resources to build a suitable anchor platform and then drag it from its most efficient equatorial position to a more profitable offshore position—less than an hour’s drive from Orlando, where their Legendary Lands of Lore theme park is located.

  Two habitat-sized “PeoplePods” climb the Beanstalk every week, one going up and one coming down. Their exteriors have been molded to resemble enormous green vines and leaves. The interior of my climber lives up to Ellis-Baker’s reputation for magical presentation, re-creating mythical settings from ancient folk tales and fairy stories.

  It’s going to take a full week to get from sea level to the Sky Five orbital station, where I’ll board my cruise ship to Mars. Ellis-Baker has built a variety of attractions inside the climber to delight and distract children, and others to mollify their parents during the ascent. Some of the Ellis-Baker theme parks used to be “dry” establishments, serving no alcohol, but you can’t pack that many families into an enclosed space for seven days and not expect the adults to need some liquid happiness of their own.

  There are faster ways than a space elevator to get into geosync orbit, but not for a civilian. Especially not for a civilian whose boss wants him to be very difficult to reach for the next month. Nobody’s going to attempt to intercept a vehicle moving up the cable at two hundred kilometers per hour. The cruise ship will be even more isolated. Just talking to someone on Earth will be prohibitively expensive, and the lightspeed transmission delay will make live conversations impractical.

  Yeah, I’m going to need quite a bit of liquor to get through this trip.

  As soon as I board the climber, I go looking for the nearest bar. That turns out to be the Hope and Anchor, a full-sized replica of an English pub tucked in the Haunted Woods behind the Unicorn Clearing and just past the Gingerbread House. There’s limited space in the climber, but Ellis-Baker knows how to make the most of their available construction volume.

  I belly up to the fake wooden bar and order a real Imperial pint. The noise around me is comfortable. It’s adult noise, low-pitched and rolling—not like the startled shrieks erupting from the fantasy forest outside at unpredictable intervals. Vid walls show replays of recent cricket and rugby matches. I could almost believe I’m in Ol’ Blighty.

  The bar’s pretty crowded with sports fans, so I move toward one of the cleverly hidden staircases. The pub has four levels, each themed to a different historical era of the British Empire. I make a beeline for an empty Elizabethan booth and almost run into another man who’s headed to the same place.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” he says.

  “No problem,” I say.

  “I really need to rest my legs,” he says. “Do you mind sharing?”

  “Fine by me.”

  We sit down across from each other. The man is elderly—retired, I’d guess. His skin is a few shades of brown darker than my own. Curly, short-cropped hair clings to his scalp in gray and white clumps, thinning at the top. His hands circle a glass of whiskey on the table.

  “Well, this is nice, isn’t it?” he says. I’m still trying to place his accent. Definitely somewhere on the eastern seaboard. He raises his glass. “Here’s to some time spent away from children.”

  I lift my mug and clink it against his glass. “I couldn’t agree more. Cheers.”

  He sips his drink. I wonder if he’s just taking it slow, or if he doesn’t usually indulge. I gulp down a good quarter of my pint.

  “You traveling with your family?” the man asks.

  “Oh no,” I say. “No kids. I’ve just never ridden a space elevator before. Or been to the Big ‘L.’” The Legendary Lands of Lore is a tourist mecca, and the largest of Ellis-Baker’s many massive resort properties. “Figured I’d kill two birds with one stone.”

  It feels strange, actually telling the truth about myself, not using a cover story. It feels good. Or maybe that’s just the beer talking. I take another swig.

  “Recapturing your childhood,” the man laughs. “I like that.”

  “And you?” I ask. I’m still in spy mode, trying to extract information without appearing to try too hard at it. Finding turns in the flow of conversation when it feels natural to insert a question, guiding the other person with well-placed acknowledgments or comments. It’s like dancing, except you can end up with much worse than your foot getting stepped on.

  “I’m here with my wife, and our grandkids,” the man says. “They’re probably still running around that ‘haunted forest,’ scaring themselves silly. I just needed a break. Not as young as I used to be.”

  I can’t think of an appropriate follow-up, so I just sip my beer.

  “My name’s Donald,” the man says, extending a hand.

  I shake his hand. “Evan.” Low security on this trip, but I still have to use an alias.

  It strikes me that I’m actually looking forward to having some fun. I wasn’t happy about Paul shoving me out the door, but now that I’ve resigned myself to my fate, I’m beginning to see the possibilities. No job to do. No exfil to worry about messing up.

  I wonder how many days off the agency actually owes me, as a federal employer. My accrued vacation time must be at least three or four months by now. Maybe I could extend this trip beyond Mars. It’s not like Paul could send someone after me, if I decided to up and disappear into the asteroid belt.

  He might even be impressed by my tradecraft. There’s a thought.

  “So I’m guessing this trip wasn’t your idea,” I say.

  Donald laughs. “Now why would you think that?”

  I shrug. “Seems like you and your wife could find better things to do with your time than two solid weeks of babysitting.”

  “Oh, I love my grandkids,” Donald says. “You’re still young, but believe me, you’ll understand when you get older. When you can’t do certain things any more, it’s nice to be around people who can.”

  “Interesting,” I say. I don’t quite believe him, and something about his phrasing strikes me as odd. I drink more beer, trying to turn off the overly analytical part of my brain. All work and no play makes Kangaroo a dull boy.

  “My daughter and her husband were supposed to bring the kids on this trip,” Donald continues. “Big family thing. But you know how it is: urgent project at work, last-minute meetings, and suddenly they’re stuck with nonrefundable tickets they can’t use.”

  “Lucky for you.”

  Donald laughs again. The sound triggers a tiny alarm bell in the back of my head.

  One of the first things I learned at the agency was how to play poker. Not because Paul expected I’d have to go undercover into a lot of casinos, or because he wanted me to socialize and make friends—nobody at the agency actually plays cards for fun. Too many damn cheaters.

  Poker and other bluffing games are a structured way to learn how to spot a lie. And that’s the first step toward developing an instinct for when a situation’s not quite right. Even if you’re no
t aware of the specific microexpression that belies someone’s facade or the one incongruous detail that throws off the layout of a room, your subconscious is already yelling Danger, Will Robinson! And that’s what I’m feeling right now.

  But I’ve learned the hard way that falsehoods don’t always mean danger. Everyone’s got secrets. Donald probably has family issues, unresolved father-daughter stuff that he’s not telling me about but which is at the top of his mind right now. It’s not important. I drink more beer.

  “I hear they got nine holes of golf in here,” Donald says. “You play golf?”

  The thing at the back of my head goes to Red Alert. Too friendly, it says. Too forward, too much, too soon. Not right.

  I smile and shake my head. “Never quite got the hang of it.” I decide to lay a trap. “I prefer swimming.”

  “Yeah? I hear there’s a low-gravity pool on the top floor.”

  He’s trying to get me to talk. Who the hell is this guy? Who even knows I’m here?

  Okay, Donnie, let’s see what you’re hiding.

  I make some inane comment about swimming being good exercise while I bring my left ring finger up to the side of my mug. I do it on the side closest to me, so the remaining brown ale will hide my movements from Donald. I press my pinky inward, squeezing the sides of my ring finger together. I squeeze, hold, release, and repeat three times, feeling the subdermal contacts tingle. My left eye HUD lights up, filling my vision with a false color overlay.

  Donald’s got a variety of implants, but just about everyone does these days. Mobile phone in his right shoulder, vision correctors in both eyes, personal data recorder in his left armpit. Nothing unusual there. I twitch a finger on my left hand, and my eye zooms in on the data pod in his armpit and switches imaging modes. Lines of magnetic force leak from the sides of the pod. That tells me how much power it’s using, how much shielding it has—

  I try not to act too surprised or hurried as I gulp down the rest of my beer.

  “Get you another?” I ask. Donald shakes his head. “Be right back.”

  I stand up with my empty mug and make my way back to the bar. I leave the mug and walk out of the pub without looking back.

  If “Donald” is who I think he is, there’s trouble brewing back at the office.

  * * *

  The Ellis-Baker Adventurers’ League Golden Society membership card that came with my travel documents has proven very useful. It got me past all sorts of lines inside the Legendary Lands of Lore and at the Beanstalk’s boarding platform. Now it grants me access to a private office in the climber’s business center.

  The receptionist’s eyes widened when she ran the card—probably seeing my outrageous credit limit—but the pleasant expression on her face remained otherwise unmarred. These people are well trained. Ellis-Baker theme park cast members would probably make pretty good spies, if it weren’t for all the killing.

  The office I’m renting has a transparent plexi door. A desk extends from one wall, with a chair on the far side. A screen faces the back wall. The receptionist, Wendy, pulls out the control console and leaves me to do my business.

  I sit down at the desk and slide my gold card into the reader slot. The screen lights up with an animated character and a block of instructions. I look around the office. No obvious cameras, but I’ve already seen two other people walk past this room.

  I take off my jacket and drape it over the screen and my head. I’m sure it looks ludicrous, but if anyone asks, I can claim there was glare on the display and I couldn’t read the text. What are they going to think I was doing?

  I open the pocket directly in front of the screen, just large enough to get my hand through. The barrier glows with a soft white light. Nobody’s sure what causes that, since there shouldn’t be any energy bleeding through from the pocket universe. Science Division has a whole truckload of theories about how it works, and every now and then, Oliver will try to explain something about virtual particles or quantum foam until I get tired of listening and wander off to find a snack. When the white coats aren’t investigating the pocket itself, they’re trying to reverse-engineer the barrier. So far, no luck on either project.

  The pocket universe is hard vacuum. Without the barrier in place, the air in our universe will rush through the opening, and won’t stop until I close the portal. The first time I ever opened the pocket, I accidentally sucked a bag of peanuts into the void and almost spaced the squirrel I was feeding. Kind of freaked out my best friend, too. He wouldn’t talk to me for a week, until I realized the pocket was a perfect tool for shoplifting ice cream. Then we had to figure out how to get the frozen treats back out.

  I was able to rotate the pocket before I first manifested the barrier. Priorities, you know. The barrier didn’t help us retrieve our ice cream. But rotating the pocket 180 degrees around whatever item fell in will make the same item fall back out. Later on, I realized that being able to put things in the pocket, instead of just using the vacuum to suck them in, was much more versatile.

  It took months of practice to figure out how to make the barrier semipermeable: thin enough to move items through, but not so thin that too much atmosphere leaks into the pocket. I need to concentrate harder than usual to get the field strength just right.

  My mouth feels dry, and I struggle to pull my notebook through the barrier. Really shouldn’t have downed that beer so quickly. Alcohol plus pocket use equals prizewinning pocket hangover later.

  The screen casts barely enough light for me to make out the carrier code for the agency comsat relay. I mouth the numbers to myself silently, repeating them until I’m sure I can remember them for a few minutes, then put the notebook back in the pocket.

  Revealing agency access codes would be bad, so I continue hiding under the jacket as I route my call through a military communications satellite. The last mile from the comsat to the Beanstalk will still be transmitted in the clear, but it’s a short enough distance that the risk is minimal.

  The screen flickers, and Paul’s face appears. He’s not in his office. The view behind him looks like Oliver’s workshop.

  “Kangaroo to Lasher,” I say, using our respective code names. I don’t want him to think this is a personal call.

  Paul interjects before I can continue. “You’re not walking the dog.”

  He means I’m transmitting in the clear. Reminding me that our conversation may not be private. It’s a fair point, but I’m not planning to discuss any state secrets.

  “Fido’s taking a nap,” I say. “But another mutt is following me.”

  Paul leans forward. “Did you take him to the vet?”

  “Just got him X-rayed.” I describe Donald’s physical appearance and implants. “The data pod’s new; surgery scars are recent. Commercial unit, available to civilians, but it’s been modded with a military-grade hard crypto unit. I verified the—why are you looking at me like that?”

  Paul’s frown has shifted from concern to consternation. “Did you learn his name?”

  “Donald,” I say. “Wait, do you know this guy?”

  “I do.”

  “Then you can find out who else is on his team.” I’m getting excited now. “These auditors are playing dirty pool. They’re probably setting up ‘off-site meetings’ for you and Surge and EQ too. But if you can identify the actors—”

  “Stand down, Kangaroo,” Paul says, his face once again a stoic mask. “We’re not being targeted. I sent Donald to talk to you.”

  My excitement vanishes. “What?”

  “I apologize for the subterfuge,” he says. “Our friends at the office wanted a current psychological profile. You’ve never enjoyed those evaluations.”

  “So you decided to trick me into getting psychoanalyzed?”

  “I was hoping you wouldn’t notice.”

  Now I’m insulted. “And you couldn’t find anyone better than Donald, the second-rate con man? Or do you just think I’m a moron?”

  “We should talk about this later. After
your vacation.”

  I feel anger heating my face, but the professional part of me knows raising my voice would attract unwanted attention. And I look silly enough already, hiding under my jacket to make a vid call.

  “You really want me to sit on this for four more weeks?” I say. “Maybe I’ll go back to the bar and get really drunk and start telling all sorts of people about my horrible boss.”

  His face doesn’t change. Of course not. Paul’s been playing this game a lot longer than I have. He’s not going to lose his cool just because I am.

  “I shouldn’t have rushed this. I apologize. We’ll have you sit down for a normal evaluation when you get back. Donald will not follow you onto the cruise ship. Nobody else will bother you on your way to Mars.”

  It’s hard to be angry at someone when he’s already addressed all your concerns with reasonable solutions. I try to summon some sort of indignation, but can only come up with a general platitude.

  “People lie to me all the time,” I say. “I don’t want you to be one of them.”

  “I made a mistake. I hope you can forgive me.”

  And there it is. I should feel better about the tables being turned like this: it’s Paul who screwed up, not me. But I just feel deflated. He’s not supposed to screw up. He’s supposed to protect me. He’s supposed to protect all of us.

  The silence is more than awkward; it’s oppressive. I give up and change the subject.

  “How’s everything at the office?” I ask.

  “Fabulous,” Paul says, his lip curling. “You’ll notice I’m hiding in Equipment’s workshop.”

  “I thought you’d just redecorated.”

  Paul’s eyes flick up for an instant. “I’m afraid I have to go answer more uncomfortable questions,” he says. “If you call again, I expect there to be blood and interplanetary armageddon at stake.”

  “So you’re saying don’t call.”

  “Please try to enjoy your vacation.”