"How are you feeling?" She managed an absent shrug, still pedalling.
"Sore. I'm nearly fully flexible again, just a little slow. Miracles of League engineering and all that." A corner of Naidu's moustachioed mouth twitched, recognising, she reckoned, that jab at Dr Djohan. "Itches like buggery. I'm sure I'd heal faster if I weren't full of drugs too."
"Dr Djohan assures me otherwise," Naidu replied, with understated irony, deep in his throat.
"Don't get any closer," Sandy said with bland disinterest, still pedalling, "I'm just a half hour away from my next repressant shot. You know how I get then—all slavering and bloodthirsty." Naidu just looked at her a little reproachfully, restraining a smile. A full day of interrogation on suppressant shots (self-administered, of course) and a constant wary armed guard had worked on her temper. "Are there any innocent virgins in the CSA? I eat those, you know. Three a week, when I'm not dieting."
"No," said Naidu, with that expressive flick of the head that was peculiar to Indians, she'd noticed. "I'm afraid the CSA is the wrong organisation to be looking for innocent virgins. Particularly Intel." The bike wheel whirred, forcing looseness back into her legs. It felt good just to be moving and free of bandages. And she needed the exercise, like any normal human. Her heart was beating again for one thing, with great, thumping beats that felt suspiciously like relief. Blood flowed. Temperature built up, a warmth upon her brow. After so long it felt wonderful, and well worth the occasional, inexplicable shooting pain.
"Cassandra, some of our agents discovered an apartment a couple of FIA agents appear to have been using as a part of their network. No arrests, they're far too slippery for that. Bat we did find a pair of very non-standard weapons there. Tobra twenty-twos, and forty full mags. Full works."
More information. She'd been granting information to anyone who asked for the last full day. The implications scared her, when she thought about them. Generally she tried not to. She could only trust that it would get her somewhere and not merely land her in even greater trouble. She sighed, still pedalling. "What do you want to know?"
"Do you have any knowledge, in your field experience, of the FIA having cause to use the Tobra? Or anything of that magnitude of firepower?"
"The FIA have about twenty branches that I know of," she said wearily. "You probably know them better than I do—this is just League Intel reports I read. About five are field branches. Two are effectively special ops. Only one officially exists."
Naidu nodded. "I know, Green Section are the registered lot. We understand they're actually more of a training and development base for the main black ops, but even we don't know what they're called. They're labelled in our reports as 'FP'—it's an ironic acronym for FIA 'Foreign Policy'. It can also stand for 'Fascist Pigs'." Sandy made a face at that—League Intel had much the same opinion. "We think it's almost certain that it's this FP branch that we're up against here. But none of our Intel are very clear on their operating procedures. We thought you might be."
No. She wasn't. Not really. Just one damn report she wasn't supposed to have read, and whatever 'clause Z' was ... drastic, she remembered thinking. And the FIA had Tobras in town. Her mouth was suddenly drier than usual. It had only been speculation before. Now it seemed suddenly real.
"There's only a few instances I can definitely say I had experience with them," she said finally. "They're very good. But Tobra twenty-twos—that's not a covert weapon, that's an assault weapon. You can't exactly hide it in your pocket."
"Exactly," Naidu said grimly, arms folded tightly. "They may have acquired it here, or they may have brought it with them."
"Not through customs, surely?"
"No. If you were planting a covert team on Callay, how would you do it?"
"Well..." The old mental reflexes were unfolding, like an old, creased sheet-map long disused but still perfectly functional. "... What's this solar system's defence grid like? A place as important as Tanusha, you'd think it'd be pretty solid?"
Naidu grimaced, a pained twist of pepper-streaked moustache. "Private system. No separate military function, it's all integrated ... high quality as far as it goes, but... well, you'd know the 'but' with any integrated system. Callay never came under direct threat during the war—it's too far away. The very idea is unthinkable."
"Jesus." Sandy was staring at him in genuine disbelief. "But, I mean, it's a good system? I've seen the technology here. It's as good as anything I've ever seen in League, and they've got some killer systems."
"It definitely deters casual raiders. But it's Federal security codes, Cassandra. Fleet security for any solar system is a Federal matter—all military is Federal. Individual worlds don't have anything independent. So the FIA..."
"Of course." Her legs continued pumping, her attention now entirely elsewhere. "Like a knife through butter. So they came in, landing somewhere out there in the wild, and hiked in to Tanusha, weapons and all. No customs."
"No customs. We don't know what else they brought, besides the Tobras. We don't know how many agents or weapons. We can't monitor their activity because all their communications are tapped into the local network, which is heavily shielded from government monitoring, because that is the grand Tanushan code—free enterprise, free communication, minimal government interference. Now you see the scale of the problem."
She did indeed. It was crazy. How crazy?... that depended on one thing.
"Now you just need to know what they need the Tobras for. Have the whitecoats talked?"
"No," said Naidu, with frustrated resignation. "They claim not to know anything more. Just that it was an operation to gather data on you. How they knew you were here, and what the data was for ... they say they don't know. And we can't threaten them to make them talk, they don't fall under our legal system—as Federal agents in an FIA operation, they're automatically answerable to Federal law. We can't do a thing."
Sandy bit her lip, considering as she pedalled. Escape clause. She didn't really know what it meant, not in the way it'd been used. League Intel had their little games, and she'd kept her attention entirely focused on her own operational concerns. She could only guess. Until now she'd had no firm hints with which to guide her guesses. Now, there were the Tobras. The FIA rarely did things by halves. And now the firepower. She didn't like it. She didn't like it one bit.
"Look," she said, on a sudden burst of inspiration, "while you've got me, why not let me in on the investigation? Just hook me up to a terminal, and let me see everything, realtime." Naidu's frown deepened. She wasn't entirely sure herself why she offered. She was in enough trouble already. But Tobras were serious ... any assault weapons in a civilian city were serious. And lately she'd had the unsettling suspicion that maybe this was all at least partly her fault. Her fault for coming here. Her fault for being so naïve that she hadn't bothered to consider the other things that Tanusha was known for, besides infotech jobs, nightlife and scenery. Naidu's expression, however, was not positive. She stopped pedalling, leaning heavily on the machine armrests, and studied Naidu's dubious expression. "Why not?"
"Cassandra," Naidu sighed, "I am under specific instructions to limit your involvement. Instructions from Secretary Grey, you understand. The President's administration, Director Ibrahim answers to him."
"You want me to help you," Sandy said slowly, "but you don't really want me to know too much. So obviously you don't want me to help you, in which case there's nothing else I can do."
Naidu looked frustrated, ran a hand through his long, dishevelled hair, grimacing tightly. It was politics, she thought. Obviously It was. Factions within this Senate Security Panel, among others, were leaning on the CSA, and on Neiland, and on everyone connected to her. So they were not allowed to trust the GI on anything, even if they'd previously been inclined to.
"Do you trust me?" she asked. Naidu looked at her through narrowed eyes.
"Yes." The answer almost surprised her. "As a person. As an ex-League special forces soldier, however, there are politica
l considerations to be weighed before sharing sensitive information. It's not personal."
"But you agree with it?" With increasing desperation. She couldn't see a way to help—neither her way nor theirs. She was trapped. Naidu just looked at her, pondering. "What if I applied for asylum? Citizenship?" Naidu let out a sharp breath. "Ms Rafasan said she would try to arrange it."
"You're very game, aren't you?"
"Why not? Where else am I going to belong, if not to this place? I can't go back now. Where else is there for me? Where else can I be useful?"
"Cassandra ..." He looked uncomfortable. "... I feel I should tell you, the atmosphere at present is against it. Not within the CSA ... Politically."
"I can't stay here," Sandy told him. The desperation grew worse. "I can't just stay here indefinitely, in this room. This can't be my life, Mr Naidu. I'll go crazy."
"Cassandra, we'll do what we can ... it may take some time, it's true. There are political considerations, security secrets, Federal issues ..."
"Naidu, my own side don't want me, the Feds cut me into little pieces, now Callay ... God, I could be so much help here, you know? I'm good at these information systems, I have expertise no one else in the CSA has ... but shit, I'm running out of options here." Her voice held a faint quaver, and she swallowed with difficulty. Naidu appeared distracted, a flick of the eyes suggesting he was receiving ... he backed up a step, watching her. And she realised.
"Oh Christ ..." and glared up at the nearest camera inset in the ceiling, "Djohan you fucking fool, I'm not about to attack him. I'm upset, dammit. I'm allowed to be upset, just occasionally." Looked back to Naidu. He backed up another step. Her eyes hurt. "Oh come on," she told him, with shaky exasperation. "I'm drugged, my joints hurt ... Christ, I wouldn't hurt you anyway. Please."
"Cassandra ..." His voice was level, not at all frightened. Just very, professionally wary. "Maybe I should come back some other time and discuss this with you. You're obviously finding this upsetting right now."
"Look, for God's sake ..." She climbed off the bike in exasperation ... white, blinding light hit her, flashed at agonising intensity through her skull.
Then she was lying half sprawled on her back, one shoulder propped against the bike stand. Her head hurt like hell, and her vision refused to come properly clear. The shoulder wound ached, presumably from the fall. Her back did. Her vision gradually cleared to normal light, and the humming in her ears receded. She raised her head, looking blearily about. The room was empty. She lay alone in a golden patch of sunlight beside the bike. A pot plant frond floated nearby, a translucent, dreamy green against the glowing blue sky. She got an elbow beneath her and raised herself carefully. Pain shot through elbow and shoulder joints but she ignored it, propping her back against the bike stand. And sat there, stupidly, knees up and surveying the empty, comfortable room that was hers. Naidu had gone. She had no idea how long she'd been unconscious. It felt like a few seconds. It could have been longer.
The sensor plug had shocked her. Triggered by Djohan, no doubt, who had been reading her impulses. She wanted to damage the man ... and put a very fast, tight lid upon that impulse, the sensor plug still monitoring her more extreme reactions, reading her temper. No doubt Djohan had set a predetermined threshold above which she was to be considered 'unsafe'. Evidently she had crossed it.
God. She put her face in her hands wearily. Wishing it would all go away. Wishing there was a conceivable way out of this system, for whom she was useful but could never be accepted as an equal. That was what had upset her. That Naidu, intelligent, open-minded man that he evidently was, himself still had trouble seeing beyond that barrier. Whatever else he was, he was a professional. However personable he may have appeared in conversation, he never forgot what she was ... doubtless he'd read all the Intel reports, all the technical analyses, wanting to know what he was dealing with, conversing with. He trusted her as a person, he'd said. She'd believed that much. She still believed it. He simply did not know what happened to GIs when they were angry. Doubtless most straights assumed that a being designed for combat would necessarily become aggressive when angry, aggression and combat instincts being intrinsically linked in straights.
Well, they were not entirely disassociated in GIs either. God, she did get angry sometimes, and it did trigger combat reflex ... That was the worst part—in some respects, they were nearly right in their assumptions. They were right in thinking anger and combat reflex were connected. But to assume she would lose all control, all sanity ... ludicrous. But how could she prove it? How could she prove intent? There were only words, and words proved nothing.
She pulled her hands away from her face and looked at her arms. Rolled up the tracksuit sleeves, examined the red marks, a single red line up the centre of her inner forearm. Rubbed an aching, twinging shoulder. Felt at the invisible incisions there, also, and received an unexpected jab of pain. Felt, then at the back of her head, and the sensor plug that nestled in the insert socket ... one tug and it would shock her again, if she tried to remove it. She felt like a wreck. Hunched on the floor, monitored, drugged, shocked, recently mutilated and still aching from the scars. Imprisoned. Humiliated. Hopeless.
She could feel the tears coming. She welcomed them, for the release they brought, and the escape. She sat beside her exercise bike, curled in her soft grey tracksuit, and sobbed into her hands. High in the walls, the cameras watched, and monitor technicians watched the screens. She knew they were watching. She hoped they were confused as hell. But that was not why she cried.
Chapter 6
The wheelchair glided down corridors, rubber wheels squeaking around the corners. A blindfold obscured all vision. She could sense the movement on either side, could hear the footfalls of accompanying guards, measured and lightly shod. The drugs held further perception back, a dimming fog drawn about her senses.
Com-gear. She could sense that clearly, registering the coded frequency bursts at regular intervals. A clear fix was beyond her but it was there, and heavily coded. It triggered old reflexes. Wrists flexed against restraints, bound firmly in her lap. Ankles similarly bonded so her thighs touched. Immobilised and blind, she was wheeled helplessly down invisible corridors amid watchful armed security who spoke only in electronic code.
Into an elevator, a soundless pulse as the doors closed. Silence. A pulse of sharp energy nearby. Positional beacon. Tracking their upward flight to an outside monitor. Then slowing.
Stopped, and they were out. She could feel a cool breeze on her face, its source distant, further ahead. Getting nearer, and then they were outside, and the breeze was strong, snatching at her hair and drying her lips. A whine of engines, thickly reverberating. Data flowed strongly, sensory, authorial, Intel and autos... signals scattered through her drug-dimmed brain without care for order.
The engine whine grew very loud, right alongside where something was blocking the wind. The wheelchair stopped, and the blindfold came off.
Sandy blinked, eyes adjusting to the glare. It was a rooftop landing pad, many stories above the ground. A forest of similar-sized mid-level buildings about them, the local mega-rise soaring massively to one side, nearly a half-kilometre tall, marking the centre of the Largos district. Alongside on the pad, the smooth metallic flank of an aircar, open drivers' doors swung skyward, a suited man leaning down to talk with the driver above the engine whine. Inside, a quick glimpse of lean manual controls, all moulded handgrips and polished, lighted displays, the aesthetics of function.
Keys worked at her chair restraints, which came smoothly away.
"Up, please," one of her escorts said. The foot rests dropped and the toes of her shoes were suddenly touching the ground. She wriggled forward, and managed to stand, moving slowly. The aircar's rear door cracked open at seamless joins, swinging upwards.
"You all right?" the other guard asked her. It was one of her regular CSA guards from the room, and he sounded concerned. She nodded slowly, sliding another sideways glance to the driver's seat
and the controls there. Fancy car. Government, no doubt.
And turned, a casual shuffle of bonded feet, to look beyond this aircar and across the broad, open space of the landing pad. Several more aircars parked nearby, engines whining and doors open. Five more, in total. Milling security in dark suits, rigged for network. Her eyes narrowed slightly, hair whipping across her brow in the freshening breeze.
Why so many vehicles for such a simple trip across town?
"Get in," her other escort instructed. Sandy turned her head slowly and gave him a long, hard look. Reflective sunglasses glared back at her, expressionless. "Get in," he repeated, waiting by the open door, fingering a familiar looking control in his hand.
"Please," the other guard added, smiling faintly. Sandy favoured him with a slight, gracious nod and shuffled around to slide backwards into the car.
The interior was sleek leather. Spacious, she noted with mild relief, stretching her legs. Muscles strained momentarily against the ankle restraints. Without the drugs, breaking them would have been simple. With them, her muscles failed to solidify to critical tension. The restraints held, comfortably.
"Stiff?" her guard asked, sliding onto the seat beside her.
"A little." Not being able to stretch properly didn't help. Relaxed again as the second guard got in on the other side, her left. The doors swung down behind them, locks clicked and suddenly there was silence.
"So that you know," that man said without preamble, "any sudden move on your part, and I'll hit this button." Gesturing with the small, black device in his hand. "It activates the shock sequence on the probe in your input socket. It will knock you senseless.
"In the unlikely event that you did overpower us, this entire rear compartment is sealed." Gesturing around them. The drivers up front were isolated behind a smooth, transparent shield. Despite appearances, Sandy knew it was very, very strong. "They'll gas you, and us along with you. And the car can be flown on remote if necessary, even if the drivers were coerced. CSA don't deal in hostages, period. If you took one of us hostage, the others would act without concern for oar safety. We all understood the risks when we joined.
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