"Do you understand?"
Sandy didn't even bother looking at him. She was much more interested in the goings on outside. The guard sat back, content that his point had been made.
More activity up front, people getting in and doors swinging down. Some glances at her car from nearby personnel. The driver began touching controls and the display screens flickered with graphical response. Smooth vibrations through the leather seating and backrest.
Suddenly it hit her.
"This is the President's convoy, isn't it?" No immediate response from either side.
Then, "What makes you think that?" From her friendly guard.
"The President's the only one who warrants a security presence like this," Sandy replied, watching curiously, "except for foreign dignitaries, and there aren't any here right now. If you put this show on for anyone but the President, people would ask questions. You've just hidden me in the President's regular convoy."
"You can believe whatever you like," said the man on her left. "It makes no difference."
So which one was the President? That was her next thought. Not the lead car, and not the rear car. Other than that, it could have been any of them. A lot of effort for a Senate Security Panel hearing. More bureaucracy. She seemed mired in it, a never-ending circus of interviewers and department interrogations. What to do with her when news reached the official Federation heads? The sane ones—meaning anyone but the FIA, who doubtless hadn't told anyone official what they were up to.
Callayan officials certainly hoped not. Callayan rights had been violated. If it was tracked back to official Federation complicity, all hell would break loose. She figured that that was one piece of information many Callayans would happily do their utmost to avoid finding. The calamity would be too great. Separatist movements within Callayan society were not to be encouraged—even the Progress Party lived in fear of them, she'd gathered, and they were supposed to be the most 'League sympathetic' ideologically. Get rid of the GI. She provokes too many questions. Hush it up, let it pass, and we'll take out our grievances with the Federal Government committee in a month when it arrives in person to examine these developments. In private. All Federal-level politicians lived in terror of the spectre of the League. That, they claimed in shrill voices, was what happened when separatists have their way. Conflict, mad scientists, ideology out of control. Separatism must be defeated, and don't mind the mess.
So she was not expecting much encouragement from her meeting with the Senate Security Panel today, but rather an interrogation designed to create plausible excuses to get rid of her, ship her off to Federation jurisdiction. Earth. Where the FIA's influence was strongest. She did not want to contemplate it. Not at all a hopeful scenario.
Up ahead the first car was lifting. Signalled communication, coded frequency and tracking. Another car began to rise as the first moved out, accelerating slowly out into open sky.
Then their own. A smooth throbbing vibration, the landing pad dropping gently away below, faces of attendant security turning upward to watch. And easing forwards, the tower wall abruptly plunging away beneath them, breathtakingly. Out then, beyond the highrises of Largos and over the green of lower-density suburbs ... she stared left, and saw how the highrises had clustered to follow yet another bend of a Shoban delta tributary, huddled buildings arcing to follow that gleaming trail of water. The rivers broke up the Tanushan topography, made it unpredictable ... a stray tail of towers here, a cluster there, a junction at a river fork, an alignment for multiple bridges and calculated traffic flows. Her windows were large, and she could see a long way. Flying at altitude was a whole new experience. And the sheer, visual spectacle was simply stunning.
She thought to look up ahead, where the next aircar in line was travelling one hundred and sixty-five metres in front. Gliding left now as they picked up speed, rounding the architecturally curious, curve-side of the next mega-rise tower, the pivot of some unknown hub-district, their driver's hands tilting slightly on the controls to follow. The tower side glided past—a transparent side atrium ten stories tall with gardens and hanging plants. Tanusha was full of such curiosities, and the perspective was breathtaking. Then fading behind, the car straightening, the forward screen showing their airlane prescribed in a lighted, gridwork passage in the sky ahead.
"Haven't you seen Tanusha from the air before?" her guard asked.
"No." She shook her head, faintly. Still staring. Sunlight reflected from the towers, visible beams spilling through the clouds, angled lines of light amid vertical highrise. Trees below. Air traffic curving by, a spattering of moving dots, like small birds amid tall forest trees, their trajectories unnaturally smooth and full of curves. "It's beautiful."
It was indeed beautiful. The towers went on for ever. Another slow turn to pass another tower, and still more beyond. The clouds made a ceiling, broken by the wind, fractured sunlight spilling through. Fifty-seven million people. For the first time since her arrival Sandy found herself confronted by the sheer size of the place.
Tanusha was simply monstrous, in every dimension. A gleaming jewel in this half of human space. A treasure of unimaginable proportions. A generator of wealth on a scale that the human species had never before seen. It was awe-inspiring. And, in the same moment, frightening.
"How'd you come to arrange the President?" she asked her guard. He shrugged.
"We arranged it. She makes occasional stops at all kinds of government posts. It's no big deal." No doubt they wished to make it appear that way to any outside observers. Just another Presidential flyby. Nothing to arouse suspicion that there was anything in that particular building that required a separate security presence. Just include her in an existing one. The guard spared her another glance. "The monitors read your dosage as marginally beyond parameters. How do you feel?"
"Fucked," she murmured, gazing out at the passing towers.
"I'm sorry. It can't be any fun."
"No, it's not." And left it at that as the car banked again, the driver's hands moving on clear manual control. It was a tightly controlled manual, though, fixed within safety parameters. A security measure. If every car was auto, then the system was vulnerable to attack. Constant, regulated manual control solved the problem of vehicles falling from the sky if the system crashed.
Both guards remained silent. Sandy was glad. It meant the replication counter she was running through her interface was working, and no one suspected it for anything more than it looked like—drug suppression. In truth, she hadn't felt so clear-headed in days. Their fault for not doing their homework. It took some effort though.
A particularly large tower loomed self-importantly to their left, multiple wings tapering to a glass-domed summit. The Tanushan Trade Centre. Probably the most expensive piece of real estate in the human galaxy. It looked the part. Sandy focused briefly, and found a com-net simply jammed with constant transmission, a living flow of banded waves, like a giant river.
Another building was the central bank—a more austere, unostentatious building by Tanushan standards. And the giant names soaring by atop their massive structures of glass and steel—corporate names, names recognised through all of human space. Nearly governments in their own right, some of them. Nearly nations.
She saw at least one big biotech name she knew. And suffered a cold shiver. What was their interest in this? Had any of the database the FIA had compiled on her ended up in one of those buildings, hidden in some secret sub-bracket within the manifold data-storage systems? They were what it was all about, ultimately. Technology. Profit. Corporate leaders of course denied any laws were broken. But all tech corps were hives of independent-thinking groups—that was where the innovation came from. No single boss knew everything that happened within his organisation. And how did you stop innovators from innovating? Profit-seekers from being profitable? A losing battle, the League said. But then the League said a lot of things. 'We shall win the war' foremost among them. Neither side, it seemed, had a monopoly on truth. Both com
peted fiercely, however, for a competitive edge in bullshit.
They were losing height, she realised then. Glanced through the transparent shield in front, and saw the flight path display winding gently downward around another pair of looming towers. An altitude display ticked downwards, slowly unravelling. An aircar cut by close overhead, very fast.
"Do they ever leave their lanes?" she asked her guard, indicating overhead with her eyes.
"No. If you try to fly outside the parameters, not only does the autopilot take over, it appears on the screen of some cop monitor in some office. Tamper with the parameters and you could end up in jail."
Sandy nodded slowly, watching the car's reflection suddenly running parallel alongside. Then gone as the tower passed. Open space ahead then, and a massive, low structure looming up before them. Everyone knew that building, even those who lived many, many lightyears away. With its architecture harking back to an earlier time, with grand arches, domes and spires ... it was unmistakable.
It was the Callayan Parliament. And for some strange reason, she hadn't got around to seeing it earlier, when she was taking in the sights. Maybe the trappings of power reminded her of too many sinister possibilities.
The flight path dropped further. Lower buildings below gave way to green parkland and trees, winding paths and glints of water. Glimpses of people out strolling as they cruised by overhead—the Parliament botanic gardens, nearly as famous as the building itself. Far ahead, the faint speck of the first convoy vehicle was curving around, still descending, towards the rear of the building's right wing.
Sandy gazed at the building as they neared, a red-brown sandstone structure, impossibly large for such primitive materials. It was modern underneath, obviously. Perhaps ten storeys high with great arching balconies supported by columns opening onto grassy lawns, the famous gardens beyond. The roof domes were perhaps Islamic by inspiration, although the teardrop windows and deep, earthy finish were more specifically Indian. The rest was colonial European, with alternate influences everywhere, baffling and pleasing the eye.
Such were the grand symbols of power that the first settlers of Callay had built, reflective of their hopes, dreams and aspirations. Callay was a new world, and Tanusha was its capital, but in their hearts and souls the Callayan settlers had never forgotten their roots. In the League, they built great, modern edifices of grandiose, imaginative, totally original design within which to house their elected representatives. All semblance of historical nostalgia was to be purged, a new beginning made, a fresh start, free of all the historical ills that had plagued the human species.
Not here, or in the Federation generally. The great domes and reddish arches rose magnificently above the brilliant green lawns, a triumphant pronouncement of all that humanity had achieved, built, created and brought with them, out among the countless stars. In the League, history was a page in a textbook. In the Federation, it was everyday life, rich, varied, ever-present and celebrated at every available opportunity. And Sandy knew, in that moment, exactly why she'd come here and abandoned the place of her creation. And she knew why, whatever the difficulties, she could never go back.
The side wings, workplace of much of Callay's civil service, sprawled out below. The aircar turned steeply left now, presenting a stunning view of pillars, domes and open lawns out of the left side window.
Sandy looked ahead as they levelled out, saw that the first two aircars were already down on the broad sprawl of landing pads below, a third making its approach. The pads were atop another impressive structure, arrayed in a broad rectangle across the top of the rear-wing building's nearside flank, which loomed impressively above an outdoor arrangement of gardens, pools and tennis courts ...
Some strange frequency signals then, and the co-pilot's head jerked upwards as if in surprise ... old reflexes jumped, and Sandy's heart missed a beat. The guards on either side had stiffened, leaning sideways, scanning the skies.
"What's happening?" Sandy demanded, forgetting herself for a moment. The pilot's hands shifted, the engine throbbing beneath them as the car changed attitude. Scanned hard out the windows, vision snap-shifting in unconscious reflex. Only towers. Ahead, people were running, one car preparing to lift again, the other aborting its approach ...
In the front seats, the pilot was shouting something, but she couldn't hear what. Her pulse was pounding now, a familiar hard calm settling as the car rebuilt its speed ... realising only too well this was the only time a Presidential convoy would be vulnerable. It fitted too, too well...
"Incoming!" she shouted then as a flame trail erupted from up ahead ...
"Fucking hell!" from her left, and a violent twist from the pilot, throwing them all sideways.
"Five bogies!" Sandy announced, tracking that launch to the five widespread bodies on high V approach, hurtling out of nowhere. A huge double flash from the landing pads, someone's frightened voice yelling, "They hit the fucking President!" then a very nasty tracking signal that had Sandy grabbing hard for the handles overhead.
"Brace yourselves guys," she said calmly, pressing hard with her feet into the forward shield, "that incoming's got us totally nailed." A wild, downward manoeuvre threw them against the restraints, her companions fumbling wildly for their handles as the tracking signal suddenly dopplered, badly, and getting worse extremely fast. Then everything blew up.
... A wild nightmare trapped amid smoke and flaming wreckage, rushing wind and tumbling, falling, over and over ... a brief glimpse of rushing green grass and landing pads ... wham!!! everything smashed forward. Bounced, tumbling over with a violent, terrible momentum, then bang!!! hit something else and spun around.
Sudden awareness, a horrible, crushing pressure, bending her neck ... realised she was upside down and twisted violently, limbs tangled with what might have been wreckage, and might have been other limbs. Something was burning, the smoke filled her nostrils. A last heave tore her legs free, curled and sprawled beneath hard pressing leather, someone's bodyweight pressing into her side, trapping her further. Her brain snapped into gear with an electrifying jolt. The car was upside down, and she was lying on the ceiling. Everything had been flattened, and the seats were trying to crush her from above. Beyond the immediate vicinity of the rear seat compartment she could see nothing. She didn't even know if the front of the car still existed.
There were sounds from outside, explosions and gunfire, very distinct. She had to get out.
Twisted around with a desperate, trapped wriggling, grabbing the body by the suit lapels and pulling around ... he was dead, there was blood everywhere.
"Cassandra!" The other guard, in pain and sounding trapped. "Cassandra, wait ..." Definitely in pain. A massive explosion nearby, vibrations through the wreckage. "Don't move ..." Thunder of crossfire, rounds smacking ferociously off the sides, everything shaking.
Sandy pressed herself past the guard's body, found a small space to see out from. Landing pad beyond, a scattering of wreckage. An armoured flyer landing, crossfire ripping every which way, scattering crazily off the tarmac, a door gun traversing to fire back ... more shots hit them, and the entire wreck shuddered and rocked as she ducked back.
"Get my cuffs off and I'll get us out of here!" she yelled at the CSA man. She couldn't see him, unable to turn about further.
"I can't...!"
"Are you hurt?!" whumph!! A grenade hit them, shockwave blinding, wreckage tearing. For a moment she couldn't see for the smoke. "Are you hurt, dammit?!"
Something fumbled at her ankle cuffs, and her legs were suddenly free. She shoved a knee hard upward, straining against the drugged weakness, then a crunch as something gave way and she could turn, wriggling about sideways.
"Wrists!" she yelled at the agent—he looked in bad shape, face covered with blood, but she had no time to ponder it, got a brief look out the shattered window beyond, saw the pad perimeter, walkways and barriers rapidly getting cut to hell, things burning ferociously beyond.
Her wrists came loose, and s
he slithered forcefully over the agent, tearing his heavy calibre pistol from the shoulder holster, then ammo from the pocket, the man protesting weakly, a hand pawing her arm ... good thing about the calibre, if this was what it looked like, she was going to need it.
"Stay here!" she told him, and slithered out the shattered window opening.
Rolled flat on the tarmac, rounds zipping past, the full roar of battle assaulting her eardrums. Heard another grenade shot and covered instinctively, exhaling hard as the shockwave hit and the ruined car lurched aside. Shrapnel scattered and she was up, target scanning through the covering smoke.
Two flyers, larger than standard aircars. Troops in defensive positions, military patterns, gone straight through the side doors and into the building where the fighting was corridor by corridor. Between them was another aircar, burning furiously. Bodies of security personnel. On her exposed side, surviving security were pressed to the walls, five of them, returning fire where they could.
The screaming whine of engines brought her head snapping about, a flyer arcing about to one side, level with the pads. Fire erupted from a door mount—KW-laser cannon flaring staccato blue light that blew across the security's remaining positions, bodies falling amid flames and erupting masonry.
Sandy sprinted away from the grounded flyers and toward the walkways and barriers of the pad perimeter, the airborne flyer twisting about to acquire her as she raced across its path, angled her right arm out at full sprint and spraying ten rapid shots from the corner of her eye, blowing the door gunner's head off. Fire cut past from behind, shattering transparent barriers ahead—she threw herself, hit shoulder first and smashed through in a scattering of broken shards.
Quick crouch to gain her bearings, heavy rounds streaking across the pad in pursuit, past her ruined car ... more shattering barriers and she ducked and rolled, three times, propped up and fired four quick rounds to drop two of three runners headed for her car, the third diving for cover. The airborne flyer was twisting to acquire her with the other side gunner—she killed him too, five rounds through the right eye from fifty metres.
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