Drawing the two cords toward one another, he tied them firmly and then clipped the resulting safety line into a carabiner, allowing it to run freely. After fitting spiked overshoes and similarly equipped overgloves, he broke his collapsible skis into their component pieces for storage in his pack.
Then he set out.
An ordinary man, if very well prepared, might have made the crossing. Spooky was far from ordinary. His body hardened by years of physical training, perfected by the Eden Plague, then boosted by nanites modified in Direct Action’s own laboratories, he leaped from rock to floe to snowbank.
Occasionally he slipped downward, only to catch himself with his spiked extremities, leaping upward even as frozen slush crumbled beneath him like a video-game figure. Eventually he made his way to the other edge, unclipping himself from his safety line and marking its location with a low-power beacon in case he needed it later.
Reassembling his skis, he skirted rightward into a shallow depression in the rolling plain, staying out of sight of the sprawling complex of shelters on the ground and buildings on stilts. Obviously the base had been growing rapidly this last year.
Cassandra has been busy.
Finally there was no more landscape to put between himself and the nearest building, so he buried his gear, making sure he could find it again, and set out to crawl.
His chameleon-suit should reduce his detectable heat and visible signature to near zero, and radar was unlikely to pick up the small amount of metal he carried. Motion detectors were his only worry, especially the kind strewn on the ground around, listening and looking with sensitive sonics for the traces of a man’s movement.
Because this was not a life-or-death mission, Spooky allowed himself one further risk. Had it been necessary, he would have crept across the intervening two hundred meters at a steady rate below four centimeters per second –standard trigger speed for motion detectors. Below that, most sensors would ignore everything, for the simple reason that excessive sensitivity brought too many false positives that needed to be checked out. No setup was perfect; any system could be beat.
But going so slow would have delayed him by over an hour, and despite his high-tech suit, might endanger him from frostbite and hypothermia. He was already getting hungry again; cold-weather work burned calories at several times the normal rate.
Besides, he might as well give the lady a chance.
It only took him twelve minutes to crawl across the bare field at a pace he deemed correct to fool any merely human eyeballs: a slow, steady creep below the brain’s usual motion sensitivity, like molasses flowing.
Finally, he rolled beneath one of the structures, set on stilts above the frozen ground to minimize heat loss. This was not only to save energy, but also to limit the thawing and instability that inevitably accompanied too much warmth applied to an Antarctic foundation. Much of the ground was layered with ice, and melting it was asking to lose a building in a surface collapse.
Searching, he found an emergency hatch leading up into the structure, with a convenient stairway. Deliberately unlocked in case someone needed to come in quickly, Spooky accepted his good luck and the probability that karma would make him pay later.
The bill came due much sooner than he thought.
After listening for a moment, he lifted the door, hoping to close it immediately and then quickly blend in with the usual heavily clad run of base personnel.
Instead, he was greeted with mocking applause, delivered by a woman whose hard-face prettiness did nothing to conceal her delight. Two armed figures on either side of her covered him with squat, ugly weapons. “Well done, sir, well done. We didn’t pick you up until you were fifty meters from this building.”
Spooky put on a deliberately pleasant smile before lifting his faceplate, then removing his whole helmet. “Hello, Cassandra. How fast was I moving?”
“Oh, maybe five seconds per meter.”
“Do you think I have forgotten how to count? Or to crawl.”
Her face lost a bit of its triumph. “You might have frozen if you’d done that. The ground is eighty below. Unless you have a fusion pack on your back, the Antarctic will eat your heat if you lay on it for a solid hour.”
“I might have. Then again…I might not. It’s no matter. It was a friendly contest, nothing more, and I salute you.” Spooky raised his fingertips to his eyebrow and winked. “Now do you mind showing me to quarters and a shower? It’s been an uncomfortable trip.”
Cassandra snorted, apparently declining to belabor the obvious, that his discomfort was of his own making. “Sure. Is an hour enough? Daniel would like to see you at 1400.”
“That would be fine, yes. Do you mind having your people point their weapons elsewhere? I’d hate to have to injure anyone.”
One of the figures snorted as Cassandra waved them down. She rounded on him, an iron-chinned hero type straight out of a recruiting poster. “You might want to keep that crap secured, mister.”
“Sorry, ma’am,” the man replied, not looking sorry at all.
“Spooky,” she said without unlocking her eyes from her subordinate’s, “you may embarrass him if you like.”
“Spooky?” the man replied, his jaw slackening. His face turned white as the snow outside.
“I don’t think that will be necessary…anymore,” Spooky responded with a faint smile. “Sometimes it’s enough merely to have a reputation. Lead on, Miss Johnstone.”
The security detail gave them both a wide berth as they walked through their midst, then fell in behind at a respectful distance.
It wasn’t long before the highlander stripped to his skinsuit and scrubbed off in the hot shower. The high-tech material dried almost instantly, wicking away all moisture, and Spooky found a standard set of trousers, tunic and boots that fit well enough. Jauntily he waved at the inevitable camera watching him dress.
Let them wonder, he thought. I didn’t bring any weapons with me, which will make them worry all the more, wondering why they cannot find what I surely must have. He laughed aloud.
***
The call came in to Brigadier Alkina’s office a quarter world away, routed directly to her desk by a well-trained COMINT collector.
The fact that the heavily encrypted traffic the man had been analyzing had suddenly become transparent, his near-real-time supercomputer decryption easily breaking a simple eight-bit scramble, surprised him, of course. That the message itself had begun with a recorded loop that said, “Please patch this secure voice feed to Ann Alkina,” had startled him, but he had wisely decided that anyone that could feed into his intelligence system at will should probably be listened to.
And, if the boss did not like his decision, he was sure his career would survive it. She’d never, to his knowledge, been less than scrupulously fair with her subordinates. On the other hand, if it turned out to be important and he delayed…that might be less survivable.
“Alkina,” she answered. For a moment all she heard were crackles, pops and echoes, a sure sign of a call originating off the continent. Then her phone switched of its own accord into secure mode, indicating that the other end had initiated a synchronized encryption that ensured no one between the two devices could decipher their words.
When the line cleared and the green light came on, she heard a female voice, half-familiar. “Ann Alkina? My name is Cassandra Johnsone. I work for Daniel Markis.”
Alkina sat back in her chair and stared for a moment at the inside of her office door, mind racing. She’d never spoken to the woman on the other end, though she knew the name and reputation quite well: Markis’ personal spymistress. Of course she had seen videos and heard recordings of her counterpart – perhaps, technically, her superior, as Johnstone putatively ran the entire Free Community intelligence apparatus.
However, the woman had never tried to assert such authority over Australian affairs, beyond asking for and receiving routine political-military intelligence such as many had access to – the general classified items,
not the close-held ones. The fact that she could and did tap in to easily into Australian networks, by the roundabout method of deliberately having her call picked up through intelligence channels, was a clear subtext intended for Alkina herself, she was sure. Translation: I can get in if I want to.
“I know who you are,” Alkina answered politely. “How may I help you?”
“I just wanted to know that our mutual friend arrived safe and sound, and is even now meeting my boss in as much privacy and security as I can provide him.”
Alkina paused again to digest this straightforward declaration. “But that’s not all you wish to say to me.”
“Of course not. There are two reasons for my call. The first is that I have always wanted to talk to you, even to meet you. As it happened, I was not involved in your preparation for the Nebraska mission, so we narrowly missed each other. Since then, we’ve both been a bit busy.”
“Then it pleases me to speak with you directly for the first time, Miss Johnstone.”
“Please, call me Cassandra, or Cassie if you prefer.”
“I would like that. Likewise, you may call me Ann.”
“I wish we were closer together. Perhaps I should come visit? I suspect we have a lot to talk about.”
Alkina took a breath and sighed heavily, a deliberate message. “I would enjoy such a visit, but I do not believe that would be wise at this time. The situation for people such as we are is rather…unsettled. Perhaps when our friend returns, he can stabilize things enough for mutual exchanges to become feasible.”
“I understand.”
“There was some other reason for your call?” Alkina forced brightness into her voice, aware that most people thought her cold and distant in her professional dealings.
“Yes. I have some idea of what our friends are talking about. It will help them both if we have a working relationship, and exchange vital information beyond the ordinary channels. I thought I’d make the first move by providing all the intel we have on the Septagon Shadow Program.”
“Ah, yes, the rogue Unionists and their cyborgs. Are you trying to imply this information is more significant that we think it is?”
Cassandra chuckled. “I’ll let you be the judge of that, without trying to lead you toward any specific conclusion. I will say that I believe that, just as the Eden Plague revolutionized biology, and the nanotech of Tiny Fortress revolutionized covert and special operations – and contributed to beating the Meme space ship – cybernetics is the next frontier of human development. This forbidden technology is the key.”
An odd turn of phrase, Alkina thought. “I will take a look at what you send.”
“That’s all that I ask. And you’ll find my secure telephone number among the message metadata. Your techs can pull it out, I’m sure, in case you need to reach me personally. Until then.”
“Yes, thank you, Cassandra. Goodbye.”
“Goodbye, Ann.”
The line went dead, and Alkina put the handset down. A moment later the internal comm on her desk buzzed to inform her that a triple-encrypted data package had arrived via their secure network. “Download it to my terminal, store one copy on the Deep Vault drive, and wipe it from everything else,” she instructed.
Soon she had it up on her secure terminal, staring at a box that flashed insouciantly at her: Provide Password. She tried several words and phrases – Cassandra, Alkina, Spooky, cybernetics – before something nagged at her memory. Reaching over, she pushed buttons on the recorder that automatically captured her telephone communications, just for occasions like this. After a moment she had it play the phrase she needed.
“This forbidden technology is the key,” she mumbled to herself, typing in those three words. Immediately the package unpacked and showed her a long list of files, some text, some graphics. After an hour of study, “Holy shit” was the least of her exclamations.
***
“Good day, Spooky.” Daniel Markis held out his hand, which the Vietnamese took firmly, even warmly. “It’s good to see you.”
“It’s good to believe you when you say that, Daniel,” the other man responded. “In my world, honesty is a luxury.” He released Markis’ hand to slide backward onto the table in the center of the room, where he pulled his feet up to sit cross-legged, incongruously casual.
Markis sat down in a comfortable chair himself. “Yes, I’ve been following your exploits as well as I can…at least until you abdicated your position in Direct Action.”
Spooky raised an eyebrow. “You are well informed.”
“I have good people working for me, that’s all.
“But you did not call this meeting to brag.” Nguyen looked around the room for a moment, then asked, “Do you have anything to smoke? It’s one of my few vices.”
“Along with sex, yes, I know that too. I’ll call for something.” Markis picked up a nearby wired phone and made the request.
“Sex is not a vice. It’s a tool.”
“What a line. All right, I’m not here to spar – unless it’s in the dojo, for fun.”
“What are you here for?” Spooky looked up as the room’s single door opened and one of the security detail came in carrying a tray with food, coffee and a box of cigars. After the woman left, he picked one up, and its attendant lighter, and ran it under his nose. “Nice.”
“Havanas…a gift from the Cuban Free Community. To answer your question…you know I like to deal face to face if I can. So much of FC business is done over the secure networks nowadays that I really value personal contact.”
“I don’t remember you being this much of a politician, Daniel.”
Markis grimaced. “We become the roles thrust upon us, don’t we? Is anyone completely in charge of his own destiny?”
“I am, as much as is possible for a man to be.”
“Yes, that’s what I meant to talk to you about.” Markis reached across to snag a cigar from the box, and accepted the cutter from Nguyen’s hand. A moment passed in silent ritual, until fragrant smoke curled from the ends of both stogies.
“Go on.”
“All right.” Markis put the cigar down on an ashtray and poured himself a cup of coffee from the thermos pot. “You abdicated.”
“I did what I thought was best for humanity. If not for me, Captain Absen might have been killed, and with him humanity’s best hope. I don’t think any other officer aboard could have commanded Orion and won that battle.”
“Not even you?”
Spooky laughed. “Absolutely not me. Do I look like a seasoned naval officer?”
“Just checking for megalomania.”
“You’re the ruler of Earth, DJ, not me.”
“Oh, that. Not all it’s cracked up to be.” Markis took a sip of coffee, made a face. “What’s so hard about brewing a decent pot of java here?”
“You’re circling hard around the point, Mister Chairman. Perhaps you could veer toward it a bit?”
“All right. My sources, and I am sure your Miss Alkina can confirm this, say that your Committee Chairwoman Smythe is gunning for you.”
“Accepted. So?”
“So we have less than nine years until that damned Destroyer comes. Every day counts. You got Orion built, not her. You handled your Committee and you made it happen.”
“A lot of other people were involved.”
Markis slapped his hand on the table, making the tray jump. “False modesty. Sure, everyone was important, but you were vital. Without you, there would have been delays, and the loss of a just few more days might have meant an unstoppable asteroid wiping out all life on Earth.” He shot his index finger out, pointing at Spooky. “You know what I fear?”
Spooky shrugged. “What?”
“I fear the same thing happening. I fear that without you working your magic in Australia, we’ll be a year or a month or a week or even a day late – and it will all be for naught. Because, and I have no idea why, or how: nobody will work as hard at it as you do, nor do it as well.”
“You want to know why, and how?” Spooky filled his mouth with smoke and slowly forced it through his sinuses and out his nose, resembling nothing so much as the stereotypical Asian villain of ancient Hollywood B-movies.
“No. I don’t think I’d like the answer.”
Spooky chuckled. “Dodging your conscience?”
“A necessity of politics. But knowing your reasons and methods would not persuade me I’m wrong, it would just make me feel unneeded guilt. To paraphrase Churchill, I’d make a deal with the devil himself to defeat the Meme.”
“That’s an unkind comparison.”
“Apologies, but you get my meaning. Five-meter targets. Right now I need you – the world needs you – back in the drivers’ seat in Australia. It’s going to be the launching pad of the new spacegoing naval force, and that means it will be literally the most vital defense effort on Earth. I’m afraid if you don’t take charge, someone like Smythe will derail it and kill us all. Not to mention what is going on in Russia.”
Spooky ignored that last for now and smoked some more, long minutes of thought that Markis left unfilled, except to build two sandwiches and push one toward the other man. Finally the Vietnamese spoke.
“I’m not inclined to do this. I have discovered far more satisfaction in independent action, and in self-actualization through martial philosophy. I am less constrained this way. I might even be able to solve your Russian problem better on my own, using my Direct Action operatives.”
Just as Markis was about to speak in protest, he went on. “But I will do it, because you have persuaded me.” Spooky picked up the proffered sandwich and bit off a healthy chunk, refueling his body.
Markis sighed with relief. “Thank you.”
“You are welcome. But I will do what I will do, in my own way. I will not be ordered about by anyone, not even you.”
Cyborg Strike Page 3