A Memory in the Black (The New Aeneid Cycle)

by Michael G. Munz

  "I believe they would."

  He sighed again. "I don't know, maybe I just didn't want to think they were capable of that. I'm behind a screen for most of what I do. It's not something I usually have to deal with like this." He shook his head and looked up at her again. Would she now think him heartless?

  Marette regarded him in silence for a time before she finally spoke. "I think about it every day," she whispered. The chill was fading from her voice.

  "I'm not naïve," Marc said. "I'm just. . . focused. I just didn't know it'd got to that point yet."

  "It may not yet be. But I fear the possibility."

  "Aside from the hackers, we're the only ones who know about it. That's as far as it has to go. I'll find a way to keep them from doing anything stupid."

  Marette frowned and crouched low to the floor, elbows on her thighs. "My position in the Space Agency would demand that I report their first attempt," she said. "But I will not. Necessarily, we did not ever have this conversation."

  Marc nodded. "There's no way they could prove you knew, even if they did somehow find out about the hack. I'll make sure the others don't risk a second try."

  "But another of endless secrets." She continued before he could comment on the burden in her voice. "Do you believe there was a consciousness behind what happened today? To Namura? An intelligence?"

  Was there? "I can't be sure. I mean, there seems to be an A.I. overseeing a number of automated systems, but I can't be sure of the relationship. This is an alien computer. So much of my analysis involves guesswork that I can't be sure of anything. Did the A.I. target Nick and Namura specifically when it saw them copying data, or was it completely automatic? I don't know."

  "And what about your— What is it? Gut feeling?"

  "There's too many variables to consider. I can't be certain."

  Marette straightened. "Nothing is certain, Marc. If you had to pick, which would it be?"

  He started to protest again, but then recalled the sudden change in readings right before the surge and the uneasy feeling he'd had while monitoring the matrix. "It felt like a trap. In hindsight, I mean. It was testing us as we were testing it. It didn't move on us until we'd managed anything beyond a distraction. I don't think the attack was automated. Good news, in a way."

  "You refer to the hope that it may be reasoned with?" It was a topic the Agents of Aeneas had once discussed that, if possible, might spare them the difficulty of having to decipher or deactivate the entire system.

  "Yeah. You sound skeptical."

  "It would be a great help if it were possible, Marc, but I am not optimistic. When the first team entered the structure, it made no attempt to reason with them. I stood by and watched that first drone slaughter them all. It appeared. It killed them." Her fists clenched. "That was it."

  Marc watched the pain twist in the shadows behind her eyes. And Elsa thought her unfeeling?

  "Namura's sacrifice bought us two terabytes of data," she whispered. "We will make that count."

  "You got a copy for us? I hope there's something in there we can use."

  "There will be."

  The hard look she fixed him with made Marc realize how much she needed it to be true. He saw Namura's lifeless body slumped over her rig and realized how much he needed it to be, too.

  "I ought to speak with the others now." Marette stood and drew a deep breath. Marc stood with her.

  "Ah, it might work best to talk to Nick or Gunther or Elsa first. Make them wait that much longer before they can try anything."

  "I will speak to Elsa first. Do your best to keep them from acting further." She straightened her uniform.

  "I really don't think they'll go without a fourth, but I'll keep trying to make sure. Good luck with Elsa."

  "Oui, and you. I do not believe she has any love for either of us now." She moved to the doorway, but turned back to him rather than key it open. "Marc, I am sorry to have gotten angry with you. I—" She paused, her eyes searching his. For just a moment she reached for him, but then stopped and withdrew the gesture before he could respond. "I am sorry."

  He nodded, welcoming the apology but suddenly unsure of what to say or do. Their gaze held for a time before she opened the door, and was gone.

  Marette heard the door close as she strode down the corridor. Her impulse had been to touch him somehow. A kiss. An embrace. Some form of physical comfort. But it was her grief to deal with. Marc's was only a transient presence, especially given the day's events. She must not get used to relying on anyone but herself.

  Merde.

  CHAPTER 9

  Under normal circumstances, Felix viewed a mystery like a kid viewed a Christmas present: an exquisite package of surprises of which the unwrapping was nearly as enjoyable as the contents themselves. Though he also made a passable living finding things out, it was the hunt, the discovery, and the challenge that drove him.

  But these weren't normal circumstances. Indeed, if anyone but Caitlin had told him that Gideon could still be alive, he might have felt that same rush of anticipation. To hear it from her left him unsettled.

  She couldn't talk long when she first called, and so they had agreed to meet in a couple of hours. Felix occupied his mind in the time between with not only the miniscule probability that the vigilante yet lived, but how his survival might affect Caitlin. Six months ago, her grief for Gideon was mixed with relief that he was gone. The combination had plagued her conscience, and she'd beaten herself up over it for a time. Felix was unsure of the feelings it would stir up in her if he was truly still alive.

  Yet how could Gideon have possibly survived? Felix could still see the sudden violence in his mind, the flash of a muzzle in the pouring night rain, horrifying and wasteful: Diomedes putting a gun to the back of the man’s head and firing in cold blood. Cybernetic advances made created a number of medical miracles in the past two decades, but the man’s brain was obliterated. Some things you just couldn't fix.

  Had Caitlin imagined seeing him?

  Felix stepped off the bus with the worry that Caitlin’s guilt might be affecting her more than he’d realized. She'd left the city for a time after the shooting and had rarely spoken of it since her return. He should have asked before now how she was handling things, instead of telling himself she’d talk about it when and if she needed to. Perhaps he'd made a mistake.

  The place at which they chose to meet was a combination of pub and café where Caitlin once perplexed the waitress speechless by ordering a "kiddie-size beer." It was a joke, of course, but her straight face and deceptively aristocratic accent fooled the woman into taking her seriously. It was, Felix found, a game she loved to play, usually with sales clerks. Yet it was always good-natured, and they'd left a generous tip.

  It was those little quirks that fascinated him about her, and one of many things that made him care.

  Felix spotted her at a table in a corner. She had ordered tea this time and was staring with furrowed brow into the orange liquid as if it were a crystal ball. To anyone who knew her, she was brooding.

  Her light blue eyes rose at his approach. "Hullo, Felix."

  "Hi there."

  She stood and kissed him before he could say more. "How are you?" she asked as they broke away.

  "Oh, fine, more or less." They sat down together. "A little worried about you. Been brooding?"

  She nodded. "Just a little, I fear. I’m sorry to have worried you."

  "Don’t need to apologize for that. Can you tell me what you saw?"

  She took a moment, sighing slightly, before she began. "I was in the University District, returning from a visit on campus. On my walk to the bus, I happened by his old flat. He was there. Outside."

  "Did you speak to him? Face to face?"

  "Am I certain it was him, you mean?" She shook her head. "I didn’t speak to him. I was across the street, and when I saw him I just rather stood there, gaping. He was with a woman—platinum blonde, just above shoulder length. They were arguing at something. I wa
s too far away to hear clearly, but you know how you can still tell." She shrugged helplessly. "I just stood there. I suppose I should have tried to get closer and listen, but I was just. . ."

  She trailed off and took a sip of her tea. Felix just listened. "Have you ever seen a ghost, Felix?" she asked finally.

  "Nope. At least not that I knew was a ghost."

  "I have. In a castle one night in Scotland. I just stood there, watching it. Today was the same, only this wasn’t a ghost. I know it. And ghosts don’t punch holes in walls."

  "He did that?"

  It sounded like Gideon. Punching a hole in a brick wall took a cyber-assisted limb, and Gideon had four. Felix always wondered if such levels of cybernetic enhancement were to blame for the man's instability. Gideon had lived on the edge of sanity, tormented by his own private demons. Basic cybernetic-induced psychosis, or something else? Or both?

  Caitlin nodded. "Toward the end of the argument. He was angry at something, but I don’t think at her. He let her hug him after that. Two other blokes ran up once he hit the wall, perhaps to help, but the woman waved them back."

  "Just people on the street, or were they with her?"

  "They were with her. With them. They all left in the same car soon afterwards. Gideon tried to go in the building, but she stopped him again. I believe she told him something. If they’d lingered much longer, perhaps I’d have gotten my brain back enough to move closer and listen, but I missed my chance."

  "Can’t say I blame you for being a little shocked, Caitlin," he told her, stopping short—again—of bringing up her trouble with Gideon’s death.

  "I did manage one thing. The plates on the car. It's registered to Marquand Cybernetics." She gave a little self-satisfied smile.

  "Marquand?"

  "Mm-hmm."

  "Marquand," Felix mused. He spent time there now and again, trying to overhear random tidbits of interest. He knew a few faces. "The blonde, how tall was she?"

  Caitlin sipped. "About one-seventy centimeters, if I had to guess."

  He chuckled. "Oh, you’re going to make me convert again, aren’t you?"

  "The rest of the world is metric, don’t blame me if you Yanks haven’t caught up. It's 2051 for goodness' sake." She flashed him a welcomed smile, though there was still a hint of the brood in her eyes.

  "Hey, I just live here. And I happen to know distances in Wales are measured in miles."

  "Roads, not people." She gave another quick smile, considering. "About your height, perhaps."

  Felix nodded and concentrated on memory. One particular woman came to mind, though it was only a vague description. Who knew how many five-foot-six platinum blondes Marquand employed? "Would you recognize her if you saw her again?"

  She nodded. "I believe so."

  He pulled out his phone and searched the 'Net for a picture he saw months ago. It didn’t take long. "This would probably have to be too much of a coincidence to actually be her, but. . .?" He leaned in and showed it to Caitlin.

  Her eyes dropped to the screen and then rose back to his, eyebrows raised. "It must be a day for coincidence. That’s her. Who is she?"

  "Really?" Felix blinked. "Her name’s Ondrea Noble. Marquand hired her maybe eight or nine months ago. She’s an engineer, used to be independent, did a couple years of contract work for RavenTech that somehow got her noticed at Marquand. I was in the Marquand building not six months ago trying to find out what they had her working on. Didn’t find anything out, though."

  "Nothing at all?"

  Felix shook his head. "In defense of my skills, my quest got interrupted by a certain freelancer we both know."

  "Diomedes."

  "Hiring me to help find Gideon, even."

  Though it was Felix's first step on the shared path that eventually led to Gideon's death, Felix was at least able to take comfort that the two men would have met with or without his help. Gideon, having discovered a common enemy was pitting them both against each other, was already looking for Diomedes. Once united, the two worked together toward that enemy's downfall before Diomedes finally killed Gideon over a stupid matter of money. Felix's protest immediately afterward nearly got him shot as well.

  Caitlin tensed. "It must truly be a day for coincidence."

  "His including me in that did end up bringing us together." Silver lining and all that.

  The search had led Felix to a group called The Scry: information hunters who did in a group what Felix did on his own, and of whom Caitlin was a part. Gideon had declared himself The Scry's protector in exchange for their being his eyes and ears in his fight against more violent groups. Fearing Gideon couldn't protect them from all retaliation they might incur from those groups, Caitlin spoke to Felix when the other Scry would not. Her hope had been that Gideon would suspect The Scry gave him away and dissolve the relationship out of mistrust.

  She couldn't have anticipated the outcome. When Diomedes pulled the trigger, it solved Caitlin's problem, but in a far more tragic way than she wanted.

  "Natural disasters bring people together, too, Felix, that doesn’t make a hurricane a good thing."

  Felix nodded. "Kind of beside the point now anyway. I guess the question is, what does Ms. Noble have to do with Gideon?"

  "One question, at least." Caitlin slipped away in thought for a moment before asking, "Do you know where she lives? What she might be working on now?"

  "Afraid not." He grinned. "Well, not yet, I don’t."

  Caitlin returned the grin. "Not yet we don’t."

  "I'm sure we can find out where she lives if we apply ourselves. But then what?"

  Caitlin’s smile faded a touch to match the distemper in her eyes. "I don’t know. But, Felix, I have to find out what’s going on." She sighed again. "Oh, I can’t even be sure it’s him. How can it be?"

  "You thought it was."

  "I know." She nodded. "Jesus, we left him out there. Lying there, like he were garbage."

  "Caitlin, we talked about it then. We all agreed it was for the best."

  Gideon had clearly been dead. There was nothing they could have done for him. To avoid having to answer questions they couldn’t afford, they summoned an ambulance and left before it arrived.

  "He wasn’t left out there," Felix went on. "And remember what you said. If he had any family, if we’d buried him ourselves, they’d never know what happened to him."

  She nodded again and hugged the cup of tea in her hands. "You’re right," she said finally. "I suppose. I thought I'd accepted that it wasn’t my fault. That being relieved he was gone wasn’t the same as wanting him dead. As causing his death. Now I wonder that maybe I just managed to ignore the guilt."

  "Caitlin, before, it was over and done. Today everything you’d come to terms with was shaken. I don’t think you ignored the guilt. I think it’s just a second wave." He reached out and helped her cup the tea, his hands with hers. She let him.

  "I’m not sure of what really happened that night anymore. It makes me doubt what I remember. Felix, I have to find out if it’s him."

  "We will." Even if he hadn’t loved a mystery, he’d have promised her that.

  She nodded with thanks in her eyes. "Oh, bloody right we will."

  CHAPTER 10

  "I don't want anything more to do with you, bitch."

  That one sentence from Elsa told Marette all she needed: the hacker team would not help further. Nearly all expressed their unwillingness in one form or another: fear, uncertainty, or, in the case of Elsa, naked rage. Except for Marc, none would agree to go back in. Elsa was merely the most succinct.

  Marette's racquetball sprang off the wall with a reverberating smack that filled the court that she alone occupied. She rushed to get her own volley, swung, and missed a fraction of a second before her momentum slapped her against another wall. The tiny blue sphere bounced off the rear wall at an obtuse angle and dropped into a bouncing roll that took it to the front corner. With a curse, she sat on the floor to catch her breath. It was nearly ni
ne hours since she had sent the surviving members of the hacker team home to safety. She had been on the court for over an hour.

  Once she had made her determination, Marette ushered the hackers off-Moon as soon as possible. They created both a security risk and a risk to themselves. It mattered not how little they might achieve in a second hack on Alpha Station, or how few of the group made the attempt. If they were caught, action would be taken against them all. To speed their departure, Marette reported her decision to Command at a late hour when there would be less argument. She had not expected her decision to be questioned, but she had not wished to take chances. She wanted them away and out of danger.

  Except for Marc. And especially for Marc.

  It was that dichotomy that led her to allow him only an aborted farewell.

  "If fortune favors, you will be returning," she had told him early that morning. "I have reported you as the only team member willing."

  "I can't stay now?"

  "It is not how they wish to continue. I am not even certain ESA will proceed in the same manner."

  "They might not send in independents again, you mean." There was disappointment in his tone.

  "The decision is not yet made. And you are in danger here."

  "I won't be for long, once the rest leave. I'll be back, I think." He paused. "But, if I'm not—I mean, that is, if—"

  She watched him try to stammer out an adieu a second longer before taking his mouth in a kiss. It was pointless for him to say more, and she didn't want to hear it. Wrapping him in a tight embrace, she drew as much companionship from that kiss as she could.

  She wanted him safe. The death of Alberto, the AoA operative she had sent with the first team to enter the structure, still weighed on her beyond the grief she already held for the rest of them. Yet while Marc's departure would further him from danger, it also meant she would be secretly alone once more. Neither feeling was something she could afford. She needed to remain strong, to stay comfortable working alone for as long as it was required of her. Was that the only reason she cared about Marc?