Salvation

by Peter F. Hamilton

  “You can’t rendition that many people in this day and age,” Kohei said. “The holding location would leak. Some smartass would fly a drone over it.”

  “I can’t believe Poi Li would cut us out without reason,” Yuri replied. “We know Arizona S and E picked Savi up right after the explosion. And Poi Li swears the Arizona guys haven’t screwed up. She claims she checked personally.”

  “So she’s running scared of the media getting hold of this? Christ, chief, what do they do to these people? Are we working for psychopaths?”

  “I don’t know—and that’s bad whatever way you look at it. If Savi died because they didn’t give her medical treatment quickly enough, why not just give us her body back? Why leave it like this? It doesn’t make any sense!”

  “So do we pack it in?”

  “Savi is one of mine.” Yuri closed his eyes, fighting the fatigue that was stopping him thinking straight. “I’m going home to catch some sleep. I need a clear head to figure out what to do next.”

  * * *

  —

  Callum stepped out of the Kintore portal hub onto Main Street. It was midafternoon, and the town had been roasting under the desert sun for more than ten hours. He wasn’t prepared for the heat, nor the dry, scratchy dust he inhaled with every breath. Sweat emerged from every pore, and he was only wearing shorts and a purple t-shirt—along with factor fifty sunblock. He fumbled in his shoulder bag for his new surgical-style mask and slipped it on.

  Apollo threw a navmap up on his screen sunglasses, and he began to walk down the street, following the direction graphics. There were very few of the dust-tarnished buildings with a second story. Why would you bother? Single-story prefabs were cheaper and land more so; if you wanted a big house here, you just spread outward. Or at least land had been cheap until a week ago, when the ice started to fall across the desert.

  Now when he looked to the west, he could see a thick, oddly stable bank of cloud rising from the strata of ice that lay over the red sand. The chunks already covered an area more than two kilometers across, and that was with only five of the big airships on station. Another three were scheduled to join the squadron before the end of the month, with a further fifteen planned within a year. Melt water was now trickling along the waiting canals, soaking into the arid sand, but creeping a little farther every day. While in the air above, the freezing vapor was creating a microclimate alteration to the desert’s ancient, lethargic wind patterns. Regular breezes had started to blow down Kintore’s streets as the cold-sink drew in air from the coast to the north. For now all they brought was more dust, but within six months, Water Desert’s climatologists were predicting, clouds would be lured inward across the continent, accelerating change. Within a couple of years, Kintore would become the newest, most exciting oasis on the planet. Money would flow in with the new rains, and speculators were already buying up plots along the canals.

  But for now, Kintore retained its frontier atmosphere—a convenient home for its tough workforce, and scattered with the commercial establishments that supplied them with whatever they needed. Callum eyed the neon and hologram signs above the plethora of small thriving enterprises. He stopped outside the Granite Shelf, seeing just another prefab with long windows and three big air-con cabinets barnacled to the wall at one end. The glowing blue sign was younger than the prefab that it crowned.

  Raina had found it for him, of course. After Yuri Alster had stonewalled him, he’d confided in his crew that he’d actually gone and made a commitment to a woman. That she was Security. Undercover. That she was missing, and he suspected the company was busy pulling together some kind of whitewash.

  “Fucking typical,” Raina had grunted.

  They were all on board, all wanting to help. “Whatever it takes, chief. Whatever you need.”

  He’d nearly got emotional at that. But so far it was only Raina’s expertise he’d needed.

  Savi’s mInet, Nelson, might have been taken offline, but that didn’t leave her totally isolated, Raina explained. If she was undercover, she was going to be using a different mInet identity. They didn’t have its universal address code; however, Savi’s dermal grains would be networked with it. They all had a unique interface code, which would be incorporated into the mInet metadata. It took Raina less than an hour to track down the codes, extracting the data from the Mumbai clinic that had implanted them five years ago. It was the kind of webhead skill that both impressed and troubled Callum, that so much of a life could be accessed so easily.

  If Savi had used a mInet connection to call anyone or access the internet, it would be logged in the local server, Raina told him. All she needed was a probable location; then she could hack into the servers. A search engine would be able to find the data.

  Callum’s only suggestion for a location was Kintore. It made sense to him when he confronted her boss, Yuri. Icefall had been the center of the biggest anti-Connexion protests for more than a year—just the kind of thing student wannabe radicals would join (or be manipulated into joining). Which was what Savi was investigating.

  Perhaps Parvati had chosen to smile on his quest. Whatever. He’d been right about Kintore. It’d taken Raina just ninety-seven minutes to track down Savi’s grains; they were interfaced with a mInet tagged Misra, which had authorized payment for meals at the Granite Shelf. The last had been a croissant and green tea the morning Icefall started, a few hours before the protests. After that, there was nothing.

  Callum walked into the café and sat down. He asked the waitress for orange juice and a croissant. When she brought it, he showed her the picture of Savi and asked if she recognized her.

  No.

  There were three other waitresses on that shift. He asked each of them. Two said no, one hesitated and said maybe. The Granite Shelf was a busy place, she said, we get a couple of hundred people every day. Your girl, she might have been in a few times, not dressed as smart as the photo, but it was a while ago now.

  The rush of relief was so strong Callum had to go and sit down for a while. Apollo called Raina for him.

  “One of the waitresses thinks she recognizes her,” he said.

  “So she should,” Raina replied. “I’ve hacked the café’s main server. It’s got the internal surveillance video files. I accessed them at the time she made her last payment. Downloading it to you now.”

  Callum watched the image playing on his screen sunglasses, not knowing the Savi he was seeing, the shabby clothes, sun hat, and backpack. She’s good at undercover, he thought admiringly. The clothes and hairstyle dropped her age back several years. Typical student type, maybe on a gap year.

  When she walked out of the Granite Shelf that morning, she turned left and walked along Main Street.

  “I’ll see if I can get some more video files,” Raina said. “But a lot of the surveillance cameras in Kintore are cloud stored, especially the civic ones covering the streets. Hacking them is going to be a little more difficult.”

  “Do what you can,” he told her.

  He left the Granite Shelf and turned left, just like Savi. The next café along was Alcides, serving Portuguese food. He sat at a table and showed Savi’s picture to the waiter. A clothes printing store next. Then a food printer. Bugez mart. A bar. Didn’t bother with the finance house. Another café.

  The sky was shading down to a rosy dusk when he left the café. Streetlights were coming on, blue-green cones of light revealed in the dusty air. More people were walking about now, not that the temperature had dropped. He could feel the ground radiating its daytime heat at him.

  “I think I’ve got her turning into Rosewalk,” Raina said. “That’s about a klick from where you are. It’s not the best image.”

  “You’re doing better than me,” he said. “The food store owner says she may have been a customer. Couldn’t say when.”

  “There’s not much camera coverage down Rosew
alk. It’s more residential down there.”

  “I’ll take a look.” Apollo threw up the navmap, and he started walking.

  Three men came out of a bar just ahead of him. He moved to avoid them.

  “Internet connection is dropping out,” Apollo said.

  “What?”

  “Network signal lost. Unable to reconnect. My reception is being subject to access overload.”

  “How’s that—”

  The three men from the pub shifted to stand directly in front of him.

  “Oh, shit,” Callum grunted. He spun around fast. Two men right behind him, one dressed in a smart suit holding up a taser baton, and grinning in anticipation.

  “Wanna make a break for it?” the suited man taunted.

  Callum had only ever been in a couple of bar fights, and that’d been with people his own age at university—boozy shoving matches with added swearing. The bouncers had stepped in fast and closed it down. These five men looked like they could chop those bouncers apart as a warm-up routine.

  “I’ve not got much cash on me,” Callum said, wishing his voice wasn’t shaking so much. This is Main Street. Why isn’t anyone calling the cops?

  “Down here, pal,” one of the group from the pub said.

  Callum saw the narrow street he was indicating and started to panic. “Look, I’ve got a smartCuff. I can wipe the universal code and the trackme app. It’s top of the range, worth plenty.”

  “If only we wanted you for your money.”

  “Or your body,” another sneered.

  “Move.”

  It was his last chance to attempt a run. He was too frightened of the pounding they’d probably give him. Being put into hospital wasn’t going to help Savi. But then, being forced into a dark alley wasn’t exactly promising…

  A hand shoved him between his shoulder blades. He tensed. If he ran to the right he’d be going directly down Main Street. They won’t chase me there…will they?

  The taser baton poked him in the back of his knee. It must have been a reduced charge. He yelped at the fast burst of pain, but didn’t quite fall as his leg jerked about.

  “Don’t run,” the voice warned.

  Humiliated and fearful, he went with them.

  Raina will know the link was deliberately broken. She’ll hack the cameras and see them taking me. She’ll call the police or our local Security officers. She’ll help. She’ll get me out of this. Come on, Raina. Come on!

  They turned down another street, then made regular turns after that. Apollo’s navmap tracked every turn, plotting their route. He could trace each footstep he was being forced to make.

  Fat lot of fucking use that is.

  After seven minutes, thirty-eight seconds, they finished up at a roller door in a sleep-pod hotel that was being refurbished. It slid up, and he was shoved into the dark cavern beyond. The door rattled as it rolled down again. Then the lights came on.

  It was a storeroom, with empty metal racks on the walls and plenty of dust on the rough concrete floor. The air was hot and stale. Right in the middle was a sturdy wooden chair with four handcuffs, two hanging off the arms, two on the front legs.

  Callum took one look at it and—

  The taser baton hit him, full power this time. The only muscles he could make work were in his throat, so he screamed as he tumbled over. The baton struck again, and the universe dissolved into terrible pain. His body jerked about and he howled, all sense leaving him.

  His limbs were on fire, which slowly subsided, leaving him with painful cramps. Vision returned—or at least he could see light streaks amid the darkness. He tried to blink into focus. The shaking was bad. And he couldn’t move his hands.

  He was cuffed into the chair, wrists and ankles.

  “Oh, shit. Shit shit.”

  His screen sunglasses had either fallen off or been taken. Whatever. He didn’t have them anymore. When he looked at his wrist, he saw the smartCuff had been removed.

  “Apollo?” he whispered.

  A hand smacked him on the side of the head. Hard. “Don’t do that again. Your mInet is dead. You are alone.”

  The red stars slowly faded. There was a man standing in front of him. Tall, African, with a bald head beaded by sweat and tattoos running sinuously along his arms. He wore a black t-shirt with a picture of a crystal prism splitting a rainbow.

  Callum’s chuckle was almost hysterical. “I have that album, too.”

  “What?”

  “Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon. Classic, but not as good as Wish You Were Here.”

  “Smartarse,” the man grunted. His hand lashed out again, striking the other side of Callum’s head.

  Pain spiked through his ear, and there was a taste of blood in his mouth. “Fucking hell, what is this?”

  “Where are they? Where have you taken them?”

  “What? Who?”

  “My people.”

  “What the fuck?” Callum eyed the hand as it rose threateningly again. “Which people? Wait, who do you think I am?”

  “I know exactly who you are, Callum Hepburn.” The African held up a piece of paper, printed with the publicity shot of him with Ainsley at the Greenwich Peninsular site. “Connexion’s newest golden boy. Saved Northern Europe from a radiation plume. The world is so grateful.”

  “Why am I here? And who the fuck are you?”

  The man raised his hand again, and Callum flinched.

  “Where are they?”

  “Who?” Callum bellowed back, more frightened than ever now, not just for himself but mainly for Savi. If these were the student radicals she’d been shadowing…

  “You are either a fool or a very good actor.”

  “I’m not fucking acting. I don’t know who you are or who you’re talking about!”

  The man walked around the chair. Callum tried to turn and watch him, worried that he’d be hit from behind. But he reemerged on the other side, carrying a tall glass of water.

  “Tell me what you want to know,” Callum said desperately. “Exactly what. If I know, I’ll tell you. Fuck’s sake.” He had to tip his head back then; the man was standing directly in front of the chair.

  “My name is Akkar, but I think you know that already, company boy.”

  “No. I don’t fucking care, either.”

  Slowly Akkar tipped the glass, pouring the water down over Callum’s crotch.

  “What?” Callum stared down at his soaking shorts, then back up at his captor. “What the fuck?”

  “To encourage the telling of truth,” Akkar said. “Took us years and years of research, but we’ve found water improves conductivity to skin.” He smiled mockingly. “Who knew?”

  The suited man came around the chair to stand grinning down at Callum. He held up the taser baton.

  Akkar’s smile turned mirthless. “Dimon, how big a charge does it take to fry a man’s balls?”

  Dimon patted the taser baton. “Don’t worry, boss, we have more than enough.”

  “No!” Callum yelled. “Fucking no! I’ll tell you what you want to know, but I don’t know what it is. Tell me! Fucking explain! What is going on?”

  “First fall,” Akkar said. “My people went into Water Desert’s maintenance compound. Is that clear enough for you?”

  “I know there was a riot out at the observation area that day,” Callum said desperately. “Is this the same thing?”

  “No, it is not the same thing, Callum Hepburn. One hundred and twenty-seven activists went into that compound. They were going to strike the greatest possible blow against the corporate criminals who are here to rape the desert. A blow that took me over a year to plan.” His hand shot out, gripping Callum’s chin. “One hundred and twenty-seven, company boy. None of them came home. Where are they?”

  “I don’t know,” Callum
said. “I wasn’t here. I work in fucking Emergency Detox, for Christ’s sake! I don’t give a flying shit about your stupid fucking desert. Nobody does, only freaks like you.”

  “First they came for the rocks in space and took them away from us saying they now owned them,” Akkar said in a low, dangerous tone. “And we did nothing, because they were just rocks. Then they came for the desert…You understand? You know how it goes? But this time, company boy, this time we will not let them ruin what nature has given to every human, the beautiful land which belongs to all of us. There are many with my belief, and our numbers grow, accepting the truth of our cause.”

  Callum gave his captor the most contemptuous look he could manage. “I’ve only seen six of you. That’s not an oppressed minority with a cause, that’s a mental health issue.”

  The baton jabbed down into Callum’s shorts. He screamed, then realized there was no electric shock.

  Both men were laughing at him.

  “Fuck you!” he shouted. “I hope Connexion fucking drowns you in melting ice. I want the last thing you see to be green plants conquering every fucking useless rock in your worthless hell. I hope the water rots your corpse and turns you into fertilizer to help more plants. That’s the only way dumbass shits like you will ever help any ecology.”

  “I think he means it.”

  “I think you’re right.”

  Callum glared up at them. “You’re fucking morons! A hundred and twenty-seven people don’t just disappear. That’s…That’s…crazy. You’re being fucked up the arse by your own cracked conspiracy theories.”

  “You’re quite right, Callum Hepburn. People don’t just disappear. It is madness.” Akkar produced the picture of Savi, and thrust it into Callum’s face. “So where is she?”

  “I…I…” Callum knew guilt would be lighting him up like a solar flare. “She’s not—”

  “Not what?”

  “Not one of you.” He knew he was blowing it, and he didn’t care. They knew Savi, and she’d vanished along with their fellow maniacs. Callum couldn’t imagine a worse possible lead, but at least it was real. He was one step closer to her.