Shadow Agents The Benevolency Universe

by David Alastair Hayden

  Suddenly, the light disappeared, and her spirit came to a halt. Below her loomed a pale, yellowish moon splotched with dark red patches and circling a barren ice world.

  As she drifted down toward the moon, a squat, solitary structure came into view. Aside from its glistening diamondine walls, there was nothing special about it. And yet, she felt its monumental importance. Something within her stirred, and inexplicably, she smiled even as a tear trickled down her face.

  Oona’s feet touched the surface of the moon a couple of meters away from the structure, and yellowish dust stirred beneath her feet. The seams of a door appeared.

  She stepped forward, and the door opened. She walked through a steel-reinforced wall of pure diamondine five meters thick and then down a dark corridor.

  The hallway led to a brightly lit medical facility. It was absent of people, but dozens of cogs waited dormant in recharging stations. She wandered through rows of intricate machines and sophisticated laboratory stations. The equipment in here was old and high tech. Even before the Tekk Plague, this stuff would have been insanely advanced.

  She knew this facility. Not that she’d ever been here, but every messiah family had searched for this secret genetics lab. Lore claimed it held all the answers about the origins and purpose of the hyperphasic messiah. And that it would open only to her. So this had to be it.

  At the far end of the lab, a tall glass case stood in an alcove. As Oona approached, a light turned on, illuminating the contents.

  Inside the case rested a young woman, a twin of Oona herself, though a few years older.

  She marveled at the girl for a moment. But then something pulled her onward, toward a fat pillar in the middle of the facility. When she stepped up to the column, a hidden door opened, revealing an elevator. She stepped inside, and the door closed behind her.

  The elevator traveled downward for several minutes. When the elevator door opened, she stepped out into an empty corridor and passed through a dozen diamondine doorways, each one opening for her as she approached.

  Finally, the corridor spilled into a large, open chamber. Oona barely saw it. Her attention was immediately grabbed by the glowing, meter-wide orb hovering in the exact center of the room.

  She stared at it, transfixed. It pulsed steadily, like a heartbeat. This was the light that had brought her here. She didn’t know what the orb was, but she knew it was important—the most important thing in the universe.

  Oona was so focused on the orb that she didn’t notice the vision starting to fade until it was almost gone. Then she heard a voice…her father’s voice. He sounded excited, more thrilled than he’d ever been before.

  “I have discovered something, something important. This will change everything!”

  46

  Mitsuki Reel

  Vega Kaleeb looked pointedly at the spinning razor his sky-blade held near Siv’s throat and then back at her. “You, Ms. Reel, I need alive. Gendin…” he shrugged his shoulders. “I get the same amount for him if he’s dead.”

  Mitsuki wasn’t surprised that Siv was worth as much dead or alive. Siv was just a procurement specialist, and by all rights, he should already be dead from Kompel withdrawal.

  But she was worth capturing alive. Back on Ekaran IV, she had claimed to be the rogue Federation and Thousand Worlders’ agent, Silustria Ting. Everyone involved had figured out by now that she wasn’t. But if she knew enough about Ting to trick them, then she knew enough to be valuable. Certain people would pay a lot of money for even a scrap of knowledge about Ting. Others would pay a lot to verify that no one else knew the information she might possess.

  “I’d rather not make a mess of things,” Kaleeb said, his voice taking on a hint of dark mirth. “Though my friend here, he does enjoy messes, and he’s been begging me to let him dice up another victim today.”

  “Mits,” Siv said distantly, his voice hardly more than a whisper. “We’re finished.”

  And he was right. They’d have to surrender and hope they could escape from Kaleeb, or that someone, somewhere, would rescue them.

  She dropped the carbine and raised her hands.

  “Smart move,” Kaleeb said.

  The sky-blade bobbed happily around them. But when it came to her side, it fell suddenly from the air and collapsed onto the floor, a lifeless hunk of metal. Kaleeb snapped his attention onto it, shock evident in his posture.

  As Mitsuki dropped to pick up her carbine, a voice spoke into her mind through B. She’d never been happier to hear any voice in all her life.

  “Heads up, Batwings! Shoot exactly what your targeting triangle is lighting up. Then grab Siv and get the hell out of there. As fast as you can. Do not waste a single second.”

  Kaleeb stalked forward, outraged. “What the hell did you—”

  He cried out and fell to his knees, thrusting his wrists against the sides of his helmet.

  A targeting triangle popped up in Mitsuki’s HUD, illuminating a conduit that connected a storage tank to a mold injection machine. She snatched up her carbine and turned toward it. Then she paused, spun back, and shot Kaleeb. A faint field flickered in defense, but the bolt pierced through it and blasted him square in the face-plate. Cracks webbed across the dark glass.

  Screw the targeting triangle. She fired again, but Kaleeb rolled aside and brought his neural disruptor up. She ducked the wild shot he fired. The grenade launcher rotated on his shoulder, attempting to target her, but it spun out of control.

  Before she could fire at him again, Silky screamed at her. “The sky-blade’s stirring, and you don’t have time to kill them both. Shoot the damn conduit and get out of there!”

  She started to argue with him but noticed the sky-blade had turned over. It rolled again and bounced a few centimeters into the air.

  Distracted by the moving sky-blade, she’d taken her eyes off Kaleeb. He leveled his disruptor at her, hands shaking. Whatever Silky had done was causing the android a lot of distress.

  Before he could fire at her, Siv dove on top of him and smacked him in the head with a fist, his force-knuckles flaring as he struck. The face-plate cracked open, and he fell to the ground. Siv sat on his chest, pummeling Kaleeb in the face.

  A halo of electricity sparked around Kaleeb’s armor. The force of the shock tossed Siv away. He landed in a slump, groaning, at Mitsuki’s feet.

  “Is he okay?”

  “Just momentarily stunned,” Silky replied. “Take the shot.”

  She inhaled as she trained her gun on the conduit Silky had marked. Then she exhaled and pulled the trigger. The plasma bolt streaked across the room and struck home. A bright burst of green light sprouted from the conduit, and a whoosh of flames followed.

  Kaleeb sat up. His face was a mess of blue android blood on dark synthetic skin. Siv groaned again and climbed a bit woozily to his feet. He spotted Kaleeb, growled, and started toward him. Mitsuki grabbed him by the arm.

  “Siv, we’ve got to go. Now!”

  He struggled against her grip. “Let me go.”

  When one of the storage tanks rumbled, Siv got the message. So did Kaleeb, who turned toward the noise, ignoring both of them.

  “Run for that window!” Mitsuki told Siv and gave him a shove in the right direction.

  As he started to run, she shot Kaleeb on the side of the head. The plasma bolt burned into his helmet, and he slumped over. Hopefully, he was dead.

  They’d made it only five meters when Silky cried out in warning. A red dot popped up in her locator, zooming right for them.

  Mitsuki dove forward and shoved Siv. The sky-blade skipped between them, flying erratically. Its razor-sharp blades sliced across the back of Siv’s left calf. He stumbled a few steps and then fell.

  The sky-blade dropped out of the air, struck the floor and rolled out of control before bobbing back into the air. It was recovering from whatever it was that Silky had done.

  Siv scrambled up and hobbled for the window as fast as he could, with Mitsuki right on his tail. A se
ries of booms echoed behind them as Siv reached the window.

  “You’ve got seconds left,” Silky warned.

  Mitsuki fired two plasma shots into the large window, one to each side of Siv. The glass shattered and rained onto the street below. Mitsuki holstered the carbine and charged forward. She slammed into Siv, wrapped her arms around him, and leaped out the window.

  She extended her wings as the entire floor behind them exploded. The shockwave sent her tumbling through the sky. Her wings strained to keep them steady, and she thought for a moment they would fall, despite B maxing out the antigrav.

  But then Siv managed to manually adjust his, and they made it far enough away from the flaming building that she could regain her balance.

  Windows shattered. Debris tumbled to the street below. And flames engulfed the upper floors of the building.

  The red blips disappeared from her locator.

  “Are they dead?” Mitsuki asked.

  “I can’t get an accurate scan due to interference, madam. But I hope so.”

  “I’m not detecting them,” Silky said. “Now circle back down here and pick me up. Playing dead has worn me out, and I’m ready to be done with this.”

  “You could have helped earlier.”

  “I helped when it would matter most, Wings.”

  “That was when it would help most?”

  “Well, it did happen to coincide, more or less, with me figuring out the right frequency to neutralize the sky-blade and send a brain-numbing screech into Kaleeb’s ears.”

  “Nice trick.”

  “You’re lucky I’ve worked with sky-blades before and know their weaknesses. I assure you the trick won’t work a second time. They’ll know how to defend against it.”

  “They might be dead.”

  “I doubt it.“

  “Well, I’m glad you’re not. You had us worried.”

  “It takes more than a small missile and a car crash to do me in!”

  As Mitsuki circled back, she yelled the good news down to Siv. But he was already smiling and laughing. He knew where the sudden help they’d gotten had come from.

  47

  Siv Gendin

  Siv smiled like an idiot in Mitsuki’s arms as she flew clear of the exploding building. She circled back to land half a block away from the wrecked van. Police and fire department sirens wailed from every direction. They’d have to work fast.

  Two hovering firefighter cogs finished spraying down the van. Luckily, the flames never reached the front half of the vehicle.

  As the large firefighter cogs raced off toward the factory, the top half of which was now engulfed in flames, Siv and Mitsuki sprang into action.

  She gathered their packs, Wang’s disruptor, the box of chameleon hoods he had been carrying, and the voucher for passage on the Hydrogenists’ ship, along with his considerable amount of cash.

  It was fortunate the fire was confined to the upper floors because even from the ground across the street, they felt the searing heat and caught the faintest whiff of the no-doubt incredibly toxic fumes. A pile of debris smoldered only a few meters away from their packs. That was a stroke of luck on a day that seemed in a desperately short supply of it.

  Siv climbed into the wreckage of the van, not giving a single shit about the heat left over from the fire. His hands blistered as he pried open the bent glove compartment to find Silky tucked safely within an energy bubble formed by the force-shield.

  Tears stung his eyes. He’d felt so lost without Silky. It was almost like he’d lost part of himself. Or rather, it was exactly like that. He hardly remembered what it was like as a child before he’d had Silky’s voice in his head, giving advice and comfort, teaching him, and telling ridiculous jokes and stories. Being without Silky was worse than going through Kompel withdrawal.

  He felt terrible, knowing how useless he’d been during the fight with Kaleeb. But as always, Mitsuki had come through. She was weird and sometimes annoying, but you could always count on her.

  The energy shield dissipated, and he reached in and took up the tiny chippy unit, reinstalling it immediately, not even caring to wait until he exited the hot wreckage. He put on the force-shield armband and climbed out as the chippy’s startup sequence chimed.

  Silky didn’t have to reboot in such cases, but he did it anyway because it ensured reliable connections with the wiring in the socket and gave the brain a chance to acclimate. Siv stood in the street like an idiot, waiting to hear Silky’s voice.

  When he spoke, a wave of relief and contentment washed over Siv. But that feeling didn’t last long.

  “Sir, there’s a car three blocks from here that we can jack and take to the starport.”

  “That’s it?! No welcome back? No I’m glad you survived the crazy bounty hunter? No I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I had a plan?”

  “Sir, all of that seems rather obvious. Now, we need to get moving.”

  Siv shook his head. “You’re impossible.”

  “That’s the consensus.”

  “Just so you know. Next time, I’m not hitting the eject switch.”

  “That’s rather illogical, sir.”

  “It’s not logic. It’s emotion. I don’t know why, but I love you, you stupid circuit board.”

  “Watch you’re language, sir!”

  Siv rolled his eyes as he caught the pack Mitsuki tossed to him, forgetting that his hands were now cut and blistered from the hot wreckage.

  He cried out and dropped it.

  “As for why you love me, sir… Familiarity. Not to mention my wit and charm. It’s why you were stupid enough to burn your hands rescuing me instead of taking the proper precautions. Now get going!”

  Siv shouldered the pack. Then he and Mitsuki ran toward the car. When they were only a block away, four police cruisers turned onto their street and screamed their direction. They darted into an abandoned warehouse and dove behind a pile of old crates.

  As the cruisers continued on toward the burning building, Siv and Mitsuki stood.

  “I’d stay down for a while,” Silky cautioned. “Police drones are hovering everywhere now.”

  Siv spotted an old couch in an employee break room. So they went in, closed and locked the door, and then collapsed onto the couch. Mitsuki snuggled up against him, and he didn’t mind. For a moment, he almost broke down sobbing. But he gathered his composure. He didn’t feel like he could afford to break down again, or deserved to.

  “Thanks, Mits.”

  “For pulling your ass through that factory with the galaxy’s most notorious bounty hunter and his insane cog on our asses?”

  “That and so much more.”

  She smiled and patted his leg. “You may not know it, but you’ve pulled me along more than you realize.”

  “Siv has pulled you along?” Silky countered. “Who upgrades the software in all your gear? Who helps you with flight data and escape vectors and mission planning and—”

  Siv sat upright. “You help her with planning and escape vectors?”

  “She’s an ally and a friend, sir. So, of course, I do.”

  “You never told me.”

  “Sir, I don’t feel that I need to tell you everything I do. And what’s a little mission planning amongst friends? You rarely take up a significant amount of my processing capabilities, and I can get extraordinarily bored when you’re sleeping.”

  “He didn’t want me to tell you,” Mitsuki said. “It started several years ago, after our fling. Since you found me annoying and—”

  Siv patted her hand. “S’okay. I don’t mind him having helped you. Honestly, I never would have. I do mind him not telling me.”

  “My apologies, sir.”

  “I think you like keeping secrets.”

  “Sir, you have no idea what it’s like for your entire experience of the world to be through the galactic net and a single person. Your every thought is practically my every thought, and vice-versa. A normal chippy, that’s all they ever get. I need more. Keeping a
little to myself helps me… I guess it’s sort of a comfort.”

  Siv nodded. “I get it. Though to be fair, I don’t have any secrets from you.”

  “I’d never thought about it that way, sir.”

  “Anyone else you’re helping?”

  “Only you and Mitsuki, sir. And now the rest of the Outworld Ranger crew.”

  “Have you tried contacting them?”

  “About that… Yes, I have. I haven’t received a return signal.”

  “That’s bad, isn’t it?”

  Silky didn’t answer. There was no need to.

  “Sivvy, you have helped me, you know. I don’t have many… I don’t have any friends actually. Just you.”

  “Now I feel rotten for avoiding you so much.”

  “You should. I’m awesome.” A broad smile inched across her face. “You also dragged me into all of this.”

  “You’re thanking me for that?”

  “I was stuck in a rut. I needed to break out of my routine. To be something more. To do something more, something meaningful. So yeah, I’m thanking you for that.”

  They sat in silence for a long time. Even Silky was quiet.

  “Do you think he’s dead?” Siv asked.

  “I hope so,” Mitsuki answered. “I don’t see how he could have survived. But…you never know.”

  “Even if he is, there will be more like him and Zetta," Siv muttered despondently. “We’re still several lightyears away from Titus II…even if Kaleeb’s dead, there are so many others…Reapers, Bleeders, Shadowslip, Cutters, Thousand Worlders, and ‘Nevolence knows what else that’s after us. And all for just for a chance at rescuing Ambassador Vim.”

  “And that, sir, is why we’re done.”

  “Done? What do you mean? Are you invoking your override?” Siv asked.

  He was torn. Part of him didn’t want to stop pressing forward. He would have done anything to save his dad. How could he just give up on Kyralla and Oona’s, no matter what was stacked against them? But another part, a more logical part, knew the odds. At this point, even with Kaleebt dead, the chance of success was practically nonexistent.