Ascension_Age Of Expansion_A Kurtherian Gambit Series

by Ell Leigh Clarke

  Indius didn’t envy any of them for being in that position, but nor did she offer to help them. They weren’t her cases, and she would get in the way more than she would help. She looked back down at her datapad, watching as news reports scrolled across it, while simultaneously doing what she could on her own case files.

  Rogers leaned against the edge of Indius’s desk, the only Ogg in a room of Estarians. Indius glanced up at him as she wondered wryly, “Having any second thoughts about not heading back to Ogg?”

  Rogers’s expression went distant as he made a show of thinking the question over, only to settle on a simple, “Nah. I like the excitement.” He grinned crookedly. “Besides, someone needs to keep your head above water. May as well be me.”

  Indius rolled her eyes, but she didn’t protest. Most of her attention was already back down the hall with the dispatcher. Listening and waiting for anything that she might be able to help with.

  “Hey, Chaakwa,” Rogers probed after a moment, voice low so as not to disturb the group clustered around the smart boards.

  “Antonio?” she wondered in reply.

  “You think all that stuff about it being an invasion is true?” he wondered, drumming his fingers against the edge of Indius’s desk. “I mean, most of the population seems to believe it by now. Some of the evidence is pretty damn compelling.”

  Indius was quiet at first, rather than simply spitting out an answer.

  (“The EMTs are on their way, miss,” Kelsey said down the hall, voice calm and soothing. “I’ll stay on the line with you until they arrive. You just have to stay calm. Can you do that for me?”)

  Finally, Indius drew in a slow breath and sighed it out through her nose. “I’m not sure,” she answered honestly.

  “What do we do if it is?” Rogers asked, tapping one heel against the floor. “Just let it run its course?”

  “I’m not sure,” Indius repeated, shrugging one shoulder. “It could be an invasion, or at least the earliest stages of one. Or it could be something entirely different. But if it is an invasion?”

  Finally, she looked at Rogers, and she could feel a small smile beginning to tug at the corners of her lips. “If it is an invasion, then I feel sorry for the invaders. Hell or high water, I know someone who won’t let anything happen to this planet.”

  Undisclosed Location, Estaria

  Goran Suedermann pulled aside the off-white net curtain just enough to see that there was movement down the side of one of the other buildings.

  “Hey, what did we say about the window?” The voice compelled him to drop the fabric and shuffle back a foot, out of view of the window.

  “I’m just looking,” Suedermann responded without any kind of angst. He waited for a few more moments and then ambled back across the room and sat down on the gray, saggy sofa. “I’m sure I saw movement over by the repair shop.” He sighed, taking a sip of his tea.

  Joshua checked his holo for the time and then leaned his arm back against the butt of his gun on his waist belt. “There shouldn’t be anything going on in the repair shop this time,” he agreed. “When Alisha gets here, I’ll check it out though. Just don’t go near the windows for me, okay?”

  He heaved himself up out of the old uncomfortable chair and headed into the kitchen, stretching his arms above his head.

  “Someone coming this way,” Suedermann called out to him.

  Joshua was suddenly alert, striding back across the crusty old living room to the door, his weapon already drawn. He pressed his shoulder against the door, pointing his weapon at the floor as he glanced through the spy hole.

  It was difficult to see in the dark, but there were definitely two figures heading his way. This was the last thing he needed: a threat to his witness.

  As they drew closer, he could see that one was distinctly Estarian, and the other human. He searched his mind trying to think who they might be. Subconsciously he flicked through all the case files that might be related to the Northern Clan, the known associates, and anyone who might know who Suedermann was, even from Suedermann’s own life before the Task Force took him into protective custody.

  Then he realized they were both female.

  He was drawing a complete blank. On top of that, he noticed, the two women seemed somewhat vulnerable as they scuttled across the big open space towards the safe house door. In terms of a threat assessment, they didn’t look particularly aggressive or competent. What’s more, without hesitating they came up the steps and onto the porch. Both of them. If they were wanting to storm the place, one would have gone around the back.

  His mind raced.

  Then the security light came on, almost blinding him. He looked away back into the room.

  Tap, tap, tap.

  The human knocked on the door. He looked back and gave his eyes a second to adjust to the brightness. He could make out more details now. Though her form looked human, her skin color was definitely Estarian blue. It was a strange combination that confused him even more.

  “Greetings of the day,” he called politely through the door so as not to be conspicuous in case this event was purely random.

  “Greetings,” the human-looking Estarian called back. “You don’t know us, but we’ve just been talking to Director Bates. We’re working on the holoconnection issue, but we need to talk to your colleague in there.”

  “It’s just me here,” Joshua lied, trying to assess the situation.

  “Your witness rather,” the girl insisted.

  Joshua paused. Director Bates may have been talking to them, but he had no way of knowing. The last communication that he had had from her had been earlier that day, and he had even been able to get a message back out to her. His strategy up until this point had been to wait for his partner to come and relieve him at the pre-appointed time.

  “We’re also meant to be meeting Alisha here,” the girl added, instantly bolstering her credibility.

  He paused, and then after a few seconds of mental analysis, Joshua moved to unlock the door. Cautiously he opened it, and then beckoned the two inside. Keeping his weapon low, he notably didn’t put it away. “Okay, so you seem to know a little bit about what’s going on here, but who the hell are you?”

  “I’m Paige,” the human-looking one explained, “and this is Maya. We work closely with Molly and the Sanguine Squadron.”

  Joshua felt himself relaxing the moment he realized they were friendly. Then as soon as it sunk in that he was talking to people he’d heard stories about since he was at Molly’s grad school, a different type of anxiety set in. “Oh, well of course, do come in… Please.” He put his gun away hurriedly and set about feebly tidying the place up a little bit.

  “Please take a seat, make yourself comfortable. I must say I wasn’t expecting… Well, anyone. We’ve been in holo blackout most of the day.”

  “We know,” Maya told him. “We’re working to try and restore connection planet-wide. But we could do with understanding a little bit more about what’s happened.” She glanced at Goran sitting quietly on the sofa. “But we thought that Mr. Suedermann might be of assistance in that regard.”

  Goran pressed his index finger at his chest. “Me? How can I help? They’re just network outages.”

  “Well,” Maya continued, “how much do you know about why you’re here?”

  Goran shrugged. “Only what these guys told me…” he replied, thumbing at Joshua as the representative of the Task Force who had taken his freedom from him “for his own good.”

  “Which is?” Maya pressed.

  “That because of my position in the government, someone wanted me dead. Probably for access, for my successor.”

  Paige looked up at Joshua, who seemed mesmerized by the conversation in front of him. “We’re going to need to tell him a little bit more,” she explained. “If we are right, he’s the only one who’s going to be able to help us undo this mess.”

  Joshua waved her on.

  Paige sat on the sofa next to Goran and started expla
ining everything that they knew. Meanwhile Maya took Joshua into the kitchen to fill him in on the bigger picture while he made some mocha for all of them.

  “So you spoke to Director Bates then?” he asked.

  “Yes, less than an hour ago,” Maya confirmed. “She gave us your location, but also said she was sending Alisha over to talk to Jennifer Etang.”

  “Etang? Why would Alisha be going to see her?”

  “Well, this is kind of the point,” Maya explained slowly. “We think that this holo blackout is a result of a Trojan horse that’s been sitting waiting to be activated in order to further the interests of the Northern Clan. If you look at the circumstances: the fleet, the vote, and so on, it all makes sense. And they got what they wanted… Martial Law.”

  Joshua’s normally bright blue complexion was looking particularly pasty as the blood drained from his face. “You mean this is an all-out conspiracy?”

  “Well, yeah. The point is, Etang might have information about the virus. The construction, how it deploys, who built it. Something… We’re hoping.”

  Joshua pumped his fist in a half movement. “I knew it!” he declared. “Alisha and I were right! Suck it, Bates!” Then, noticing Maya’s reaction as she stood watching him, he quickly regained his composure and handed her the first mocha that was ready. “Well if there’s anything to discover, Alisha will find it. In the meantime I guess we just need to hang tight and wait for her.”

  Maya cocked her head, smiling enigmatically. “Well not entirely. We need to see what Suedermann knows, and we have one of our guys working on a fix as we speak, so we will make some progress before she gets here.”

  Joshua’s expression brightened. “Oh, well then.” He grinned. “Let’s get this second mocha into Paige’s hands and you guys can carry on.”

  Maya grinned as she followed him back through to the living room where Paige and Goran were talking.

  “We don’t have all of the details of this case, because of the blackout,” Paige was explaining to Suedermann. “Would you mind telling us what you did at the Division of Holo Crimes?”

  Suedermann leaned forward and nudged his teacup further onto the table before sitting back and exhaling with a small sigh. “Well, it’s been a while now, but I was overseeing the network security. Some of it was to do with scams, but a lot of it was chasing down malware for the most part.”

  “So it was more like stopping viruses from proliferating?”

  “Yes, that was a big part of it.”

  Paige looked pointedly at Maya. “Well that would explain why someone would want you out of the way before this kicked in,” Paige commented.

  Maya stepped further into the room and handed Paige the mocha that Joshua just made for her. “Yes, but what I don’t understand is why him. He’s just one person who would be replaced… Who has been replaced, right?”

  She looked over at Joshua.

  Joshua handed her the mocha that he’d made for her. “Yes, we thought of that. There was someone who would probably have succeeded him had he been assassinated, and we assumed that that person was… compromised.”

  “Tell me that person is not standing in for him now!”

  “Well we had to put up a fight,” Joshua explained. “But no. We have someone else performing that role while Suedermann is here.”

  “But,” Suedermann interjected, “what he’s not telling you is the difference in skill. This other compromised person was the only one who had the same level of skill and experience to do the job. Effectively, the person that they have now is merely a figurehead, with very little practical experience in how to handle a crisis like this… It’s probably why we are still having blackouts.”

  Maya suddenly became more curious. “So they wanted you out of the way so you couldn’t fix this problem,” she deduced, her expression becoming more animated.

  “Well, I don’t mean to toot my own horn or anything, but I’d say yes.”

  Paige put her mocha cup on the table in front of them. “Well in that case, you’re exactly the person we need to talk to,” she said, pulling up a holoconnection.

  “Bourne? Are you there?” she called out to her holo.

  “Yes, I’m here,” he responded in her earpiece.

  “Okay, I’m gonna put you on speaker,” Paige told him. “We’ve located someone who can probably help us solve this problem, and I think you two need to talk.”

  Joshua, a touch overwhelmed by the sudden change of pace of things in the safe house, headed back into the kitchen to make himself a mocha. Something told him that this was going to be a long night.

  ***

  Several mocha refills after the initial brews that Joshua had brought through, Maya, Paige, Bourne, and Goran were still deep in conversation.

  “It looks like this could be an elegant solution,” Bourne was saying.

  Goran agreed. “Yes, and it’s much faster than the brute force hack you were having to perform in the first place.”

  “Well, it wasn’t entirely brute force,” Bourne protested defensively.

  Paige smiled and rolled her eyes, communicating to Joshua her opinions on Bourne’s ego and sensitivity. “It looks like we’ve got a fix in any case. Bourne, any idea on how long it’s going to take to run this fix network-wide?”

  “I’ve no idea. The planet’s network is humongous, and some of the networks in the further regions away from the cities are going to run slower. Personal holos probably need specific adaptations to the fix because they are running older protocols.”

  “But you can start with Spire for instance,” Maya interjected.

  “Yes,” Bourne agreed. “I can do that. And then go to the next cities, and move out from there.”

  “So how long until Spire is back online?” Paige asked, seemingly remembering why they were trying to solve this problem in the first place.

  “It depends.”

  It was Goran’s turn to roll his eyes this time. “Developers!” he mouthed to the others, assuming that it was an organic they’d been communicating with all this time.

  Paige screwed up her face and started massaging around her eyes with her hands. “What about us being able to get some messages through to people in the blackout? So rather than just restoring full service, can we at least get messages through, kind of like what you’re doing with us now?”

  There was pause on the line. “Yes, and it will only take a tiny amount of processing power away from solving the bigger issue, comparatively speaking.”

  “Maybe that’s a way forward then,” Paige suggested, looking at Maya for her agreement. Maya nodded.

  “Okay great,” Paige confirmed. “Let’s do it. Maya will put together a message, something short. Then Bourne, you can send it out first perhaps.”

  “Alrighty then,” Goran declared, slapping his hands to his knees and then getting up off the uncomfortable sofa. “If you’d be more comfortable, we could move through to the office...”

  Paige and Maya got up. “Okay, yes. It would be easier to work at a desk,” Paige agreed.

  “Hey, you know, Alisha should probably be back by now,” Joshua told them, checking the time as they moved their holoscreens through to the next room.

  Paige thought for a moment. “Hey Bourne, can you make sure that Joshua can get a connection through, so he can check in with the task force, and with Alisha?”

  “Yes, one second. Okay, there you go, Joshua. You should be able to get through to the network now.”

  Joshua’s face lit up as he checked his holo and saw that everything was working perfectly. “Great, thank you, Bourne. I’ll give her a call now.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Safe House, Undisclosed Location, Estaria

  Joshua looked up from his partially functioning wrist holo as the main door opened and Alisha breezed through. The door slid closed again immediately, and the complicated lock clicked a few times as it reengaged. Alisha sagged back against the door, letting her head thump back against it. She looked like
she was putting some serious thought into just sliding down it and sitting down right there on the floor.

  “Long day?” he asked wryly. She poked the tip of her tongue out at him.

  “I just got finished with that Etang woman, from Communications.” She sighed, pushing herself away from the door with a visible effort. “Our hopes that she was just playing dumb have been dashed,” she added. “She didn’t know a thing. Less than nothing, in fact. I had to fill her in on everything that’s been going on in the world.”

  Joshua whistled low. “An astounding level of ‘out of the loop,’ to be sure.”

  “She almost seemed like she was impressed by everything that’s been going on,” Alisha grumbled. “And honestly, I’m not sure if her being a clueless biddy makes me feel better or worse. I mean, really, who just decides ‘oh, sure, I’ll do exactly what this guy says with no idea of what I’m actually doing?’ In what world is that a normal thing?”

  “In the world of Jennifer Etang, apparently,” Joshua replied reasonably, and he ducked to the side to avoid the swat that Alisha aimed at his ear. “You asked!” he protested, laughing. He only laughed harder when she scowled at him, her nose scrunching and her eyebrows drawing downwards.

  “It just doesn’t make any sense,” she grumbled, before she heaved a sigh and slumped backwards. She was practically lying on the table by then, propping herself up on her elbows. “But I guess it wasn’t a complete bust.” She sighed, letting her head fall back weightlessly.

  “She confirmed some things we already suspected, though, so it’s something, at least,” she continued. “She was in the Northern Clan’s pocket, which is large and seemingly never ending. Apparently we’ll never find everyone working for them, blah blah blah, all your bases belong to us, you know how it goes.”

  “Spooky,” Joshua deadpanned, propping his chin up in one hand. With a wistful sigh, he mused, “Maybe all the secrecy is because there are actually only like ten of them. Maybe we could actually take all of them out with one well-placed grenade.”