It took Will another three minutes to extricate himself smoothly from the encounter. Richard watched in his peripheral vision as Will exited the bar, waited another twenty seconds, then stood and did the same.
Graham was back at Division, ensconced with Hennessey to monitor the performance of the VISH. Richard met Will the next street down, and together they went to join Graham and find out if these new weapons lived up to their promise.
21
EARTH
EASC Headquarters (Lodging)
* * *
Mia perched on the edge of the chair and took a deep breath. Willed herself calm. Even if she screwed this up in the most epic manner possible, nothing bad was going to happen to her. Despite the heady sensations the activity induced, it was safe.
Though they wouldn’t allow her to leave the EASC campus yet, yesterday they’d finally allowed her to move to a suite at the lodging quarters. It was as coldly impersonal as the hospital room had been, but it did provide more space and comfort, plus the illusion of privacy. She was almost certain the suite, along with every room at the lodging, was bugged. This was a military base after all.
But she wasn’t doing anything suspicious. She was merely sitting here quietly, wasn’t she?
Thinking ‘return’ will always bring me back here, right, Meno?
Yes. And should you lose your way, I will be able to bring you back here as well—‘here’ being wherever your body and the remainder of your consciousness resides.
Really?
Remember, I am more integrated with your mind now.
I know. I guess I’m still discovering the extent of what that means.
Thanks to the Noesis, she and Meno had access to everything Annie did—a fact they’d never fully divulged to Admiral Solovy or Dr. Canivon. She’d spent the night before studying up on not only the OTS terrorists, but the political situation in the Alliance in general and on Earth in particular. Cross-referencing the information with the details of the attack on Devon and Annie had led to some interesting, albeit troubling, possibilities.
Now Abigail had been kidnapped by the Zelones cartel. It felt as if they were under attack from all sides, and she did not intend to passively sit and wait for whoever or whatever was planning to strike at Noetica next.
I’m ready.
In her mind she focused on the desired location: Earth, London, Earth Alliance Assembly, Office of Military Oversight Committee Chairman Pamela Winslow.
As before, her stomach lurched as the scene shifted. The edges of her vision became gauzy and indistinct, but a woman with coiffed chestnut hair and matching hazel eyes sitting behind a natural wood desk crystallized into clarity.
“—couldn’t eliminate the young man then and there. The Committee’s authority is broad, but it does not extend to kidnapping or execution.”
The woman tilted her head in nominal acceptance of the assertion. “Nevertheless, he remains an unacceptable risk. The state secrets he was privy to while hooked up to that machine cannot be allowed to become public. And what if someone were to study the ware in his head?”
Mia concentrated on turning—carefully—toward the other speaker. A young man in a business suit sat in one of the chairs opposite the desk. She drifted around to the far side of the desk to be able to see his face. A comparison against the government personnel database identified him as Luis Akin, Chief Aide to Winslow.
“Our highest priority is securing the Artificials—all of them I think—but he needs to be brought under our control as well. I’ll try to manufacture a house arrest, but if the legal approach fails we may have to resort to more clandestine measures. Look into it.”
“Yes, Chairman. I’ll ensure you’re properly insulated from any actions which ultimately follow.”
“Thank you, Luis.” Winslow stood and moved toward the window, passing directly through Mia as she did.
Mia gasped and staggered in panic from the collision of atoms and energy that wasn’t, screaming ‘return’ in her mind.
Back in the room, she dropped her face into her hands and breathed through her nose until the waves of nausea passed. She was doing a lot of that lately.
Are you well, Mia? The unfamiliar sensory experiences of this space can be quite jarring.
No kidding. I’m better now, thank you.
Do you want to revisit the Chairman’s office?
She considered it…but she’d learned the most crucial information. They were coming for Devon. They were coming for them all.
EASC Headquarters (Medical)
Mia noted the ironic reversal of fortune as she slipped into Devon’s hospital room. Here she was at Medical yet again, not as a patient but rather visiting one, albeit one easily as recalcitrant as she had been during her too-recent stay.
Devon eased off the bed as she entered. She put a finger to her lips and watched the door close, then drew near to him.
“Why the clandestine act? Are you not supposed to be here?”
“I don’t want to attract any attention. Are you feeling okay?” According to Meno he’d suffered a hairline fracture of his left ulna, a torn ligament in one of his hips and a variety of bruises, but was otherwise physically sound. Annie could no longer assess his true mental state. Mia had intended to see to it that his girlfriend was alerted and brought in, security protocols be damned, only to discover he no longer had a girlfriend. Emily had never returned to Seattle after the end of the war.
Without Annie in his head, he was now alone.
He ran a hand through messy hair. “I just feel…angry and impotent and helpless. And slow. Sluggish. I feel kind of dumb, which is something I’ve never been a day in my life. It’s very disturbing.”
“I’m sure. Have they told you who did this, and why?”
He nodded. “Admiral Solovy gave me the bare facts—about Abigail, too. But she’s trying to protect me from the worst of it, as if she can when it’s happening to me. I had Annie on comm for the last half hour filling me in on the details. It took forever on the stupid, archaic comm channel, though. We might as well have been talking through tin cans and a string….”
He blinked and recovered the train of thought. “But the upshot is, it sounds like the Military Oversight Committee is going to war with Admiral Solovy over Noetica. You’re lucky the Committee doesn’t know you’re awake yet, or they might have tried to disconnect you, too. I don’t think those goons would’ve even cared if doing so could kill you.”
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” She glanced furtively over her shoulder at the semi-transparent window into the hallway, much as Noah had done several days earlier. “We’re not safe here any longer.”
“Clearly I wasn’t safe—they waltzed in like they owned the place and trashed my Prevo link with no one to stop them.”
“I don’t only mean our status as Prevos—I mean we’re not physically safe ourselves, and neither are the Artificials.”
He frowned. “They already disconnected me. I’m useless to them now.”
“No, you’re not. You know things—a hell of a lot of things. To someone who’s trying to shut down Noetica completely and restrict the Artificials—or worse, shut them down as well—you’re extremely dangerous. Every aspect of Noetica is dangerous.”
“Granted, but this is the Assembly we’re dealing with. What are they going to do? Call me to testify?”
She started to reach out to him in the Noesis, then remembered he was no longer able to access it. Here on a military base, standard comms might not be secure, either. She stepped closer to whisper in his ear. “I eavesdropped on the Committee Chairman—the one who ordered the attack on you—and her Chief Aide using that quantum space—”
“I call it SusyQ.”
“Um…why?”
“It stands for Supersymmetry Quantum Mechanics—the “M” is silent.”
She made a face. “That is an incredibly lame name, Devon. We’re calling it ‘Sidespace.’ ”
He gave her a weak
shrug as his expression darkened to a pout. “I liked SusyQ but…I guess ‘Sidespace’ is fine, too.”
“Now about what I saw. They’re planning to do far worse than call you to testify.” Meno, show Annie what we saw.
Devon grew quiet for several seconds, then abruptly his eyes widened and his Adam’s Apple bobbed. “Annie agrees. She says we should leave.”
“I think we should leave, too. All of us.”
He began pacing in circles around the small hospital room. “But Annie’s too big to move—damn bureaucrats and their inane, labyrinthine approval processes. She’s only received a few of the miniaturization upgrades and still takes up half a floor.”
“I know, and there’s nothing we can do about that right now. But if we get some help—people we can trust—we can get Meno and Vii out, and ourselves. If Abigail is somehow rescued, we’ll offer to send Vii back to her. But without Abigail here, Vii’s in danger, too…Devon, are you listening to me?”
“What? Sorry, Annie and I were talking. She thinks there may be a way to get her out, too…in a sense. It’s an insane, subversive, magnificent idea. But we’ll need Abigail to accomplish it.”
“Then let’s hope the military can get her off New Babel. But we need to make plans which don’t rely on that happening.”
He nodded, looking shockingly upbeat given his circumstances. “The good news is, I know exactly who to call in to help.”
22
ARCADIA
Earth Alliance Colony
* * *
Colonel Malcolm Jenner was standing in the middle of four corpses and eighteen crates of confiscated TSGs, Daemons and EME grenades when the notice of new orders came in.
He motioned his second-in-command over. “I need to make a comm. Confirm all the crates are tagged, then start getting them out of here and loaded onto the shuttle. We don’t want to overstay our welcome.”
Major Grenier chuckled. “Yes, sir.”
Malcolm checked the room a final time to ensure it held no further surprises, then went to find a private corner.
He’d given up command of the Orion two months after the Metigen War ended in favor of leading a new special forces unit. The op on Romane, despite its bittersweet results, had reminded him of his preference for ground beneath his feet, for affecting events through his own physical action rather than merely issuing orders on a bridge.
He admitted to missing the Orion more than he’d expected, to missing the scope and power a ship such as it provided and the reliability of a steady crew. Maybe even the beauty of space—just a little. But he felt more at home leading a team, not flying a starship, and playing an active role in every mission.
Veronica hadn’t agreed with his decision, which was only one reason why the divorce had been finalized six weeks earlier. The war had changed his perspective on a lot of things…on the world, and what he wanted from it. It hadn’t taken him long upon returning home to realize what he wanted from his life was very different from what she wanted from hers or, it seemed, from his. And since another of the truths he’d realized was that life was too precious to spend letting others decide your own happiness, he’d walked away before the ugliness got serious.
He untucked his shirt and wiped some of the sweat and blood off his face, tucked it back in and sent the holocomm request.
Admiral Solovy was seated at a different desk with a different backdrop than when he’d last met with her in person. Had the new Headquarters opened? It had been over a month since he’d been on Earth, so he didn’t know for sure.
“Admiral. I received notice of a new mission and instructions to contact you for details.”
“Yes, Colonel. You’re looking…” she almost smiled “…busy. Are you in a position where you can talk?”
“Yes, ma’am. We’re post-op and have secured all the hostiles and the building. My team is wrapping up now.”
“Good. I’m afraid I have to ask you to head directly into another operation. You and your full unit will be going to New Babel.”
“Admiral?” To his knowledge it had been nearly a decade since the Alliance had conducted an incursion onto New Babel, and that last one hadn’t gone well for their side. The colony was under the complete control of the cartels, and the inmates were running the asylum.
“You heard me correctly. Yesterday at 1320 Galactic, agents of the Zelones cartel kidnapped an Alliance consultant, Dr. Abigail Canivon, as she was returning to EASC from Olympic Regional Spaceport.
“It goes without saying—though I am obviously saying it anyway—that the information I’m about to provide requires the highest level of secrecy. Inform your unit of what you think they need to know in order to carry out the mission, but no more.”
“Understood, ma’am.” He’d grown accustomed to the increased access to classified information which came with his elevated rank, and the secrecy accompanying it.
“Dr. Canivon is the person responsible for designing and implementing the Prevo technology.”
“Oh.” He canted his head slightly. “I understand.”
“We have reason to believe the Zelones leader, Olivia Montegreu, intends to coerce Dr. Canivon into performing a similar procedure, presumably on Ms. Montegreu herself. Your primary objective is to retrieve Dr. Canivon and bring her safely to Earth. Your secondary objective is, if possible, to prevent the completion of such a procedure by any available means, including the elimination of Olivia Montegreu, the Zelones Artificial or both.”
He pushed aside several bubbling concerns—including how exactly he was going to brief his team without disclosing the existence of the Prevos to them—to focus on the mission itself. “Do we have hard details on Dr. Canivon’s location and its defenses?”
“To some extent—enough for you to know where to find her. I’ll forward the files we have to you, but expect the defenses to be substantial. I’m working on obtaining additional intel, which I’ll also forward when I receive it, and there may be some external factors working in our favor.
“I recognize the level of danger such an incursion involves. I’m asking a lot of you and your unit—perhaps too much—but I’m working to give you every advantage possible. Your team exists because it’s the best, and I believe you can succeed in this mission.”
“Thank you for the vote of confidence, ma’am.” It wasn’t the first time she’d expressed it…and he supposed each time he’d met the accompanying expectations. So far. “Can I assume, given the location and nature of the adversary, any and all measures are authorized for the duration of the op, not solely for the secondary objective?”
“Not only are they authorized, Colonel, they are encouraged. This mission is designated Level IV Priority. I don’t need to spell out the serious nature of every aspect of this situation for you.”
“No, ma’am, you do not.” Honestly, he suspected he’d barely begun to fathom the extent of their ‘serious nature,’ but he saluted sharply. “We’ll be another forty minutes here, then we’ll head back to base, resupply and depart. We’ll take a full loadout and finalize the op details in transit.”
EARTH
London
“Welcome home, darling.” Pamela Winslow kissed Jude’s cheek with pinpoint precision. “Dinner is almost ready, and we have guests this evening. Do join us.”
“Yes, Mother. Let me change first, and I’ll be right down.”
She held him at arm’s length to inspect him. “You do look half a disaster. What have you been up to?”
“Traveling, as usual. Go see to your guests.”
She raised a passing eyebrow at his unkempt appearance before departing, leaving him free to retreat upstairs.
Jude hadn’t planned on needing to perform tonight, no more so than he generally did for his family, but it came with the territory. After a quick shower and donning of fresh slacks and a sweater, he entered the formal dining room to find his parents seated with two men. He sized them up: properly tailored but conservative dark suits, perfectly coiffed
hairstyles, false smiles and calculating eyes.
Politicians. So that would be the game tonight, then.
His mother gestured for him to sit next to her. “Allow me to introduce our guests. This gentleman is Defense Minister Hideyo Mori, and this is our Assembly Speaker, Charles Gagnon.”
He shook their hands across the table. “Nice to meet you both. Jude Winslow.” He settled into the chair. “Plotting the future of the Alliance over som tam this evening?”
The Defense Minister moaned with theatrical flair. “We can only try, and hope cooler, more reasonable heads prevail soon—like your mother and Speaker Gagnon.”
The Speaker wore a troubled expression. “I appreciate the compliment, Minister, but Brennon has not done a terrible job of managing the recovery in the aftermath of the war.”
His mother sipped on her coffee. “To outward appearances, perhaps. But his administration has been far too secretive. Clandestine operations, dangerous Artificial projects, under-the-table deals with the Federation. He is undermining one of the primary roles of the Assembly, which is oversight of the executive and military branches, and as a result we don’t know with any certainty what the state of the recovery or the health of our Alliance truly is.”
She brandished a smile as false as those worn by their guests. “But enough of work. I wish this to be a pleasant gathering.”
Oh, Mother. Your transparency astounds even me.
The kitchen servant brought the next course, khao soi, and Gagnon directed a measure of attention toward him. “Jude, what do you do?”
“Jude operates one of our largest charities, Sharing For Success. He’s a tremendous help to me.”
Jude bit back a crude retort at his father for talking for him and replaced it with a sober visage. “It’s been a busy, difficult seven months, regrettably. So many people had their homes and livelihoods destroyed by the alien invaders. We try to help as many as we can, but there are always more who need it.”
“You travel a lot, I assume?”
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