by Trevor Wyatt
Now she shifts uncomfortably on the couch and gives me an imploring look.
“What’s up, cookie?” I ask. “Have to pee? Well, that’s going to have to wait until I’m satisfied with what you tell me.”
Now she shakes her head.
“Something to drink, maybe?” I ask. This time she nods. “Promise to be a good girl and not scream if I take the gag off?”
Another nod.
“Because I can hurt you bad pretty fast if you give me any shit.”
Another nod.
So I loosen the gag. She blows out a breath, and I can smell her nervousness on her breath.
“Who are you?” she asks as I get up to fetch some water from her kitchenette.
“Let’s just say we’re in the same line of work,” I say, tipping a glass to her lips. She swallows greedily. Guess she really was thirsty. “All I want is for you to tell me who you’re working for.”
Now she shakes her head. “I don’t even know. I got notices on my pad on where to pick up assignments. I never actually met anyone. Money gets wired into a special account.” She looks at me. “That’s all I know.”
I look her in the eyes. According to her EDA, she’s lying.
“Nice story,” I say. “Now let’s hear the true version.”
Her eyes shift, up and to her right, then back to me.
“All right,” she says with reluctance. “Here’s what happened.”
I sigh. She’s getting ready to lie again. I would know that even if I couldn’t read her EDA. I know from the eye injury that she is right-handed...it’s her right eye that was hurt by the scope while she was peering through it. My neuro-linguistic training has taught me that when right-handed people look up to their right, they’re likely to be visualizing a "constructed" scenario: a falsehood, a lie.
She’s good, but her own neurology betrays her. However, there is a simple way to convince her not to waste my time. I take her right hand, which is still constrained by the bindings around her wrist, and break her little finger.
She really is good; she doesn’t scream. But a tear forms in her right eye and trickles down her cheek. I say, “I can keep this up for a while until you run out of fingers. And toes, maybe.”
“You—” and she uses a Sonalian word with which I am familiar, j’hondlsh: a primitive, self-fertilizing organism common in the planet’s seas, regarded as repulsive. Needless to say, it’s not a flattering or affectionate term.
“Now, now,” I say. “Language.” She squirms in anger and frustration.
Which is what she wants me to think. All this while, I pretend not to notice that she is loosening her bonds, bit by bit, every time she moves. The point of this inquiry is not to get answers; I know she won’t give me anything. She’s a Sonali—she’ll die before she talks—I know this. She knows I know this, and she’s now thinking I’m a sadist, tormenting her purely for my own gratification. This is not true, but I don’t mind her thinking it. The pain will prevent her mind from working with its usual clarity.
What I want here is for her to lead me to whoever is providing her with her assignments. In the normal course of events, she’d be too sly, too alert to possible tails. Her bolt-hole has proven to be compromised, which (I am betting) means that the only other place she’ll feel safe in is with her handler. I want her to escape—but I don’t dare make it easy for her, or she’ll tumble to my scheme.
“Woman to woman,” I say, “I don’t get any pleasure out of this. Honestly. It’s just business. You’d be doing the same to me if you could.”
She wrinkles her nose. “I probably would.”
No lie, this time. I pretend to relax. “Do you want more water?” I ask.
“You know, I think I do.” She leans forward, ostensibly to pooch out her lips for the water I am offering, but I sense her tension rising and I know she’s ready to make her move. I lean over, and several things happen at once.
She surges upward, hoping to slam her forehead into my nose. At the same time, having freed her left hand (with all its fingers unbroken), she whips it up in a perfect uppercut. I manage not to get my nose broken (though it will be sore for several days), but I take most of the uppercut and don’t have to fake being slightly stunned. She’s got a hell of an arm on her.
I take a little revenge. As she leaps up from the couch, yanking and tearing at the ropes, the room swims around me before I can get my vision clear, and I cling to her as though I were clawing for balance, which in fact I am. I am not done with you yet, sweetheart.
I bear down, apply leverage—and hear her right ulna snap.
Now she shrieks, and now we’re done. She won’t be doing any more shooting for a few weeks. More to the point, she’ll be a lot easier to follow now. Though I know she won’t make the same mistake she made earlier—seeking hospital care for an injury—she won’t be able to hide a sling or a cast.
She kicks me hard in the stomach, and again, I don’t have to fake it; the wind is knocked out of me. By the time I recover, she’s gone.
No-One
As I thought, trailing the assassin (I can’t help thinking of her as Cookie) isn’t very difficult. After our confrontation, I’m sure she definitely got hurt; two black eyes, fat lip, a fractured jaw, broken finger, broken forearm...She’s good, and she’s trained, but those injuries will slow her down and make her noticeable in a crowd.
I let myself out of the back entrance and pick up her trail in front. Her vehicle is still in its assigned parking place, which is no surprise. She won’t be able to drive until she gets that arm checked. I look up and down the street. It runs north-south. She could have gone either way, and I have no idea of her destination. I look around. It’s mid-day, people are at work—no one is on the street.
Moving at about half top speed, I cast about in both directions. Twenty yards to the north I see a wet spot of blue. Grinning, I am off, moving very quickly.
I lost her trail twice, but she’s still shedding drops of blood, and I catch up within a few minutes. I fade back, using shrubs and ground cars for cover. I don’t want to catch her—I want to know where she’s going.
I’m happy that there aren’t many people around. As a Terran, I always attract attention, and that’s the last thing I want right now. But soon I am gritting my teeth because Cookie’s bloody little trail is leading me into a more crowded area, away from the residential district. Oh well—I square my shoulders and walk with authority as if I have every right to be here.
Which I do, given my status as a visiting scholar. In case any authorities stop me, I have my ID and a good alibi: I’m absorbing the local culture. To make that more reasonable, I take out my pad and take observational videos with it every so often.
I make sure to keep my eyes on her. When I see her pause outside an ornately-carved gate, speak urgently to the guard posted there, and then pass through, my heart sinks. I know this place. I first read about it while prepping for this assignment. The gate belongs to a temple complex, and the temple in question just happens to be the Sacred Temple of the Holy Combine. It’s the largest of its kind on Sonali Prime and is devoted to the state religion, known to all as The Way.
So much for my original plan. Assuming that she didn’t know I was tailing her, I was supposed to zip into her destination, which I had figured would be some unobtrusive office building. Then, I would flash through the place until I find her, slap a listener on the outside wall of whatever office she entered, and beat it out of there to some nearby café where I could tune in to her conversation.
A good plan, now utterly blown to shit.
I’m frozen for about a second, then I raise my pad to my face as though I were examining one of its settings.
I allow myself a few choice swears, then keep going after taking one quick video.
This place is definitely forbidden ground for me. I know from my studies that this particular temple, which is the nexus of The Way, is taboo to all non-Sonali. Not even most Sonali get to enter the temple exce
pt on specific ceremonial days. More than that, it’s got the best security systems on the planet—maybe even in this entire sector. I could follow her, but chances are I’d never make it out of there again. The entire complex, not just the temple itself, is blanketed with spy rays and sensors of all types. Not even I, with all my enhancements, could stay hidden for long.
Regarding paranoia and xenophobia, the Holy Combine could give lessons to Terran Nationalists. So far on this assignment, nothing has happened that I can’t fix but if anything were to happen to me in there, it would cause a major diplomatic shitstorm.
Cookie has put me in check. I stroll on, mentally reviewing what I know about the Holy Combine. I am not a religious person myself, but many are, and that includes most Sonali. Part of my cover is knowing the basics of the religious faith.
The Way was founded circa 1000 BCE by followers of a man named Xorrig, a post-Ascension male who was known in his time as a poet, philosopher, and teacher. For most of his lifetime, he was derided as an eccentric. He avoided contact with people and lived a hermitic existence tending a flock of sheep-like animals outside of his village, living with them outside at all seasons of the year.
The official line is that his solitude and the purity of his life rendered him susceptible to enlightenment, whatever that is, but contemporary records say that he had a habit of chewing on the berries of a plant known to have hallucinogenic properties. Xorrig insisted that the visions he saw were a direct communication from a supreme spiritual being. Claiming to have seen Eternity, he spent the rest of his life composing poetry about it and giving sermons to his neighbors in his village’s marketplace, exhorting them to live simply and to be kind to each other. He was articulate and convincing about his experiences and wandered around talking about what he had seen.
One day, Xorrig took himself out into a wasteland to seek further enlightenment. What he found instead was death from thirst and starvation. By the time his body was found, he had already been almost forgotten.
But his teachings had attracted the attention of a few people who thought his ideas about the Infinite and how to live well made sense. His ideas became more widely known through the efforts of his followers, particularly one named Aricanthas, a pre-Ascension female who retained her gender identity throughout her life. Though Xorrig had written down very few of his works, Aricanthas devoted herself to preserving his ideas, which became known as The Way, or Xorrigism. Xorrig himself was not revered as a god, but his status as a prophet was secure and his writings regarded as holy writ. The union of Xorrig and the supreme spiritual being he claimed to have been enlightened by what was referred to as the Holy Combine.
Believers of The Way adopted many practices from smaller regional faiths or brutally oppressed them if their believers weren’t willing to convert—making it easier (or at least safer) for folks to switch their allegiance. As The Way spread across the planet, growing in strength and influence, temples dedicated to the Holy Combine were established in all major cities and many villages.
And my quarry has taken refuge in the biggest one on the planet.
I am almost quivering with frustration. I know she’s in there reporting to her handler—who is obviously some high-order prelate. But there’s no way I can get in there to confirm my suspicion.
I try to back off from my feelings. Cookie is of the military caste, ostensibly loyal to Noble Marshal Yanick, the man she killed; but here before me is proof that her true loyalties lie elsewhere. Among the Origin Movement, who has religious affiliations?
Whoever it is, they’re in there, and they’re behind an assassination that might put the Terran Union at odds with the Sonali Combine – just a few short years after a disastrous war.
Could Cookie be in his inner sanctum even now, spilling her guts about me?
That wouldn’t be good. Her handler knows me, however slightly, and her description of me will be good enough for him to realize who attacked and injured Cookie.
Not good. The very best I can hope for, in that case, is to be expelled from the embassy and sent home in disgrace. I am going to need a disguise, and soon, I am also going to need help. Somehow or other, I must get inside that temple and start gathering information.
As a Terran, I can’t do that. Therefore, I need a Sonali proxy to do it for me.
The pool of potential assistants is extremely limited. In fact, there’s only one person in it.
I turn around and walk away. I’ve got to get off the streets as soon as I can and go to ground before the alarm goes out. It may already be too late. I pick up my pace.
No-One
With Gresh’s presence in the hospital and Cookie’s temple situation, I had to put a stop to my plans. My first thought is to head over to the hospital and get him out. I realize, however, that Gresh is not a soldier. Perhaps, I have a lot of convincing to do; hence, it’s better if he were fully awake and in complete control of his faculties than if he were drugged and woozy.
I take an aircar to the Residential Estate. This is by far the largest Estate on Sonali Prime, or at least the largest Estate that is part of the Capital Grid. One of the first things I learned about Sonali Prime is that unlike New Washington, where I was domiciled before I got transferred here, Sonali Prime isn’t a one city world. It’s much like earth in this regard. There are clusters of civilization, known as Estates, separated by vast stretches of wildlife, oceans, natural formations, and so on.
The central cluster of Estates is the Capital Grid, where most things happen in Sonali Prime. In fact, I daresay that everything happens in the Capital Grid. This is where the government is based. This is where the military leadership is domiciled. This is what most of the population on Sonali Prime call home. This is where most of the industries and corporations operate. The Capital Grid boasts a fifty-seven percent share of the entire landmass of Sonali Prime.
I am in a private air car, whizzing across the vast network of Sonali architecture. Though it’s nighttime, the city below buzzes with a vibrancy that matches a morning in New Washington.
My thoughts begin to hover around my next move. What do I do next? I have an idea who might really be behind the assassination. The person had to be a member of the religious caste if they live in the Sacred Temple. But it didn’t make any sense. Is there something else at work here that I’m not seeing?
As an intelligence operative, I have learned never to discount any possibility, regardless of how improbable or impracticable they may seem at the time. A lot of good agents die because they are too smug to accept a highly unlikely scenario. Usually, those “somebody” makes their scenario probable and ends up killing those agents.
What if the guy who was assassinated isn’t all that righteous? What if he really wasn’t Pro-Ascension? What if he really was just an insert by the government to monitor the Pro-Ascension faction and make sure they don’t cause trouble? In that case, assassinating him would not really be assassinating one of its own since in the real sense the man was really Pro-Ascension. But that wouldn’t make sense because Ascension is the government’s party line. It’s a Sonali tradition.
As I consider this scenario, I’m baffled by the fact that it is, indeed, highly improbable that the guy was a spy. It’s usually almost impossible to infiltrate a zealot, fanatic group, such as what both the Pro-Ascensionists and Origin Movement have started to become. In fact, fanatic groups are hard to infiltrate anywhere in the galaxy, even in New Washington.
Nowadays, during the early years of the formation of the Galactic Council, it has been extremely difficult to infiltrate the ranks of the anti-alien movement led by Lucien Parker and his Terran Nationalists. Many agents have tried and been burned.
Including me.
My order was to infiltrate the anti-alien movement, shortly after the supposed destruction of the Tyreesian cruiser and the massacre in the global diplomatic headquarters. At first, I looked at the Director of Armada Intelligence in New Washington, a smug and young son of a bitch who never carries
a single strain of hair on his bare head.
“You’re kidding right?” I asked him.
He smiled at me.
“Are you so fucked up that you can’t think again?” This time I yell at him. Of course, any other officer, even an Admiral, could have gotten court marshaled and eventually executed, but not me. I am No One, and we had sex before—in fact, he still makes passes at me every goddamn time!
“No, Anika,” he said, without anger. “This is important. All our best agents have said it’s impossible. No one is willing to risk being blown.”
Then I smiled. Indeed, No One.
In the end, I was unable to infiltrate the anti-alien movement.
My only failure to date.
So, no, I highly doubt that this guy who was assassinated could be an infiltrator. If I haven’t been able to yet, it’s impossible.
Nevertheless, until I have hard evidence, I can’t accept speculation.
“How long to our destination?” I ask the driver.
“About ten minutes to the Terran Embassy,” replies the Sonali.
“Make a course correction,” I say out of habit. That’s what I usually tell my navigator when I was still commanding the Armada Intelligence TUS. Oh, the glory days.
The Sonali doesn’t reply at first. “You mean you want to go somewhere else?”
“Yes,” I say. “Take me to section YT234 in the Residential Estates.”
“Okay.”
The air car makes a sharp turn to the right, and we’re on our way to my rented apartment. My plan is to do a little research on the soldier that was assassinated. To do this, I’ll have to speak to my guys back at New Washington. I don’t want to do this at the Embassy for two reasons. First, I know the communications in and out of the Embassy are being recorded and decoded by the Sonali. I’d be stupid to think it isn’t. And while our encryption protocol is pretty strong, we still do not know the full extent of the Sonali’s electronic capability.