Aneka Jansen 3: Steel Heart

by Niall Teasdale

  Sat at the bar with a glass of some form of fruit juice in front of her, Aneka was unsurprised when someone sat down beside her, and pleased that it was Peters rather than anyone else. He gave her a nod which showed no recognition and she returned it, figuring he wanted to talk without revealing their acquaintance. He had had his dark hair trimmed back since she had last seen him. It was still neatly groomed, and he still had the same tightly muscled, fit body and handsome features, and there was still noticeable stubble on his jawline at barely midday. The man had to have testosterone almost oozing out of him.

  ‘There’s a couple of Hayward employees trailing you, y’know?’ Peters muttered, his drink close to his mouth to hide his lips.

  ‘I didn’t know they were Hayward. Blonde in the corner with the spray-on, white T-shirt and the muscles?’

  ‘That’s one…’

  ‘There’s another with a mousey crew-cut. Slimmer, black mesh shirt.’

  Peters hid a grin behind his drink. ‘Why aren’t you working for Winter?’

  ‘She offered, I declined. I don’t want to do that kind of work… all the time. When she needs me for something she usually has a way of persuading me to do it. She send you to keep an eye on me?’

  ‘Not exactly. Last time you were here she wanted us to make sure you were looked after. We figured we’d best do the same when we heard Hayward had asked for you to be invited down here. They’re paying for your hotel room.’

  ‘They keep trying to covertly scan me. Would you believe a concealed scanner in the bathroom?’

  ‘I’d believe just about anything. Then I’d check. Hayward is supposed to be into some bad gopi, but there’s never been any solid proof.’

  ‘What kind of bad?’

  ‘Supposedly they engineer diseases as well as cures. Sell them outside the Federation, of course, but some of them find their way back in.’

  ‘Bio-weapons?!’ Aneka blanched.

  ‘Basically, yeah. It’s as illegal as it gets, but if they never get caught… In this case, though, I suspect they’re after some technology they think you have. Their main business is disease prevention.’

  Aneka threw back the last of her juice. ‘The AIs on Negral injected the Jenlay on our team with some sort of nanomachine antibody system. If Hayward heard about it, they’ll think I have it too.’ She slid off her stool and started for the door past Peters.

  ‘Watch your back then,’ he said.

  ‘Always do.’

  ~~~

  Aneka handed a T-shirt across the counter to a man who could not have been older than twenty. Well, she amended, he could have been older; age did not show on the face for a long time these days unless you let it. However, his looks, the way he moved, the slight hint of bashfulness when he looked at her, all suggested that he was actually young rather than just appearing to be.

  The other thing that made her suspect he was young was that he was staring at her boobs, but then he said, ‘This isn’t SensiCloth. Do you want a size or so larger?’

  The shirt was made of a stretchy, black mesh and had ‘See the Mountains of Sapphira’ printed on it in green, neon lettering. It probably would have done a good job of crushing her breasts, but then… ‘It’s not for me. My girlfriend is a little smaller in the chest.’

  ‘Ah, fridgy. That’s ten credits.’

  It was kind of expensive for a gimmick T-shirt, but it was a gift; gifts did not count. Besides, she had had barely any expenditure the last couple of months. Taking the bag the shop assistant gave her, she headed for the door wondering absently whether she should go buy herself something. By the time she had reached the door she had remembered how much she hated shopping. The T-shirt was different; it was a gift, and gifts did not count.

  There’s a pool at the hotel. Not like I can get sunburn.

  ‘Actually, your dermal layer can take damage from excessive infrared radiation,’ Al commented.

  ‘Not like it’s going to stop me.’

  ‘I don’t think you’ll suffer extensive damage, even in this heat.’

  ‘Glad to hear it. You think Ella will like the shirt?’

  ‘A humorous reference to the breasts barely hidden beneath a semi-transparent, very short T-shirt? Of course. That said, she would like it if you bought her a lump of rock.’

  ‘Huh. Wonder what she’s up to.’

  Hayward Alpha Research Facility.

  Ella watched her screen the way one would watch the unfolding of a multi-car pile-up. You really want to look away. You feel somehow that you should stop watching, as though watching makes you some kind of sick, twisted person who revels in the destruction of others. Still you keep on watching because you cannot quite pull your eyes away.

  The voiceover just made it worse. ‘Subject Nineteen has shown a new form of symptom. We have not yet determined whether the crystalline layer covering his skin is formed of the skin itself or extruded from it. We will begin cutting into it this afternoon to determine the state of the body. There has been no sign of metabolic activity for seventeen minutes.’

  The body, its limbs contorted as though death had been agonising, wore a glossy sheen of glass-like material. Whatever it was it was coating every inch of skin, even displacing the hair which had once been attached to the man’s skull and pubic area. That was obvious since the figure was naked, a twisted, wracked, naked man who the narrator had infected with something which had a number for a name. Ella wondered whether they referred to their subjects by a number because a name would have made them Human.

  She fumbled for the pause key as the door behind her opened and the crystal man was left frozen on the display. ‘Vashma!’ Corazon said. ‘I’m glad we’ve never encountered anything like that.’

  ‘You don’t know how happy I am to hear you say that,’ Ella told her. ‘You needed something?’

  ‘Uh-huh, some of your blood.’

  Ella blinked. ‘Pardon?’

  Corazon smiled. ‘We may not have that kind of horror out here, but we do have a few unpleasant micro-organisms and someone got careless.’ She held up a hand. ‘It probably hasn’t got this far, but we’d prefer not to take the chance. Everyone is being tested.’

  Glancing at the screen, Ella nodded. ‘Test away,’ she said.

  Arlyn.

  The sun was seriously hot on Aneka’s skin. She had to wonder how the other people lying around the pool were coping because she felt like she would broil in her own juices.

  ‘Unlikely,’ Al commented. ‘Your body is quite able to handle this temperature without stress. Just remember to drink fluids when you get inside.’ His tone was mildly amused.

  ‘Yes, Mother.’

  ‘I would not even attempt to replace your mother, Aneka. I am merely a concerned support AI.’

  ‘I think you’re more than that.’

  ‘A concerned friend?’

  ‘Your girlfriend used me as a sex surrogate to let her make love to you.’

  ‘A concerned friend with benefits then.’

  Aneka chuckled, stopping when she heard footfalls coming closer. Whoever it was had shoes on and she had seen no one around the pool in footwear. Opening her eyes she looked around at the source of the disturbance.

  The man was tall and attractive. That got kind of boring after a while. This one came with perfectly groomed, blue-black hair, a deep tan, and blue eyes. His body showed signs of a regular fitness regimen, but not of active work; he probably sat behind a desk a great deal. His suit, he was actually wearing a suit in this heat, was immaculate and very expensive. He was wearing a smile too, the kind of smile which said, ‘Happy to meet you, I plan to screw you over.’

  ‘Miss Jansen,’ he said, settling down on a lounger without being invited, ‘I’m Philip Deerforth.’

  A touch of a button on her armrest lifted the back of Aneka’s lounger into a more upright position. ‘And what can I do for you, Mister Deerforth?’

  The smile wound up a notch. ‘I’m with Hayward Pharmaceuticals. You declined our
invitation so I thought I’d come to you.’

  ‘Ah…’ Aneka paused for a second to collect her thoughts. ‘Mister Deerforth…’

  ‘Philip.’

  ‘Mister Deerforth, the reason I declined your invitation is that the Federal Security Agency, Winter specifically, would roast me slowly over a bed of plasma torches for talking to you.’

  ‘We would simply like to plead our case for access to whatever technology…’

  ‘And that’s why you’ve been trying to covertly run bio-scans on me?’

  The smile flickered. Whatever Deerforth’s job was at Hayward, he was clearly a fairly good politician as well. His façade slipped for a fraction of a second, no more. ‘What makes you think we’ve been doing that?’

  ‘Process of elimination. You’re too persistent. If you hadn’t come here I’d still be guessing. Now, my flight to the spaceport isn’t for another ninety minutes, but I think I’ve had enough of Arlyn’s hospitality. Goodbye, Mister Deerforth.’

  She got up and headed for her room. Getting a message to Winter about Hayward’s zeal seemed like a good idea, but she was not sure she could trust the local communications system. It would have to wait until she got back to the Brigantia.

  ‘I don’t like this,’ she said silently. ‘See what you can dig up about Hayward.’

  ‘Accessing local network as we speak,’ Al replied.

  ~~~

  ‘Hayward Pharmaceuticals FRC is a very well-respected company originally founded in three-ninety-two by Justin Hayward.’ Al sounded like he was giving a lecture. Aneka smiled and let the taxi do its work as it carried her out of town towards the airfield which served the resort. ‘They held a patent on a particularly effective antibiotic which was used to treat particularly virulent microbial agents and have continued research in this area, but their best work in recent years has been in disease prevention rather than cure. They created a number of genetically modified, symbiotic bacteria which gave good results in fighting off infections that normal Jenlay find difficult to resist.’

  ‘Sounds great. I can’t see why they need to be so pushy. They seem like they’d be a shoe-in for the Galactic University, if it were ever going to happen.’

  ‘Indeed, but I suspect they are unwilling to wait. They have been beaten to the punch on a number of occasions recently by newer, smaller, more agile companies. Their nanotechnology research in particular has failed to bear fruit. Getting their hands on Xinti technology would give them an instant head start.’

  ‘So we’re just talking about an aggressive corporation looking to get ahead of the competition?’ Aneka relaxed a little in her seat.

  ‘Probably, but I did discover some information which might suggest another motive.’

  ‘I’m not going to like this, am I?’

  ‘There have been several, persistent rumours that Hayward supplements their income by engineering bio-weapons. It’s very illegal in the Federation, but they do their research outside the Rim. One rumour states that an influenza epidemic which wiped out most of a colony on Ybian Six was engineered by Hayward and deployed by an anti-Federation terrorist group. The nanophages that were implanted into your friends are benign, but the technology employed could be used to engineer weapons.’

  ‘But there’s no proof that they’re doing it?’

  ‘None that I can find. I think if there was solid evidence they would have been shut down.’ The taxi turned a corner and Al added, ‘We have deviated from the expected course to the airport.’

  Aneka looked out through the tinted window of the cab. They had turned onto a smaller road which seemed to be heading towards a group of low buildings. She could see a high, chain-link fence with an open gate ahead of them. ‘Something’s wrong.’ She reached down to one of her bags, opening up a plastic case inside it and taking out a slim sub-machine pistol.

  ‘I’m detecting radio traffic,’ Al told her. ‘Encrypted transmissions. The pattern suggests at least four transmitters ahead of us.’

  ‘Great.’ Her pistol signalled its readiness by displaying targeting information and a view from its inbuilt camera in her vision field. Fully loaded, five hundred round magazine, set to automatic fire. She waited.

  Two men in full body, black combat armour, the faceplates tinted to black, rushed out to close the gate as the taxi entered the compound. From the buildings Aneka guessed it was an unused warehouse facility; unused except as a kidnapping site anyway. The taxi came to a juddering halt ten metres from a third man. He was cradling a laser carbine in his arms, not feeling the need to aim it anywhere yet. Two more of the unknown assailants moved in from the sides as the doors on the cab slid out and back by themselves.

  ‘There are five,’ Aneka commented.

  ‘My radio sensors are good, but not perfect,’ Al replied. ‘They appear to be dressed in civilian-grade combat gear, equivalent to Peacekeeper armour.’

  ‘Aneka Jansen.’ The voice came from the one ahead of her, amplified by the suit and disguised with an electronic distortion. ‘Step out of the car.’

  Aneka checked the positions of the five men, well, four men and a women if you were being picky. No clear line of sight to any of them. ‘I’ll stay where I am, if you don’t mind,’ she called back.

  There was a slight pause and then the two at the sides moved in towards the doors. Aneka waited until they had moved to within five metres and then moved. Her left hand rose, palm spread, and the air rippled slightly as a force shield extended out to cover the door. The man on the right stopped in his tracks, trying to get his carbine up as he saw the pistol in her right hand swinging towards him. He never made it. There was a sound like ripping cloth as the pistol unloaded twenty slim, hyper-dense darts at a respectable percentage of the speed of light into his chest. Each dart was flash vaporised into a jet of plasma as it struck his armour and seared through into his body.

  Not waiting for the body to fall, Aneka dropped onto the floor of the cab, swung her weapon around, and fired a burst at the woman on the left. Plasma jets burst against her stomach, her rising carbine, and then her chest and throat. Neither of them was getting up, but she had three more to deal with.

  The windscreen exploded as a polychromatic laser beam hit the Polyglass, the tinting letting it absorb more of the light than usual. Aiming over the seat using the camera-sight, she fired off a burst into the leader’s helmet and was rewarded by a sharply cut off scream as her arc of fire intersected his visor.

  Laser beams carved into the rear of the taxi. Polyglass exploded over Aneka and she grimaced. Two more and they did not seem to be giving up. Annoying. Where was their self-preservation instinct? Deploying her shield again and ignoring the crunch of glass under her bare knees, she moved out far enough to see one of the two gunmen and opened fire. His laser lanced out, a white beam which sparked as the air around it ionised, striking the invisible barrier Aneka was projecting where it flared and died. Then Aneka’s slugs bit into his chest and stomach, and there was no more shooting.

  ‘You want to drop that thing and come quietly?’ Aneka yelled, keeping the taxi between her and the last man.

  Her reply was a loud crack as the laser ripped the air open. She heard structural bioplastic sizzle as the beam hit the cab. The thing was not going to give her much cover. She moved, stretching to aim her pistol around the back end of the dying vehicle, and saw the gunman’s back as he ran towards the fence at the corner of the compound. Aneka engaged the safety on her pistol.

  ‘Do we have network coverage?’

  ‘Of course,’ Al replied. ‘You’re going to let him go?’

  ‘He no longer represents a threat. Get a call through to Peters. I want Federal Security here, not the local Peacekeepers.’

  ‘A wise choice.’

  Aneka was not entirely sure whether he was referring to the escaping gunman or calling the cops. Maybe both.

  ~~~

  ‘We found a bunch of flyers for the Knights of the Void as well as a data chip with a video claimin
g the Knights had taken you,’ Peters said. To his credit he was not looking convinced.

  ‘I’ve encountered the Knights before,’ Aneka said, her gaze on the body of the team’s leader, ‘they were disorganised, carrying random weapons. They lost their primary source of funds when Humanity First was beheaded, I kind of doubt they’ve got better.’

  ‘Unfortunately, I don’t think we can chalk this down to simple terrorism, no.’

  ‘Any identification?’

  ‘Oh yes, about four each. All fake. Professional-quality stuff too, another thing which suggests mercenary or criminal rather than fanatic.’

  ‘Huh. Are we finished here? Can I get a lift to the airport?’

  Peters laughed. ‘We can do better than that. Due to this little incident you’re under the direct protection of the Federal Security Agency until we can hand you over to the Navy. We have an armed vertol ready to take you right to the spaceport.’ He gave a shrug. ‘Also, you missed your flight.’

  Aneka looked around at the teams starting to put bodies into Plastex bags. ‘Are you sure you’re protecting me, or the local population?’

  Peters started towards the rear of the compound and the vertol aircraft he had arrived on. ‘That’s kind of a tough call,’ he said.

  Hayward Alpha Research Facility, 10.12.525 FSC.

  ‘What am I looking at, exactly?’ Nayland asked. His screen was showing blood plasma, erythrocytes, leukocytes, and thrombocytes; those he could recognise since he did actually have degrees in biology and xenobiology. The problem was the small, dark particles floating in there, apparently entirely inert. Comparing them to the erythrocytes, they looked to be less than a micrometre across and they were just floating there.