chapter 4
Stephen Walters grinned toothily at the look of outrage on the secretary's face. "Mr. Waiters," she said, "I'll thank you not do to that." "It was just a thought, darlin'," he replied. "Yes. Your thought, and quite at home in your foul little head. Please keep it there." "Hey. Your loss. Is he ready to see me?" "In a moment." He put his hands behind his back and took one with the other, glancing aimlessly around the office. Despite his bravado, he was intensely curious. What could the director want with him? The door opened up, and Waiters put on a cocky smile when he saw who came out. "Well, if it isn't my old friend Fedor!" Fedor's return grin was froglike, so wide was his mouth, and his black eyes shone with good humor. "Hello, moi droog. What terrible thing have you done, to be called before the director himself ? It wasn't that Turkish girl, was it? I warned you they were funny about such things there." "I can't imagine what you're talking about, Fedor. And I might ask you the same, you know." The secretary coughed for attention. "Mr. Walters. The director will see you now." "Well, it's been nice knowing you, Stephen," the little Russian said. "If you have a moment before they lock you in prison and throw away the key, come by my place. And bring that bottle of vodka you owe me. Potato, not grain, for God's sake." "I'll do that, friend," Stephen said. He clasped Fedor's hand warmly and watched him go. He brushed his uniform and straight- 144 ened it, combed his fingers through dirty blond hair, shot the secretary a final leer, and entered the director's office. "Hello, Mr. Director," he said. "What is it today?" Kevin Vacit looked up at him. Walters tried not to show it, but Vacit gave him the creeps sometimes. The director had a mind that ran on tachyons, always on top of everything-but behind the now-and-then smile and the benign expression, there was something more alien than even the few Centauri he had met. Something extra-or something missing. It was a good thing, he reflected, that Vacit was not a teep-then he mentally blushed, realizing that the director might have any number of teeps around monitoring him anyway. "Stephen Walters," Vacit said, glancing at the contents of a file folder. "Born June 15, 2155, in Casper, Wyoming, U.S.A. Joined EarthForce in 2172-served in the 355th North American. Won the EA Silver Star for bravery at the Battle of Douala. Because of this you weren't court-martialed the very next year, in 2173, for striking a superior officer. Served as a mercenary soldier in the CAB until 2175, when you manifested latent telepathic abilities. Eventually rated P8-very surprising for such a late bloomer. Joined the Corps voluntarily that same year. You've been in the special ... ops division since then." "That all sounds right, sir." "You've done mostly undercover work, is that right?" "Yes, sir. I'm not strong enough to be a Psi Cop, so I do what I do best." "And I hear you do that very well-except that you are perhaps too enthusiastic." Vacit pulled a new page from the file. "Others are unwilling to work with you. They say you take too many chances." "I just prefer to work without a net, sir. You can't win a race without getting on the fastest horse." Vacit locked his hands together and put them before him on the table. "Well, Mr. Walters. I'm going to give you a chance to do what you do best, and I assure you, this time you will be very much without a net." "The Corps is mom and dad, sir. I'm up for it." "I'm glad to hear it." Vacit lifted a packet and passed it to him. "Those are the files on one Fiona Temple. She's presently in our internment camp near Kuala Lumpur. I want you to break her out." "Sir?" He shuffled through the photos. They depicted a young woman, maybe twenty. She was pretty, with auburn hair, high cheekbones, and large, blue-green eyes. "Ms. Temple was, until recently, a member of one of the most powerful cells in the resistance. We haven't been able to learn much tm her, she's a P12, and very good at blocking even the most determined scans. We could dig until she broke, but I think we would lose far too much that way. In the end, I think she would be more useful to us free than interned." Walters nodded. "I see. The old buddy game. Yes, sir, I'm up to it" Vacit nodded. "Again, good. But Walters, you speak of this to no one. You report only to me, in the field or anywhere else. As far as the Corps goes, you don't exist anymore, is that understood?" "Yes, Sir.,, "And Walters?" "Yes, sir." "This woman is important. I don't want anything to happen to her." "Yes, sir." "You will have some help in escaping from the reeducation camp-I'll give you the details later. But understand, no one in the camp will know about you. If you misstep, you're just as dead as any rogue trying to escape." "I sort of figured that, sir." Vacit nodded. "That's all that need be said just now, then. You'll be flown there in two days. I suggest in the meantime you familiarize yourself with the area and work on your story. Make it close to the facts so your surface thoughts don't contradict what you say. She's good enough to do light scans without you noticing." `With all due respect, Director-that you don't have to tell me. Like I said, I do what I do best, and this is it." "It had better be, Mr. Waiters. It had better be." Kevin watched Walters go with some misgivings. Monkey's death had come as something of a blow-he somehow never thought the old man would die, but there could be no doubt this time. It had taken days to find a fragment of him large enough to identify, but forensics not only had confirmed that it was him, but had enough of him to prove he was dead. Of course, it might have been a clone- No. Monkey would not be able to stand the thought of another him. And Fiona had been captured. He had always known it was a possibility. Monkey had never put her on the front lines, so to speak, but Monkey himself was never far from danger, and Fiona was never far from Monkey. He had to be careful, very careful. He was sure some of the more powerful teeps suspected him, and perhaps a few senators. One got old, after all. And though none of his enemies was in much of a position to touch him, it wouldn't do to underestimate them. If they were to discover that he had nurtured the resistance, even as he made the Corps stronger-well, he doubted any explanation would save him. Worse, everything he had done would be for nothing. He would do what he could for Fiona, but daughter or no daughter, there was only so far he could go. He looked down at his agenda. All routine, all things he had done a thousand times and would do a thousand more. Then he looked at the new report on his desk, and thumbing through it, felt an itch he hadn't felt in a long while. He chimed his secretary's conilink. "Has the travel office put together the equipment I asked for?" "Yes, Director. The team will be ready to leave Thursday." "Inform them that I will be joining them. Notify Mufwene that he will be in charge for a few days. And get me Ms. Alexander. I want to talk to her." And there was another thing he had been putting off. "Get me a meeting with the Centauri ambassador, as well."
chapter 5
Fiona fell into the filthy water for the third time, choking on the fetor of human waste and dead fish. An involuntary breath sucked the filthy muck into her mouth and nose. Her stomach tried to vomit, but there was nothing in it. She tried to push up on trembling limbs. Though her broken leg was healed, more than a month in the isolation tube had left her with the resilience of a boiled noodle. The Malaysian sun had raised moonscapes of blisters on her back and arms. The fever that caused-and the lack of food-were no help to her atrophied muscles. Her arms gave out. and she collapsed back into the flooded rice paddy. "Get up, you lazy bitch!" The voice sounded far away. She understood that her head was underwater, and that she might well be drowning. She couldn't muster the energy to care. "Bitch!" And then a jolt that yanked her whole body into a ball, cramped with agony. Ah, yes, agony. Leave it to real pain to show how sunburn, starvation , and fatigue were nothing but pretenders. She came out of her ball like one of the cobras that hung around the paddies, uncoiling each screaming muscle in a single motion that ended with her fist displacing the guard's jaw four inches upward . Not a big man anyway, he went back into the sludge, flattening rice as he did so. She stood there, glaring down at him, as other guards began shouting and a couple of shots were fired. The downed guard stood, his eyes full of a piggy sort of hatred. She balled her fists. 148 He advanced, raising his shock stick. She snarled and assumed a boxing stance. Kicking would be useless in this gunk. The guard regarded her, and then exchanged the baton for a pistol. "Hey! Hey!" One of the other p
risoners was slogging through the water toward them. "Don't!" The guard quickly shifted his aim. "Hey! Just wait a minute, fellah!" The man was tall, strong- looking, a dirty blond, even dirtier now. "You. Shut up." "Just hey, listen, man! Look at her tattoo. P12. You know what that means?" "Shut up!" He cocked the hammer back. "Okay, okay. But how do you think the Psi Cops are going to react when they come around and find you've scragged one of their possible recruits? How many P12s do you think there are anyway? It's not like she was trying to escape." The guard narrowed his eyes. "You aren't a P12," he observed. "No." The guard slammed his pistol back in its case and strode toward the big man. He hit him in the neck with the shock stick. The prisoner gurgled and folded, but did not fall. Fiona started forward , but two more guards grabbed her from behind. The guard hit the blond man again, and again, and again, until he was still in the mud. "You mindwitches. You make me sick. You think you are so much better than us. But Osman Taheng will show you who is better . You'll learn that, if nothing else." He turned back to Fiona. "You will carry him back to the camp. Whether he is dead or alive, you will carry him." The fellow began to groan about halfway back to the camp, which meant they only had five more kilometers of torturous mountain ridge to negotiate. She had wrapped his arms around her neck, and was dragging him behind her. Fiona had lost count of the times she had collapsed under the man's awkward weight. Worse, the guards were holding the rest of the work gang to her pace. This meant they would be as delayed as she, quite possibly beyond the evening meal, which was meager enough as it was. All in all, it was better than the isolation tube. Except- Except she missed Matthew. She hadn't found him since she emerged. For all she knew he was still in his hole. Or dead. For the briefest instant she had thought the man she carried-who had come charging to her rescue-might be he. But a glimpse of his mind was enough to dash that hope. "Hey-woddja-th' bulls loose mom-" He sucked a long, shuddering breath, and she stumbled again, this time just to her knees. "'Ey, no=' he said, a little more strongly. "I c'n walggh=' He gagged into silence. "I doubt that. He hit you seven or eight times. You shouldn't even still be alive." "Hell, my momma used to do me more times than that every morning." "Oh. So this is just nostalgia for you. And I was going to thank you." "Walk!" A guard jabbed her in the back with a stunstick, but it wasn't charged. "Oh-kay, here we go=' She draped his arm back around her shoulders and heaved him up. His legs kicked a little at the ground. "Be-still," she grunted. "That's-not-helping." Sorry. 11 A few minutes later, he did manage to get his legs under him again, and she felt more than half of his weight come off of her shoulder. At that point the guard hit him with his stunstick again. "You son of a-" She choked, as her charge collapsed once more. "I said carry him. Carry." Which she did, from there on out. If the fellow regained consciousness , he was smart enough not to reveal it this time. Fiona finished her bowl of rice and cast a longing glance at the one on the ground, a few feet from the unconscious man. She had, after all, carried him for almost ten kilometers. She had burned her calories and his, too. But that would be what they wanted, and she wouldn't give them the satisfaction, even to fill her still-growling stomach. In- stead she sighed and took a look at his wounds. None of the burns looked particularly serious. At her touch, though, he stirred and hesitantly opened his eyes. They focused on her, and for a moment he looked at her without recognition. "Oh," he mumbled. "You. Sorry." "You probably saved my life. No reason to be sorry for that." "Yes, but you had to carry me." She shrugged. "What's your name?" "Fiona." "Irish name. Good name." "Hasn't brought any luck with it that I can see." She considered him for a moment. "On the other hand, maybe it has. I could be dead now. Been here long?" "A few weeks, I think. Time flies when you're having fun." He held out his hand. "Stephen Walters." She took it. His handshake was weak, the fingers still trembling . "Nice to meet you, Stephen Walters. " "And you? You just got here, right? I never saw you before last week." "I was here. They just had me in a hole." He managed a weak whistle. "What did you do to deserve a hole?" "I've no idea, but I'm going to try not to do it again." She shifted on her haunches. "Better eat that. They'll take up the bowls soon." "Thanks for saving it for me." He lifted the bowl and began pawing the rice out, first gingerly, then with greater gusto. "Where did they catch you?" she asked quietly. "Angola, in the CAB. The Corps came in the same day they changed the laws. I thought I could slip past 'em. I heard there was some sort of underground, but I didn't have time to make the connection . You?" "Not far from here, I think. Kuantan." He seemed to expect a little more, but she left it at that. He finished his rice, and then glanced back at her. "Maybe I should've gone to Psi Corps." He sighed. She bit off a harsh laugh. "Well, it's gotta be better than this." She frowned. "Is this a recruitment speech?" He snuffled out what may have been a chuckle and pushed himself , hissing, into a sitting position. "Not hardly. That's not my style either. Not that they would take me now, anyway. You, on the other hand-" "Yes, you said something about that. What did you mean?" "I was in another camp, somewhere in the CAB. We had a P12, guy named Tycho. They put him in a hole for a while-then the Psi Cops came and took him. Maybe that's why they put you in a hole-to break you down, get you to join the Corps. That was my guess, anyway, and I saw your rating tattoo, and-" "Not from where you were standing, you didn't. The rating's too small. How did you know?" He flashed her a reluctant smile. "I've been watching you, I guess." "Really?" Her voice sounded a trifle cold, and she was glad. "Not-not what you think. I mean, you've got a nice face and a sweet smile, but that outfit has to go. And you could use more than a little cleaning up." "Look who's talking. Look, vacbrain, I appreciate what you did, but-" "Hey, hey. I'm just kidding. That's not why I've been watching you. Well, maybe it's what got my attention, but it's not what kept it." "What then?" "Fire, that's what. You've got some real fire in you. Enough, maybe-maybe to . . ." He trailed off. "Never mind. Guards are coming anyway, and there may be teep-snitches out there. Some people'll do anything for a little extra food, even sell out their own kind." She nodded. "Yep. Well. Be seeing you around, Stephen Walters." "Abacus." Over the next few days, as they cut ditches to flood several new paddies, she began to feel stronger. The viscous, clinging heat of the Malaysian day was no stranger to her, and her muscles were finally adjusting to being used again. She saw Steve for a few min- utes each day, but they mostly just exchanged pleasantries. She searched more for Matthew, but if he was out there, he wasn't letting on. She held on to the images-the sunrise, the house where he grew up, the beach at Santa Cruz. None of it real, of course, and yet somehow more real than what she was going through now. Monkey was dead. She had tried not to think about it in the hole, but it had come at her in nightmares. Back out here, in the world where he died, she could no longer deny it. He had gone out like she always knew he would, in a big fat blaze of glory. She hated him for it. More, she hated herself, because it had been her fault. She had led them there. She jammed her shovel into the ground. My fault. My fault. My fault. A thousand spades of dirt like that. She could fill the world and it would still be true. Sweat stung her eyes, but not tears. Two days later she burst out laughing, because "my fault my fault my fault" had somehow become maaf farad, Malay for "forgiveness heart." Just the kind of stupid pun Monkey would have loved to make. For that matter, it could be mrzya faud, "illusory heart"; or, better, mawa faud, "monkey heart"; or mawa foti, "monkey photograph" . . . Now she was crying, but the tears held something of joy in them. What would her grandpa Monkey say? "Fine, you feel guilty. Makes you feel all moral, right? Kid, there's nothin' less moral than guilt. You screwed up? Okay. You want to do something about it or just shoot yourself in the head? Because for a thinking being, there are no other choices." She came to with cold water on her face, thinking that there seemed to be a damn lot of coming to in concentration camps. She opened her eyes to Stephen's grey ones. "Water break," he said. "You went out, but I don't think anyone noticed. The heat?" "No. Epiphonic shock." He blinked. "You say the damndest things, sometimes." "So do you. What did you mean about me having f
ire the other day?" "'This isn't a good time-" "Because if you mean you want help getting out of here, let's do it." He grinned. "Now?" "Now." The grin faded. "You're serious." "Yep." He gave her the water cup. "Okay. We'll talk tonight." They left the food line, moving toward the village "square." The camp was an old kampung village-tin and concrete buildings , a few old-style houses up on stilts. Beyond that were the fences, ... three rows of them, stunfences with concertina wire strung along the top. There were supposed to be mines in between. "I do have a plan," Stephen said. "But I figured-" "You need a P12 to do it." "You aren't scanning me, are you?" "You'd know. No, it's just obvious." He shook his head. "No. You've got what it takes to escape, and most of these don't, sorry to say. I need a P12-1 need someone like you even more." "I'm listening." "Just be ready. Stay on your toes. You'll know when the time comes."
Babylon 5 10 - Psi Corps 01 - Dark Genesis - Birth Of Psi Corpus (Keyes, Gregory) Page 13