Connor Rix Chronicles 1: Rules of Force

by Steve Statham

  “A rival company, then?”

  She smiled a cold smile. “You’ll just have to trust me on this one, Mr. Rix, but we know all of our competitors very well. And that is simply not a consideration.”

  He was silent at that. What an astonishing leap of faith.

  “We were hoping that your experience with the MI underground would be an asset in this search. The payment will be as you specified. Will you sign on?”

  “Just so I’m clear, our contract allows me access to Open Sky’s parallel network?”

  She gave him a level stare. “To the extent that this hypothetical parallel network exists, sure.”

  “Then can I get the hypothetical device recognition protocols and access codes?”

  “Hypothetically, yes.”

  He nodded. “Then I’m in.”

  “Excellent. I will be your contact. Please forward any leads directly to me.” She shook his hand, looking him directly in the eye. “And Mr. Rohm sends his personal thanks.”

  They left the room, but this time she led him down another wing of the Great Hall to a different exit. He tried not to look like a tourist, agog at the Great Hall, but could not help himself, casting furtive glances at the soaring beams clasped together overhead and at each new overlook.

  She took him to an exit with an oversized door, made from some metal he couldn’t identify. It looked new, yet with a patina that suggested aging. It was hard for his eye to capture a coherent pattern to the stonework surrounding the door and spreading along the wall. It was as if the stones had been thrust up from the earth itself, unguided by the hand of man.

  Two security guards eyed him with obvious suspicion, despite his escort. With his own optics, Rix could see the electronic impulses racing across their visors as they followed him with their eyes.

  “So will I get the opportunity to meet Mr. Rohm?”

  “Probably not,” Angie 6 said.

  "Then will I get to find out why you're Angie number six?"

  She gave a non-committal half-smile. "Perhaps in time, if we get to know each other better."

  Rix grinned in return. "Fair enough. We all have to keep some secrets."

  But at least the timing was good, with the meeting over. The pain was building up again, great waves of soreness that traveled the length of his body, from the inside out.

  3

  The night passed in slow-rolling agony, as he expected. No sleeping position was particularly comfortable, and just when the pain faded and he was able to drift, a fresh wave came rolling through, from his bones outward. He sweated profusely, and several times got up to pace the hotel room to distract himself from the aches. It was nearly dawn before the pain subsided and he was able to capture useful sleep.

  Rix had been through the episodes before, worse even. The bone density regimen had taken the longest to integrate of all his Modifications. At the end of it, as he nearly was, his bones would be virtually unbreakable. They had warned him before the procedure that there would be considerable pain as a byproduct of the muscle and nerve endings establishing new connections to the harder, denser bone material. So far he had been able to bear it. Two, maybe three more episodes, tops, he figured.

  Open Sky had put him up in a decent hotel on the outskirts of town, part of the newer construction that had sprung up in Las Cruces to accommodate the phenomenal growth of the private spaceflight industry. It was set back from the main roads and quiet, a good place to ride out the latest pain session. When checking in, the scanreaders had also unquestioningly accepted the documents he used for his Number Three identity, so his true digital footprint for this trip would be nearly invisible.

  He ate a leisurely breakfast in the lobby, methodically turning over in his mind the previous day’s events. It was still early when he pulled out of the parking lot heading south and east toward New San Antonio.

  To home and her.

  ****

  Rix turned into the parking lot of the Ramirez Brothers’ Taqueria as he usually did before finally returning home. He ordered his usual dinner and paid with the newly issued silver coins, tiny drops of moonlight that he passed to the cashier. From the booth at the front corner he sipped ice tea, looking out the window toward the industrial park across the street where he kept his living quarters. He surveyed the cars and trucks in the lot, watched the comings and goings. Nothing out of the ordinary.

  Marie had not pinged him on his Everything device, and a silent E-Thing was a good E-Thing as far as he was concerned. He was pretty sure the Atlantic States of America’s security services had stopped looking for him, but he knew old grudges from The Breakup died hard.

  Marie was particularly vulnerable now, and he had hated to leave her to travel to New Mexico Territory, but Open Sky had made it hard to say no. The pay was very solid for the job. But he had been shocked at how easily they had located him. It revived the jumpiness he had felt in previous years. You think you cover your tracks….

  Rix finished eating then ordered tortilla soup to go for Marie. He drove across the street and pulled around to the back of building C, opened the garage with his remote, and pulled his truck inside. His motorcycle was parked where he left it, meaning Marie had not needed to go anywhere.

  He trotted up the stairs, and made his way across the catwalk to the office on the second floor. Inside was the passage to the unit next door where they lived. He punched in his security codes, unlocked the deadbolts, and went inside.

  Marie was awake, of course. No one could sneak up on her. But she continued to lie still on the bed, smiling at him, letting him look her over, curves partly wrapped in sheets. The light from the setting sun streaming through the high windows lit her from behind, the warm glow highlighting even the fine hairs on her arm.

  She slowly raised up on one elbow.

  “Hey baby,” she said softly.

  “My Marie. How are you feeling?”

  “Well, I can’t say you didn’t warn me. This isn’t nearly as easy as the blood boost treatment.”

  There was no denying that. Biofilm was a bitch, he knew firsthand. The first biofilm application was the hardest. It sank into your pores, invaded your cells. But when it was done, you were largely impervious to bacteriological and viral infections. Mostly.

  Of course, after the first couple days of biofilm applications, many wondered if the occasional flu wasn’t so bad after all. Or even flesh-eating bacteria. In fact, the side-effects were still what was keeping the treatment off the above-ground, legitimate Modifications market.

  “So. Do we have a job?”

  “We have a job,” he said, grinning.

  “They didn’t try to pay you in paper, did they?”

  He shook his head. “All bullion, deposited in all the right places. Plus access to Open Sky’s parallel net.”

  She laid back down, still smiling, and performed a leisurely stretch. “Rich as Australians, are we?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t go that far.”

  “So what is the job?”

  He told her what he had been shown and what Open Space wanted. He described the scene from the security video.

  She was silent. And suddenly looked newly tired.

  ****

  Later, after he had unpacked, he uploaded the video from his optics to his largest screen. He reviewed it carefully, zooming in and out, replaying certain sections, optimizing the focus.

  The men were covered in tight black clothing, tight enough to reveal obviously Modified musculature. What skin was showing was tinted different colors, so that each man was a unique shade. When he first viewed the video at Open Sky, the Handler had speculated that this was a crude attempt to further obscure their identities.

  He zoomed in on one particular intruder, larger even than most of his comrades. The skin showing at his wrists and even his eyes were a fairly bright red.

  A particular red.

  Hold it.

  He examined those sections of the video with renewed attention. There was only one source
for that shade on human skin. “Fightin’ Mad,” they’d called that color when the side-effect had first manifested itself. Peruvian Steroid Numero Dos. A massive failure. After only a handful of treatments the skin turned a bright, distinctive red, cartoonishly red even. The blood vessels dilated so thoroughly that the result was an entirely new classification of rosacea. There were other side-effects the steroid designers had not anticipated. It was quietly put out of production, with only a very few people ever using it. Rix had been there when the first couple sailors with the condition were sent to lock-up. They had first gone to the infirmary, where they were of course written up for ingesting unapproved substances. After release they had made their way to a bar near the base, where they were relentlessly teased by the locals.

  Rix still remembered the transcript from the hearing. The final insult that had sent the two newly-crimson sailors into a battle fury was when the older of the two had been called “the original red-headed stepchild,” by a large drunk at the end of the bar. As it turned out, he actually had a red-haired stepchild of his own with numerous health problems. It was the wrong insult for that particular day, and that particular person.

  In one of his last assignments before the Breakup, Rix had hunted down the local supplier of Peruvian Numero Dos and extracted some useful background on the drug. It was his last official report. Very few higher-ups would have taken the time to read it, what with the military being forced to take sides as the United States began splitting into three nations and assorted territories.

  So the green man, the blue man, the yellow man, the coppery guy, they were all diversions. The others had colored themselves just to keep the red man from standing out. Interesting.

  Fortunately, Rix knew where two of the thirty-four Fightin’ Mad red men on the planet happened to be.

  ****

  Marie watched him from their bed as he reviewed his video, forward and backward, zooming for details. She wanted to get up, walk over to him and sit beside him, but her legs still felt as if they could betray her at any moment, like some colt taking its first steps.

  The episodes of nausea were lessening, however. Funny that undergoing treatments to build superhuman capabilities required so much down time being sick or in pain.

  The biofilm was the worst so far. By comparison, the blood boost packs, after some initial disorientation, had delivered a feeling of well-being and stamina almost immediately. Her workouts shortly thereafter had delivered startling results, with muscular definition she had never truly believed she could achieve.

  That had been an immensely satisfying time, those early days with Connor and the first tentative steps into the world of Modified physiology. Especially after the hardships and terrors of The Breakup. Every day she got more powerful, every day she felt less vulnerable. She thrived on a new, burning desire to get stronger, to learn more fighting techniques. To never again be forced to sit helplessly while her family was taken away. To not be ignored or dismissed.

  At some level, though, she remained surprised at herself that she had actually had the courage to walk into this new life, with its underground (and only occasionally sanctioned) Modifications, its unnerving yet wonderful alterations to her body. Making these choices required logical analysis, but also an extraordinary level of trust and faith in others. But Connor had been right with her through it all, leading by example, and gently guiding her down paths he had already traveled. He was always the optimist, always believed in what they were doing. Made her believe.

  She watched as he finally pushed away from the screen and turned to face her.

  “I think I know what our first move should be. I’m going to have to go out on the road again tomorrow. But this might be a very quick job.”

  She didn’t really believe that, but it was nice to pretend.

  4

  Rix ran beside the drainage culvert, loping along at an easy pace. The last vestiges of the pain wave had evaporated, as if it had never happened. He felt great this morning, but almost frantic to be out moving, working his muscles, breathing hard. He had a long drive ahead of him, and he needed — needed — a physical challenge beyond a routine session at the gym.

  He ran through the high brown grass along the barest outline of a trail, one used more by teenagers out to sneak a smoke than regular joggers.

  Not that he was going to be satisfied with simply jogging. As it became clear nobody was around to see him, he increased his pace to a full-out run, using every fiber of his enhanced musculature.

  He tore down the trail, lungs burning, blood rushing. The mismatched chain-link fences that paralleled the trail to his left melded together in a blur.

  He slowed briefly as the trail curved away from the concrete culvert in a gradual bend and then angled back toward it. He knew the lay of the land ahead. He had come to the edge many a time, wondering if he could make the jump. It looked to him to be about thirty feet across.

  Today he would no longer wonder. It’s not like I’m going to break any bones, he told himself, smiling. He picked up speed, regaining his full stride in four steps. He reached the edge and just leaped, long jump style, across the culvert. He noticed the slight trickle of water at the bottom flashing reflected sunlight as he windmilled through the air across the distance.

  He landed on the other side a full two feet beyond the edge. He slowed to a trot and then came to a stop, turning to look back at the distance he had just overcome.

  He laughed. Then he turned to run some more.

  He relished the feel of his muscles working, took joy in the movement of his body. As he had adopted each enhancement, each Modification, he had reveled in the awareness of his new strength, even through the recovery periods. His loose affiliation of like-minded MIs had always called him “the optimistic one,” but his attitude came more from the side effect of feeling young all the time, at a near constant peak. When he had tried to explain it to other people, he likened it to the feeling you had on your best days when you were young, when you slept in late and then leapt out of bed, full of energy, wondering which of the endless possibilities you would tackle that day. It was like that all the time.

  Of course, not everyone who undertook the Modifications came away with the same perspective. There were new Modifications available almost on a monthly basis these days, from a variety of sources, and not all of them meshed very well together. His light mood momentarily darkened as he reminded himself he was due to visit Jake again. The Modifications had not worked well for Jake.

  For all too many people, the wealth of enhancements unleashed astonishing capabilities, but very often also engendered a constant battle for balance in the host body. Sometimes this conflict just made them crazy. Sometimes, worse.

  And thus Rix found himself with a new occupation that suddenly paid so very well.

  He slowed to a cooling trot as he entered a more populated area, and then shifted down to a walking pace. The little trail was leading him to the backside of a lightly-traveled street. It was a jumble of modest homes and light industry. He walked between an upholstery shop on one side and a locksmith on the other. He could hear Spanish-language radio from the upholstery shop, and the ripping scream of air tools from a body shop down the block.

  New San Antonio was a sprawling city, loaded with industrial parks, warehouses, mom-and-pop businesses and inexpensive rentals. The city had proven to be an ideal place to hunker down after the war. You could live well cheaply here, and the economy was good. Even though the city had taken a pounding during the Breakup War, the rebuilding was well underway, generating jobs and considerable demand for resources. A steady inflow and outflow of people made it easy to blend in with no questions asked.

  Best of all, from Rix’s point of view, the new Texas Republic had little time or inclination for tracking, cataloging and monitoring its citizens. Few enough corners of the globe remained where that could be said.

  The other reason for the morning’s jog was to prove that very supposition. He walked alo
ng a sidewalk until he came to a small neighborhood park. He sat on a bench under an enormous pecan tree, bare branches casting dappled shade across the grass.

  He pulled out his E-Thing and turned it on. The screen flickered to life.

  One of the incentives to sign on for the Open Sky job — almost as much as the money — was the access to the company’s parallel network, a global, independent internet famous for both its alleged security and its often-denied existence.

  The original first-generation internet was still in place, of course. Not that you’d use it for anything important unless you were desperate. It wasn’t so much that it no longer worked, because it did, it was just that it functioned more as a data-gathering leviathan than a means of communication and commerce for users. Information on every transaction was logged, compiled, monitored and, more often than not, sold. Predatory programs swarmed like piranhas in a feeding frenzy, seeking out information. Spy programs descended from the ether, voraciously seeking secure data. The Breakup hadn’t helped maters. Chaos, no matter how brief, opens some doors that are better left closed.

  Rix had every piece of software available that detected tracking programs and toxic spyware, but even so, the old World Wide Web was a cumbersome beast. He’d finally given up on it, except in the most limited way. It simply took too much effort to fight off aggressors and cover his tracks.

  The most frustrating part of the corrupted web was the loss of the full capabilities of the Everything Device.

  It would be nice to have the E-Thing functioning fully again. He tapped in the commands to activate the Open Sky secure network.

  The new interface smoothly resolved on his screen. He tentatively tested the command sequences, the navigation, the sidebar reports on routes and security. He created a variety of contact protocols and established direct routes with his sources at Open Sky, and failsafe monitoring of his financial accounts.