by Linda Nagata
Several seconds pass as she considers this, her head cocked, fingernails rapping at the tabletop.
“What authority?” she asks at last.
“Just take my word on it: You need to rethink your plans.”
The focus in her eyes shifts as she checks something on her overlay.
“You know I’m not lying.”
Her focus returns to me. “You’re repeating what you’ve been told. That doesn’t make it true. We wouldn’t have gotten this far if the Red weren’t behind us.”
“You want to believe that. But the Red doesn’t give a shit. Not about me, not about you. That’s just the way it is.”
“Okay, then. Let’s talk about something else. Let’s talk about Eduard Semak.” She cocks her head. “Have you heard of him?”
Eduard Semak.
I don’t know that name. But I react anyway. It’s like the name is a trigger. Hearing it kicks off a reaction in my skullnet. The icon flicks on and a sense of mindfulness sweeps over me, telling me that Eduard Semak is a subject I need to pursue.
My focus shifts briefly to the encyclopedia icon, long enough to induce a menu to pop out. But what I need to learn about Eduard Semak won’t be in the encyclopedia. So I return my attention to Shiloh. “What should I know about him?”
She’s happy to fill me in. “He’s a Russian industrialist, one of the wealthiest people in the world and insane by any practical measure. Paranoid, hypochondriac, sure that God and his children are out to kill him. He’s become the ultimate recluse, literally withdrawing from the world to live in a cramped and ugly orbital habitat.”
The skullnet icon fades, but my interest doesn’t. “You mean a Sunrise Fifteen habitat?”
“You’ve heard of the company?”
“They build dragon lairs.”
The term must amuse her, because she smiles. “And you’re the dragon slayer.”
I hesitate, reviewing my sins—and she’s wrong. I’ve never slain a dragon. Sheridan isn’t dead, and I didn’t actually pull the trigger on Vanda.
“I’m speaking in a metaphorical sense,” she says, halfway between amusement and irritation. “You brought Thelma Sheridan to justice. Now I want you to go after Eduard Semak.”
“Why? What’s he done?”
“It’s what he could do. You went after Thelma Sheridan because she used nuclear weapons, but she isn’t the only dragon to possess them. She was small time compared with Semak. You’ve heard of Cold War weapons that went missing? Semak was part of that. He’s got a cache. No one knows quite where.”
“You mean no one knows but Semak.”
“Yes.”
I accept what Shiloh is telling me. I assume the weapons are real, a doomsday hazard that needs to be found. I want to make sure they are found. Found and eliminated. Not found and turned over to Shiloh’s control.
She speaks to my suspicion. “This would be your mission, Shelley. Not mine. I’m just here to tell you how you could do it.”
I want to do it. I’m supposed to do it. The faint glow of the skullnet icon is a dim reflection of the obsession building inside my head.
Shiloh gives me a worried look as she hurries on with her explanation. “Semak has an overlay, Shelley, like you and me. That’s where he keeps all his critical data. You’re going to extract that data and then you’ll know where the nukes are, and you can turn the information over to a responsible authority.”
“You know how to extract that data?”
“Yes, of course. I got inside your head, didn’t I?”
“Don’t bullshit me.” Shiloh never told me how she cracked my system, but I can guess. “Just because one of your people found a security hole in my setup doesn’t mean Semak will have the same vulnerability.”
“I can crack his overlay,” she says, definitely irritated now. “You don’t need to worry about how.”
“Then let’s worry about why. You’re on the side of the angels, you want to eliminate rogue nukes from the world. Right?”
“Of course I do. We’re all in danger.”
“That’s the mission you want to send me on, but it’s a cover story for the part you care about. You’re after all his critical data. Meaning account numbers? Passcodes?”
She nods. “Also, the means to update his will and his powers of attorney.”
“His will? You’re not expecting him to survive my interview?”
“I expect he’ll succumb to the stress. No need to feel sorry for him, though. He’s an old man with a lot to account for. Ruthless murders, and the slow killing of tens of thousands through environmental destruction on a massive scale. The fate of the world could be determined by the nukes he controls. Eduard Semak is a bad, bad man.”
“How do you know what data he keeps in his overlay?”
“One of the partners has high-level access to sensitive federal investigations.”
I want this mission. Or anyway, there is a program running in my skullnet that tells me I want it. But Eduard Semak is beyond my reach.
“You said Semak is in orbit.”
“Yes.”
“Then how can this mission be for me? I don’t know shit about space, or operating in orbit. You should have kidnapped an astronaut.”
“King David has a better chance to make this mission work than any astronaut. The Red will back you, Shelley. You know it will. I don’t care what you’ve been told. Your story isn’t over. This needs to happen and you’ll have a better chance than anyone else to make it work.”
The skullnet icon fades to invisibility. It doesn’t make sense I should get this mission—but it feels like something I need to do.
For a moment I wonder if Shiloh and her partners are the force behind my conversion—but I don’t believe it. Not after enduring their sledgehammer attempts to rewrite my disposition. I don’t believe she has the skill to mimic the emotional guidance I get from the Red.
A shift in her gaze tells me she’s looking at her overlay again. Her tone is sharp when she asks, “What’s going on with his skullnet? Who’s manipulating him?” I don’t answer. She’s not talking to me. Seconds pass. I imagine John and Mary explaining to her that they don’t know what the fuck is going on. Finally, Shiloh returns her gaze to me. “You are not connected to the Cloud.”
I don’t want her prying into my head, so I tell her the truth. “The phrase ‘Eduard Semak’ triggered a reaction in the simple AI that regulates my skullnet.”
She cocks her head, her mouth open in wonder, beginning to realize she’s won. “Approval?” she asks. “Preloaded?”
I shudder, wondering who the fuck I am, what I’m doing. I can’t meet her gaze, so I look away. I want this mission. It feels right. But how can it be right when my squad is dead because of her ambitions? Did the Red let that happen in order to put me here, preloaded to cooperate in her scheme?
“Shelley,” she says, speaking now with easy confidence. “Don’t fight it. You know what you need to do.”
I want to deny that. Deny her, because this is wrong.
Jaynie took over my squad because she believed I was not always in command of myself and she was right. I am running on a program. But knowing it doesn’t change my mind. I’m going to do the mission anyway.
• • • •
The mission plan is simple. Every dragon lair is sold with a habitation contract that acts like a condominium association agreement. The contract stipulates that Sunrise 15 technicians will visit each habitat at regular intervals to deliver supplies and perform mandatory maintenance. I will accompany the next maintenance run to Eduard Semak’s habitat, which is technically known as Orbital-4, or O-4 in the company logs, but is more commonly called the Semak Hermitage. We will stay at the hermitage for as long as it traditionally takes to transfer supplies and perform maintenance—mostly swapping out modules—and then we will depa
rt.
“We” means me and a spaceplane pilot flying for Sidereal Transit Systems, the company contracted to provide Earth-to-orbit transport for Sunrise 15. The STS pilot is code-named Amity. Shiloh assures me there is a second accomplice at Sidereal Transit Systems who will counterfeit the flight data, erasing my presence and making it appear as if a qualified, authorized technician accompanied Amity on the flight and performed all scheduled maintenance.
Simple.
After I’m introduced to the basics of the mission, Crow and his silent companion escort me one floor up, to a large room containing two mock-ups: one of a dragon lair, the other of the spaceplane’s cockpit. The room’s walls are radio opaque, and Shiloh is ensconced safely out of my reach in a “control station” behind a thick pane of bulletproof glass, so the shackles come off.
As my guards leave, Shiloh speaks. “We will look first at the habitat,” she says, her voice arriving through speakers in the ceiling.
“That’s not life size, is it?”
“It is. It looks small because it replicates only the interior dimensions.”
Those dimensions are cramped: The mock-up is just two meters high, with a length I guesstimate at less than eight meters. Several protrusions show on the outside—probably bins or closet space when viewed from the interior. There’s a closed hatch at one end. “What if Crazy Eduard decides against visitors and refuses to open the door?”
“Crazy Eduard won’t have a choice. Maintenance is mandatory, so the hatch isn’t locked. Once Amity has docked the spaceplane, you’ll be able to open the hatch whether Semak wants to see you or not. So open it.”
I follow her directions as she describes how to work the mechanism. When the oval door swings open, I stoop to look inside.
There are four flat walls, joined together by rounded corners. The walls are clean-white molded plastic. Just inside, a ring has been inscribed with a black marker. It’s labeled “cupola.” Beyond that, grab bars and handles stud the walls.
“Go inside,” Shiloh urges.
I duck, and step past the hatch. The floor is too smooth; it feels slippery beneath my robot feet. When I straighten up, my head scrapes the ceiling. The interior feels confined, claustrophobic. I don’t like it at all.
“Imagine you’re in free fall,” Shiloh says. “You’re floating, with a wall always in reach.”
What I imagine is the deadly nothingness of airless space lurking on the other side of the dragon lair’s pristine walls.
There is so much that could go wrong.
“What about radiation?” I ask. “Isn’t radiation a hazard in space?”
“Not for the short duration of your visit. You’ll be at the hermitage only about thirty minutes. You get in, get the data in Semak’s head, and get out.”
I move deeper into the pod, trying to understand why anyone would choose to live in a dragon lair. That’s like choosing to live in a fallout shelter when there is all the beautiful world to wander in. Crazy. No other way to look at it. Eduard Semak is crazy.
Of course, my life is crazy too.
Six meters in, there’s another hatch. I open it and clamber into a second, much smaller space, only about a meter and a half in length.
“The bedroom,” Shiloh explains. “Also, an emergency evacuation capsule.”
I open a closet door. A sleeping bag hangs inside. I find three more sleeping chambers, and a toilet. Then I make my way back through the main chamber, step out through the hatch, and look up at Shiloh. “What kinds of weapons does Semak have?”
“None that we know of.”
“None?”
“That we know of. But this is Eduard Semak. He hasn’t lived this long by being a trusting soul. He will have weapons. Darts, gases, garrotes, are all possible. A blackjack maybe—”
“Poison drones?”
“Possibly, but he almost certainly won’t have guns.”
I guess that’s reassuring.
“What’ll I have?”
“Body armor.”
I shake my head. “You’ve got me confused with special ops. I’m not trained for this.”
“The mission is simple,” she insists. “All you have to do is secure the dragon lair, its communications, and its sole occupant. Amity will take it from there.”
Simple.
I turn around and look again at the absurd habitat, the Semak Hermitage, a billion-dollar prison for a hypochondriac dragon—and I wonder again, Why me? Why is this my mission? There has to be an angle to this story I’m not seeing yet.
I move on to the mock-up of the spaceplane. It’s very simple, just a cylinder of white plastic less than three meters long, with two high-backed seats mounted inside it. Behind the seats, a cutout in the wall of the cylinder simulates a hatch, and in front of them, a featureless plastic board poses as an instrument panel. The cylinder is suspended from the ceiling by four mechanical arms—the most expensive part of the setup, I suspect. Right now, it’s oriented vertically, with the cockpit facing the ceiling as if the spaceplane is ready for launch, but the arms can shift, moving it to a horizontal orientation.
“Enter through the hatch and climb into the right-hand seat,” Shiloh tells me.
It’s awkward, but I do it, and then I buckle in.
“For you the flight is the easy part,” Shiloh says. “Nothing for you to do but enjoy the view.”
It’s a clever setup, cheap and functional, but it leaves out an important factor. “What about zero gee, Shiloh? You have a way for me to train for that?”
“Ah, no, sorry, Shelley,” she says in a coddling voice. “No swimming pool, no wind tunnel, no high-altitude plane rides. But you’re adaptable. I know you’ll do your best.”
• • • •
Over the next seven days I spend hours inside the training room, developing an intimate familiarity with the interior of the hermitage, and learning how to get in and out of the spaceplane in both its vertical and its horizontal orientations. I spend even more hours with a VR visor on my head, immersed in cheaply made scenarios that let me rehearse what to do if Semak tries to block me from shutting down communications, or if he comes after me with a knife or poison darts or bee drones, or if he has a gun, or tries to jam the hatch to the evacuation capsule.
“He will be wearing a face mask,” Shiloh warns me, her voice emanating from wall speakers. “He always does during the maintenance runs, because he doesn’t want to breathe the same air the technicians are breathing. So the presence of a face mask doesn’t mean he’s overtly hostile or that he’s poisoned the air.”
I push back the visor so I can see her at her post behind the glass. “Should I be wearing a face mask?”
She shakes her head. “He’d know right away you weren’t maintenance and he’d send an alarm before you could get the com link shut down.”
“How am I supposed to subdue him?” I gesture at my eyes. “He’s got an overlay, so just tying him up won’t stop him from sending an alarm.” I scowl, remembering when she called me the dragon slayer. “You didn’t expect me to murder him outright?”
She cocks her head. “Would you have a problem with that?”
“Yes.”
“You were willing to assassinate Thelma Sheridan.”
True enough—an inglorious segment of my history displayed to the world during the last episode of Linked Combat Squad.
“We didn’t assassinate Sheridan, and we don’t need to murder Semak.”
I’ve ended lives—a lot of lives—but that was always a necessity of the mission. If I don’t have to kill Semak, I won’t. I’d rather bring him back for trial than be his executioner.
Shiloh smiles, entertained by my hypocrisy. “I was only curious. We don’t want Semak dead—not right away. If he dies before communications are shut down, it’s sure to set off an alarm.”
My training c
ontinues. We run every scenario over and over again. At the end of each day, Crow comes for me with hand and leg shackles. I put them on myself, not wanting to get involved in another fight.
• • • •
Then a day comes when, instead of leaving me alone in the training room, Crow takes up a post by the door. I throw him a questioning look, but of course his anonymous visor betrays nothing. “What’s up?”
Shiloh is behind the glass. She answers over the room’s speakers. “Amity has flown in today. Your mission partner, the spaceplane pilot. This is the only chance you’ll have to train with her.”
I look again at Crow. “And you’re worried I’m going to kill her?”
“And what good would that do you?” he asks.
This gets me thinking, which is not always a good thing. I haven’t tried to escape since I accepted this mission—Crow hasn’t allowed an opportunity—but if an opportunity presented itself, would I take it?
It’s my duty to make every effort to escape, that’s how I was trained, but I want to do this mission.
I want it.
Because Jaynie is right and I’m a fucking puppet operating on a program written into my skullnet.
The door opens. Amity comes in. Anyway, I assume it’s Amity. She’s a woman of moderate height, middle-aged, her full figure gone a little soft beneath a black, long-sleeved pullover and jeans. Her hair is an interesting, dark artificial red. She wears it short, trimmed in layers. My encyclopedia contains no record that will allow it to identify her, so it tags her as unknown.
“Honored to meet you, Lieutenant Shelley,” she says in a cold voice with a light Russian accent. “I’m here only a few hours. Let’s not waste time.”
I hesitate. I’m supposed to be the muscle on this mission. That means I should be able to take her, use her as a hostage, a human shield to buy my way out of here.
I run a few scenarios through my head:
I jump her, she proves to be more than she seems, and breaks my neck.