by Greg Rucka
Carcareas paused. “You don’t seem to truly comprehend how remarkable a young woman you are. I find that extraordinary.”
“I don’t comprehend it because I don’t especially believe it.”
“But it’s so clear. Certainly Carrington knows it. I know it. DataDyne knows it, too, why else would they be trying so hard to kill you?”
“And this has what to do with my father, exactly?” Jo asked, angrily.
“Someone’s responsible for making you into who you are. If it isn’t him, then I’m at a loss for suspects. The Force Recon information explains an awful lot about you, actually, especially if he imparted that training to you in any small way, and I think it’s clear that he did. How old were you when he first taught you to fight?”
Jo refused to respond, checking her watch again. All of six minutes had passed since the last time she’d checked it.
“Oh, come along, Joanna, answer the question, indulge me.”
“It’s kind of hard to concentrate on the room with you yammering in my skull.”
“There’s nothing to concentrate on, you’re perfectly safe. Indulge me. How old were you when he started teaching you how to fight?”
Jo drank her tea, feeling the heat of the glass against her lips, almost painful in its intensity. The ache in her ribs was growing more acute, as well, and she wondered if that was a stress reaction, her body sharing the discomfort of her mind and her heart.
“Seven,” Jo said. “I spent a lot of time in the hospital as a kid, I had some pretty severe spinal damage. It wasn’t until I was five that I could really walk. He had to wait until he was sure I’d recovered before he could start training me.”
Carcareas said nothing for a couple of seconds, and Jo imagined she was taking notes, then thought that was silly, because in all likelihood Carcareas was simply recording their conversation. It would be someone else’s job to take notes from it later.
It probably wasn’t wise sharing information with her, Jo knew. Even if Carcareas was doing a good job of sounding interested in Jo—or, perhaps, even was truly interested in Jo—ultimately, it was an intelligence-gathering job for Core-Mantis. The smartest thing to do would be to simply shut up and endure the prattling in her head until Carcareas finally grew tired of not having her questions answered.
That was the smart thing to do, but Jo didn’t actually want to do it. On a purely operational level, she wasn’t giving Carcareas anything the woman wouldn’t be able to ultimately divine from other sources, that was already clear. Carcareas had found the information about Jo’s father; it wouldn’t take long to find what little remained in the public record about Joanna herself, up until the point that Grimshaw had sanitized her life. The hospital stay, that was public record. Everything was public record, really, up until almost a year ago, at which point Joanna Dark had ceased to exist in any official capacity at all.
That’s how it was working for Carrington. Everyone at the Institute, from Rogers in the motor pool to Potts in the armory, none of them were officially employed by Daniel Carrington. They drew regular paychecks from shell corporations and holding companies, funds deposited into accounts in false names. Working for Carrington, you were a ghost.
Carcareas already knew she worked for Carrington. Filling in a little of the backstory couldn’t do any harm at this point, could it?
Jo realized she was justifying the conversation to herself, trying to come up with a reason to allow it to continue. She knew why, as well; she honestly couldn’t recall the last time anyone had asked about her as a person. What she liked or didn’t like, for instance. Where she’d grown up. What she thought about this music or that video.
The best she’d ever gotten out of anybody at the Institute, including Jonathan, was a “How are you feeling?” And it was only ever Jonathan who had made her think he was asking about her for more than operational concerns. Not even Carrington, with his grandfatherly bearing and paternal smile, had ever asked Jo about … well, being Jo.
“Seven,” Carcareas said, her voice so soft it was barely audible, as if she was the voice of Joanna’s conscience and not a woman sitting some thousand miles away with a headset and a laptop. “That’s very young for that kind of training.”
“Shaolin monks begin training apprentices at the age of five. It’s not that young.”
“But the Shaolin don’t begin training them to fight at five, Joanna. They begin teaching them their philosophy at five, the rudiments of physical training. That’s not what happened in your case, is it? Or do I misunderstand?”
“No,” Jo said. “No, it was young, you’re right.”
“And you started shooting at the same age?”
“All of it started at pretty much the same age, yeah.”
“What was that like?”
Jo paused, looking into her half-empty glass of tea, then out at the bar. The one patron she had noted was picking up his coat, moving to leave, and the bartender had turned his attention to his d-PAL, holding it in both hands. Jo could tell just from his stance that he was playing some sort of game on it.
“I loved it,” Jo said. “Every minute of it.”
Carcareas sounded less surprised than genuinely curious. “Because you were spending time with your father?”
“Yeah.”
And because that was how I knew he loved me, she added to herself. Even if he never did know how to say it.
For a long time, Carcareas said nothing. Jo finished her tea, checked her watch yet again, and saw she had two hours and twelve minutes left to go. She looked up, thinking to order another pot of tea, and watched as a new customer entered the bar. He was an older man, perhaps in his midfifties, and as he unbuttoned his overcoat his eyes ran the room, settling briefly on Joanna before continuing on their way to find the bartender. She heard the new arrival ask for a beer, watched the bartender leave his d-PAL on the bar to fetch the order. The man glanced back at Jo, nodded slightly, as if acknowledging her presence, then turned his attention away again.
Jo let her hand find the grip of the Avatar, still in the duffel bag. He was too old to be hypercorp muscle, at least from the look of him, but something about the man set off alarms with her. It was in his bearing, the squared shoulders and the way he leaned as he tipped his beer. All of it seemed to say not only that he knew how to take care of himself but that he had no problem demonstrating the fact to anyone who might wish to doubt him.
“Might be trouble,” Jo said to Carcareas, so quietly she couldn’t hear the words herself even as she spoke them.
“DataDyne?” Carcareas asked, concerned. “We’ve been monitoring their Ankara transmissions, there’s nothing indicating a hit team is—”
“He’s coming over,” Jo said, and she raised her gaze to watch as the man and his beer approached her table. With his free hand, he was digging into his trouser pocket, at the front, and he kept his eyes on her while he did it, as if trying to assure her that whatever he was reaching for was nothing she should be alarmed by. His eyes were blue, watery, and she could make out a legion of creases on his sunburned face. His hair had more gray in it than black. He stopped a few feet off, giving her space, then pulled his hand free from his pocket and placed what he was now holding on the table between them.
It was a coin, a large one, perhaps twice the size and thickness of an American half-dollar. Slightly tarnished, but in the low light of the bar it still shown gold, and Jo could see without touching it the globe, anchor, and eagle emblem of the United States Marine Corps embossed on its center, the words “Semper Fidelis” beneath them. She reached out, then stopped herself, checking the man with her eyes, and he nodded, so she continued, picking it up and giving it a closer examination.
“Joanna?” Carcareas asked softly.
“I’ve seen this before,” Jo said softly, turning the coin in her hand. On its reverse face were printed a set of paratroopers wings, and above them, what appeared to be a diving mask with air hoses running to it. “It’s a challenge c
oin.”
“By tradition, you’d have to produce your own now, or else buy a round of drinks.”
“I don’t have one,” Jo said.
“Your father did. He had one just like that.”
“And how do you know that?”
“Because your father was Jack Dark, and I was his commanding officer,” the man said. “My name is Leland Shaw.”
Carcareas had gone utterly silent.
“The leader of the Hawk Teams,” Jo said. “You work for dataDyne.”
“That’s right.”
Well, here it is, Jo thought. You’re done. There’s no way you’re taking a whole group of Hawks, not in the shape you’re in. Fighting one of them nearly killed you, and there’s no way the colonel came here alone.
The thought should have frightened her, but it didn’t. What it made Joanna feel, instead, was ashamed, because looking at the coin in her hand, she couldn’t help but think that her father would have been disgusted by the whole situation. She’d let herself be trapped, she’d let herself be lulled into a false sense of security.
I never should have come in here, Jo thought bitterly. Stupid. Should have kept moving. Instead, I trapped myself. Stupid. Stupid stupid stupid.
Shaw was saying something to her, and she’d missed it, but Carcareas hadn’t, apparently, because along her bones she heard the woman say, “He’s lying.”
“I’m sorry, what?” Jo asked.
“I’m here to help you,” Shaw said.
“You’re going to help me?”
“You were spotted four hours ago when you arrived via CMO transport,” Shaw told her. “DataDyne has not one, but two hit teams converging on this location, and we’ve been retained to act as the third, just in case it goes wrong. We’ve got to get you out of here, and we’ve got to get you out of here now.”
“I’m checking his story,” Carcareas told her. “It’s possible something slipped past us, that you were spotted on arrival.”
Jo didn’t know whether to laugh or to simply start shooting. “Are you kidding me, Colonel? You’re dataDyne’s bitch, the Hawk Teams dance on the double-d string. Tell me another one.”
“You’re the daughter of a brother Marine,” Shaw said. “You’re the daughter of a man I stood beside in combat when hell and bullets were flying. I may take contracts from dataDyne, but that doesn’t mean I’m not a Marine, still. And if your father taught you anything, young lady, then I’m sure he taught you that even the worst Marine son of a bitch is worth more than the best that the rest of the world has to offer.”
“Macho bullshit,” Carcareas murmured.
“If you’re really his daughter, you know it’s true,” Shaw said. “And if you’re really worthy of calling yourself Jack Dark’s kid, you’ll come with me now, because it means you’ll live.”
Jo hesitated, looking down and speaking with the barest breath to the ThroatLink. “He on the level, here?”
“We’re still trying to confirm, Jo. But I find it hard to believe that dataDyne would have hit teams on the ground that we did not know about.”
“You also didn’t know they were in Veracruz until just before they hit us.”
“I’m not certain this is analogous. I think going with him might be very dangerous.”
Shaw was waiting for her, his hand outstretched.
Either way, Jo thought, this is going to turn out badly.
“All right,” she told Shaw. “I’ll come with you.”
There was a vehicle waiting for them outside, a retrofitted null-g van, and Shaw helped Jo into the back, following her inside. There were two of his Hawks in the vehicle, with a third at the wheel, and they nodded acknowledgments to her and the colonel upon their arrival but said nothing as the van took to the air.
“Where are we going?” Jo asked.
“We’ve got a staging ground near the airfield,” Shaw told her. “From there we can help you go wherever you want.”
“Why are you doing this?” Jo asked him. “Why are you helping me?”
“I told you. Even the worst Marine is still a Marine. Jack was a friend, I owe him this.”
“Did you know him well?”
“For a while I knew him very well. For a while we were like brothers.”
“It’s just that I don’t remember him ever mentioning you.”
Shaw looked at her, curious. “It was a long time ago, young lady. And Jack was never the kind to talk about the things he did, the things he saw.”
She nodded slightly, accepting that. Her father had really never talked to her about his time in the service, only that he had served, and that he’d gone in proud to do so. He’d never told her why he’d left.
The van tilted, losing altitude, and Joanna felt the shift of the engines as the null-g switched modes to land. There was a dull creak as the vehicle touched down, and Shaw moved past her in the narrow space, to the rear doors, pushing them open.
“This way,” he told her.
Jo got up to follow him, the two Hawks who had ridden along in the back rose as well, and she caught the flash of something metallic in one of their hands. Without stopping to think about what she was doing or why she was doing it, Jo pivoted to face them while throwing herself backward through the open rear doors, in the direction Shaw had gone. The air above her sang as shots from two Tranq-7s skimmed past, close enough that she was certain she could feel the pellets caressing her skin.
She slammed into Shaw square in the back with her own, and they went down together even as she drew her pistols, the Rapier coming to life in her left, the Hussar in her right. She fired twice from each weapon, not bothering to count the hits, rolling off of Shaw and flipping herself back to her feet. She heard Carcareas calling out to her, and her skull seemed to vibrate with the woman’s voice in her head.
Jo dove forward, toward the side of the van, and she fully expected not only the rattle of gunfire to follow her movements but the slam of the rounds as they found her body. The wound at her side tore open again, feeling like someone had taken a saw to her middle. She was already short of breath.
She came out of the roll as four more shots missed her by fractions, tranquilizer pellets bursting against the side of the vehicle, creating tacky spots of green and blue.
They want me alive, Jo realized, and then fired a double-tap from the Hussar at the Hawk who had made the mistake of trying to follow her roll around the vehicle. She hit him in the head with each shot, and he flopped back, and that earned the gunfire she’d been expecting, and somewhere around her a chorus of automatic rifles opened up. Rounds sparked against the side of the van, smashing through metal and shattering glass.
“No live rounds!” Shaw was shouting. “Alive! Tranqs or hand-to-hand only!”
Behind her, from the front of the van, Jo heard the driver’s door open. She twisted from the hips to track the driver, and her ribs erupted in agony, pulled too far, too fast. He heard her, dove for the ground, and when she fired, she astonished herself by missing.
Then something tore into the side of her neck, made her head jerk, and she realized that someone had grabbed hold of her from behind, had taken her by the hair and was jerking her off of her feet. She fired both pistols blindly, down at the ground, and the grip released and a man screamed as his feet turned to shattered bone and powder. Jo turned into him, pushing the barrel of the Hussar into his crotch, firing twice more. The man collapsed, howling and gurgling.
Carcareas was still calling her name, but she sounded funny all of the sudden, and as Jo looked for another target, a way to escape, she realized why. One of the Tranqs had hit her, was making the world slide as if she stood on on the deck of a storm-tossed ship. She struggled forward, her lungs burning, and then her vision exploded white. She staggered back and fell to one knee, feeling the start of a nosebleed, and she knew that she’d been hit in the face. She tried to get up and found she was face-to-face with Leland Shaw. He stabbed her in the chest with the barrel of his gun, and she felt the little
air she still had bursting from her mouth, and she fell again, this time onto her back. She heard, rather than felt, the guns in her hands skitter away across the concrete, knew she had lost them.
Shaw dropped with her, keeping the pressure up, the barrel of the gun an agony between her breasts.
“Jack Dark?” Leland Shaw said, his voice swimming through her head, mixing with Carcareas’s desperate cries for Joanna to respond. “Jack Dark was a son of a bitch, little girl.”
Then he pulled the trigger twice in quick succession. Joanna had just enough time to be grateful that Shaw was using a Tranq-7 and not a true firearm before time, firearms, and Leland Shaw all ceased to matter to her.
Then she laughed, or tried to, because she knew that Leland Shaw, the lying sack of shit that he was, had told the truth about one thing.
Jack Dark had been a son of a bitch.
* * *
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE TO ALL APPROVED NEWS OUTLETS AND DATADYNE FIRSTLOOKTM NEWSFEED SUBSCRIBERS.
BE THERE WHEN THE LIGHTNING
STRIKES TWICE …
29 January 2021–30 January 2021
YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED to the public unveiling of the next generation of DataFlow service software, the hotly anticipated AirFlow.Net Version 2.0. Credentialed invitees can participate in the largest, most anticipated product rollout in dataDyne history. (Events will also be simulcast on all dataDyne-sponsored news and entertainment networks.)
Join us for twenty-four hours of spectacle and celebration amid the splendor and beauty of Paris, France*. Special events include**:
29 JANUARY
12:00 PM
Commencement of Festivities, featuring DeathMatch VR superstars Nolan “Headshot” Ross, Brian “Killzone” Maeda, and Kristine “Princess Die” Hatch.
1:00 PM
DeathMatch VR Gold Match Tournament (sponsored by Royce-Chamberlain/Bowman Motors).
6:00 PM
Tournament End Ceremonies—Featuring musical guests Empire X, Kill-count, and Copper Jacket.
8:00 PM