“No,” said March. “Hard to be a covert operative when there’s a paper trail.” He shrugged again. “If I live long enough to retire, I’ll get a pension. Maybe a little farm somewhere on Calaskar.”
“A farm?” Her nose wrinkled with distaste.
“It’s what the Calaskarans do,” said March. “Serve in the Royal Navy or the Royal Army, retire, and go start a small farm somewhere on Calaskar.”
“I do not work for free,” said Axiom. “I am happy to kill Machinists and their useful idiots, but I will not do it for free.” She watched him without blinking, the irises of her eyes turning like gears around the pupils. “Do you believe in the Kingdom of Calaskar, Captain March? In its laws and ideals? God and the King and duty and sober living and all that?”
“Calaskar has resisted the Final Consciousness for centuries,” said March. “They’ve beaten back the Machinists in several wars. They’re the most effective enemies of the Final Consciousness.”
“Ah,” said Axiom. “That is why you are an operative of the Silent Order.”
“What do you mean?” said March.
“Not for the ideals of the Calaskarans,” said Axiom, “but for revenge.”
His metal hand curled into a fist. “Maybe I have cause for revenge.”
“You do,” said Axiom. “So do I. But I do not wish to spend my life in that pursuit. Revenge is ultimately a zero sum. My sister and I will make enough money, buy an asteroid someplace, and retire there.” She shrugged. “Do I wish harm to the Final Consciousness? Yes. But I do not wish to pour my life away fighting them.”
“I’m not your boss,” said March. “I didn’t even hire you. Do as you wish.”
“What I want,” said Axiom, “is to understand you.”
“Why?” said March.
She stepped closer to him, the strange eyes looking up at him. He didn’t step back.
“A former Iron Hand?” said Axiom. “There are not many of you. Most Iron Hands end up dead in the service of the Final Consciousness.” Her voice lowered. “You are a rare man, Jack March. Both in the literal and in the metaphorical meanings of the word.”
“That’s very kind,” said March.
“And I wanted to know what kind of man you are,” said Axiom. She took one more step closer. “Because then I would make up my mind whether or not I wished to do this.”
She closed the distance between them before March could react, and she leaned up and kissed him. He started to flinch away and then stopped when his brain caught up with his reflexes and realized what was happening. Then other urges outpaced both his brain and his reflexes. Her lips were soft and warm against his, almost feverish hot. Her body temperature would run a little higher than human normal due to the enhanced metabolism required to support her cortex computer. March found his hands settling on her hips, and through his right hand felt the warmth of her body soaking into his skin.
The kiss ended, and she looked at him, her arms curling around his back. He could not judge her mood from her eyes, but the smile looked pleased.
“You said you wanted to thank me for saving your life,” said March. His voice had gone hoarse. “Is that what you meant?”
“It is not,” said Axiom. “I rarely find a man desirable. Helen is the one who wishes marriage and children. But do not fear, Captain March. I have no such illusions. I merely wish to take pleasure with you to our mutual satisfaction.”
March said nothing. His training and experience said this was an extremely bad idea. His body reminded him that it had been years since he had been with a woman. His brain was starting to imagine what she looked like beneath the white shirt and the black coat.
“You find me desirable as well,” said Axiom. “I can tell.” She kissed him again. “I can see the dilation of your pupils, the increased blood pressure and heartbeat.” Her eyes flicked downward for a moment, and she smiled. “As if the other indications were not blatantly obvious. We are both physically fit, and I am certain the experience shall be a tremendously pleasurable one.”
She kissed him again, harder this time, and March found himself kissing her back. He had almost died tonight, they both had. It would be pleasant to forget himself for an hour, to lose himself in the raw sensation and pure physical need. Her hands went beneath his T-shirt, sliding over his back and sides and downward across his stomach…
Then her hands brushed the thick scar across the center of his stomach, and cold sanity reasserted itself.
He stepped out of Axiom’s grasp, and a hurt look flickered over her face for just a moment.
“Have I displeased you in some fashion?” said Axiom. The metallic eyes flicked him up and down. “Your attraction to me is not feigned. Nor is mine, if that is what concerns you.”
“No,” said March, shaking his head. “No, that’s not it. I…have a mission. You do, too. This would be a distraction.”
“When Casimir hired me to kill Richard Venator,” said Axiom, “a vow of celibacy was not one of the requirements.”
“But I am an operative of the Silent Order,” said March.
“Do operatives of the Silent Order take vows of celibacy? One wonders how you obtain new recruits.”
“But I cannot afford a distraction from my mission,” said March. “I am sorry.” He noticed that his T-shirt was still tugged up from Axiom’s seeking hands. He pulled it back down to his waistband.
“Ah.” Axiom looked at his face. “Do you hate yourself, Captain March?”
“No,” said March.
“A better question,” said Axiom. “Do you hate what you have become?”
March shrugged. “I used to be an Iron Hand, and now I’m not. That’s an improvement.”
“But do you hate yourself?” said Axiom.
She stepped closer, and slowly and gently lifted the hem of the T-shirt to run a finger along the thick scar on his stomach.
March gripped her wrist with his right hand and eased her finger back. “Don’t.”
“Do you hate what you’ve become?” said Axiom. “Do you hate what the Machinists made you into? The Silent Order operative with the arm of an Iron Hand?”
“Do you hate what they made you into?” said March. “The woman with iron eyes?”
Axiom considered this. “A fair question. No, I do not. I hate the Final Consciousness. I hate them for taking me from my family, for the pain they inflicted upon my sister, for the agony they inflicted upon me.” Her smile was thin. “They keep you awake for the final surgeries. But you knew that. I am free of them now…but it left me better. Stronger. Smarter. I can think faster than any normal human. I am stronger than a normal human woman. I look at you, and I can see the beat of your heart, the flow of your blood within your veins. I can see things that normal humans would never dream existed. So, while I hate the Final Consciousness, I do not hate what I have become.”
“Good for you,” said March.
Axiom inclined her head. “I believe I understand you better now, Captain March. Good night.”
Without another word she left, closing the door behind her.
March stared at the door and took a deep breath, trying to calm down.
“Goddamn it,” he muttered. He felt like an idiot.
But turning her down had been the smart thing to do. March was on a mission, and he could not afford any distractions. And he hated for anyone to see his scars. A liability, he knew, but it wasn’t something he had been able to overcome.
No, better to turn her down.
But she didn’t hate the scars the Machinists had given her as he did.
March wondered what she knew that he did not.
If Tolox needed him, she knew where to find him. March turned off the light and lay down, and was tired enough that he fell asleep at once.
Chapter 7: Sugar
They met for a council of war the next morning.
Tolox had a conference room next to the workers’ dormitory, though it was less impressive than the one the ghost drones had torn ap
art. A pair of plastic folding tables had been put together, and metal folding chairs sat around it. Tolox had also provided an array of foodstuffs from her various suppliers, mostly prepackaged breakfast pastries. Dredger and Casimir loved the pastries and dug in with enthusiasm. March helped himself to some beef jerky and protein bars.
At least the coffee was mostly good.
Axiom and Helen did not eat anything, though both women took coffee. They had changed from their formal clothes to the usual dress of off-world freighter crewers visiting Rustaril – black cargo trousers, gray T-shirts, jackets with a lot of pockets. Axiom had found a new pair of sunglasses and gave no indication of her attempt to seduce March last night. Though Helen looked at March with a faintly puzzled look.
March wondered how much Axiom had told her sister. Everything, most likely.
“All right,” said Tolox, walking into the room. She had changed into her usual gray coat and trousers. The coffee steamed as she poured herself a cup, and she sat at the head of the table. “We’ve all got a common enemy, so it’s time we started talking about how to take that enemy down.” She looked around the table. “First things first. It doesn’t look like there’s going to be any official response from the Securitate about last night.”
March frowned. “They’ll ignore an exploded helicopter and a gunfight in the heart of the city?”
Axiom smiled. “They already ignored several murders at Deveraux’s Video Parlor.”
“According to the news,” said Tolox, “the helicopter explosion was caused by a malfunctioning power relay that blew up under the street. The sound of gunfire was likely Administrators and Citizens both misinterpreting the sound of the explosion.” She offered her thin, mirthless smile. “They have so little experience with firearms, you understand.”
“I have spoken with my employees at the Renarchist’s Pride,” said Casimir. “They report nothing out of the ordinary last night, save for a large group of Citizens who entered the bar, used the elevators, and disappeared.”
“Our ghost drones,” said March. “Before their transformations.”
“It would seem so,” said Casimir.
“From what I’ve gathered,” said Tolox, “it seems the Securitate thinks this is a war between Casimir’s organization and Deveraux’s. The anti-Machinist elements in the Securitate won’t intervene unless the violence gets out of hand. The pro-Machinist elements will protect Deveraux, but can’t be seen helping a Machinist agent since the Republic is officially neutral.”
“Then they are an equation that balances to exactly zero,” said Axiom. “If I am to kill Richard Venator, I must do it without the help of the Renarchist Republic.”
“Especially if we want to get paid,” said Helen, giving Casimir a pointed look. He just grinned back at her.
“That means we can’t expect any help from the authorities,” said March, “but they won’t interfere with us.” He shook his head. “Hell of a way to run a government.”
“Traditional Rustari efficiency,” said Casimir, opening the wrapper of another breakfast pastry. If he kept eating like that he was going to need to lose the weight all over again.
“But that means we have a free hand to shut down whatever Lorre and Deveraux are doing,” said Tolox. “Based on what we saw last night, it seems clear that Lorre is planning to distribute tainted Sugar to covertly transform Rustari Citizens into those ghost drones without their knowledge. We don’t know what his long-term plan is. Maybe he’s planning to use them as assassins to overthrow the Republic and install a more openly pro-Machinist government. Maybe it’s all just an experiment. But either way, we’re going to stop him.”
“Great,” said Casimir. “Such a fine and stirring speech. How are we going to stop him?”
No one said anything into the silence.
“Sabotage,” said March. “With the assets we have available here, that’s the only option. Hiring mercenaries would just cause the Securitate to crack down on us, and we can’t get them to do our dirty work for us. The easiest way is to plant bombs and blow up the whole building.”
“That’ll make a mess,” said Dredger.
“And we might kill innocent people,” said Casimir.
They all gave him a surprised look.
“What?” said Casimir, affronted. “I am a smuggler, not a barbarian. I got involved in this to keep the Machinists from killing people, not to blow up random Citizens.”
“Mr. Casimir is right,” said March. “And practically, we need to know more about the warehouse before we blow it up. If Lorre has, say, chemical weapons inside, or a nanotech-based plague, blowing up the warehouse would spread it across Rykov City. He could also have defenses hidden inside that could neutralize any explosives.”
“The most logical path forward,” said Axiom, “is to obtain blueprints for Deveraux’s warehouse complex. Given the scope and size of the Republic’s bureaucracy, it is likely that plans for the warehouse must have been filed somewhere when it was constructed.”
“That would be correct,” said Tolox. “I can probably obtain the blueprints, though it will take some bribery.”
“Meanwhile, we should start surveilling the warehouse complex,” said March. “Learn the traffic patterns and the comings and goings of the delivery trucks and anyone who works there. It might be easiest to hijack one of the trucks and smuggle a bomb through the gate.”
“I shall assist with that,” said Axiom. “You hired us to kill Richard Venator, and this is the best path to achieve that objective.”
March wasn’t entirely happy about that. He wasn’t sure that Axiom was entirely sane. For that matter, she had attempted to seduce a man she had known for less than a day, which was not a sign of reliability. That said, her unique skills and abilities would make her useful.
“All right,” said March. “We’d better get started. Dredger, can you drive?”
The Tolox Vending van proved an excellent way for March and Axiom to get around the neighborhood near the spaceport and the warehouses. Tolox Vending controlled most of the vending machines in the warehouses and the spaceport, and Dredger drove from machine to machine, doing repairs and restocking.
March feared Axiom would stand out. Attractive women drew attention wherever they went, to say nothing of Axiom’s scars, cybernetic eyes, and complete lack of hair. Fortunately, she proved adept at disguise. A baggy gray jumpsuit concealed her figure, and she donned a brown wig and sports cap adorned with Tolox Vending’s logo (much to Dredger’s amusement). Heavy sunglasses masked her eyes and the scars around them, and she looked like a bored worker refilling vending machines.
What she and March actually did was install hidden cameras.
While Dredger repaired the vending machines, made small talk with facility managers, and paid the occasional judicious bribe, March and Axiom slipped away. Tolox had provided them with small, high-resolution battery-powered cameras, with sufficient charge for two weeks of continuous recording and transmitting. The cameras’ encrypted signals went to a laptop computer in Dredger’s van, and step by methodical step March and Axiom encircled Deveraux’s warehouse complex with cameras.
The process took about two days, and when they were done, they had a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of Deveraux’s warehouse. After that, March and Axiom spent the next day in Tolox’s warehouse, the laptop plugged into a pair of holoprojectors and two dozen camera feeds shimmering in the air before them.
“I do not think entry through the gate will be viable,” said Axiom, pointing at a camera image. “Every single truck that passes through the gate is inspected. The drivers must present credentials, and the guards visually inspect the cargo area.” She considered. “There are only two guards in the booth. It might be possible to overwhelm them.”
“Yeah,” said March, “but security drones are patrolling the yard at all times.” He pointed at another camera feed. It showed a black metal spider that looked like the one Axiom had used at the factory complex. Unlike Axiom’s dr
one, it was armed with a pair of machine guns mounted on its back in a swiveling turret. The guns lacked the raw destructive power of plasma weaponry, but the robot could unleash a devastating amount of fire in a short time.
And there were at least a dozen of the drones guarding the warehouse. That was on top of the security cameras that covered all angles of approach, the razor wire on the wall, and the scanners mounted on either side of the main gate to augment the visual inspections.
“Covert entry may be impossible,” said Axiom. “We might have to employ brute force.”
“Maybe,” said March. “But it doesn’t look like the roof is guarded, and we might be able to find another way in.”
Fortunately, by then Tolox’s friends and Casimir’s bribes had produced a blueprint of the warehouse and a map of the subterranean city. Like many modern cities, Rykov City extended almost as far underground as its skyscrapers rose above ground. The city’s fusion power plants were underground, ready to be collapsed in the event of a reactor failure, along with the maze of the subway system, the vast basements of the skyscrapers, underground parking garages, sewers, and a maze of access tunnels and equipment. Some of the sections of the underground city were inspected weekly and maintained as well as anything on Rustaril was ever maintained.
Some had been abandoned and sealed off for centuries.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we are in luck,” said Casimir. Tolox had brought up the relevant sections of the map on one of the holodisplays of her warehouse’s main workstation, and March and the others stood around the desk.
“Would you mind explaining how, Mr. Casimir?” said Helen. The map of the underground city was a bewildering maze of blue lines, red lines, and cryptic labels.
“Deveraux’s warehouse,” said Casimir, pointing at the appropriate spot on the map. “It extends two stories underground. The first basement level looks like commercial freezer storage units. The second floor is the HVAC equipment to keep all those freezers running.” He grinned. “But this is where it’s useful. A hundred years ago the subway used to have a station near Tolox’s warehouse. The government moved the subway lines after the spaceport expanded…”
Silent Order: Axiom Hand Page 13