Heir Ascendant (Faded Skies Book 1)

by Matthew S. Cox

  Maya pushed the vent cover out and peered down at the floor. It didn’t look like an awful jump, but doing it headfirst wouldn’t be a good idea. She retreated to the junction, crawled past the vent, and backed into it. After stuffing the recorder into the waistband of her leggings, she shimmied in reverse and slithered into the hole. Her sweater bunched up at her armpits; bare stomach touched frigid metal. She squealed and let herself drop free, landing on the rug in a backward roll.

  Burgundy-stained wood shelving took up three walls of the office around a modest (at least for Vanessa) marble-topped desk. The room had somewhat less sparse decoration than Maya’s bedroom, with only two functionless items: a morale-boosting award made of a sculpted obelisk of crystal that her employees had supposedly all chipped in to buy her, and a white six-inch pyramid with a cyan base. The company had distributed thousands of them, a bit of promotional swag sent to hospitals and doctors back when Ascendant still had to compete for business.

  Maya hopped into the huge leather chair behind the desk and stared at a warped version of her face smeared over the surface of a gold-tinted computer bar. She touched the power button and a holographic screen unrolled like a window shade spooling up from below. Amid a background of swirling smoke in myriad shades of blue, an Ascendant logo―a white and cyan pyramid―appeared above a red blinking light.

  She held the recorder out and pushed the button.

  The spliced passphrase caused the logo to disappear. The terminal displayed infinite swirling smoke for an arduous long minute. Maya pulled her heels up on the chair and shivered from the air-conditioning―this room had been turned down lower than the rest of the apartment. When a screen full of icons and a standard user interface popped up, she almost screamed a cheer.

  Holy shit! It worked!

  Leaning forward, she attacked the virtual keyboard. One thing Vanessa hated was inefficiency. She’d labeled and sorted everything in an easy to follow structure. Maya went into the Authority network, pulled up the ‘pacification and rehabilitation’ records, and got to the database of ‘MPRs’―Miscreants Pending Reintegration.

  Search: Female, black, age between twenty and thirty.

  Over a thousand hits came back.

  Maya added a detention date within five days to the search filter.

  It dropped to 108. She swiped her hand at the holographic screen, pushing aside picture after picture of women that varied from terrified to furious to so far stoned they didn’t seem to know where they were. The fifty-fourth image was Genna, in a bright orange jumpsuit. The expression on her face―pure sadness―made Maya cry. She looked like she knew she’d never get out alive.

  The file indicated they held her pending further interrogation in support of an execution order for suspected Brigade activity. They had no hard proof, but her visual similarities to security camera footage from several terrorist incidents came close enough that they decided to err on the side of murder. A freak of bad timing had saved her. Such a ‘maybe’ situation required the signature of an Authority commander who had yet to review the case due to being out on vacation for two weeks.

  Maya’s stomach did a backflip. Had ‘Sandoval, R’ not decided to go on vacation when he or she did, her mother would be dead. She growled, wanting to scream at Vanessa, but also mindful that the terminal could hear her. If she used her real voice, it would lock her out in an instant. Maya poked at the screen, changing Genna’s detention order to a charge of food theft, and the expected sentence of execution to the minimum selection available―three months. She grabbed a notepad from a drawer and wrote down the address of the detention facility the system showed in her record.

  Maya grinned. This might really work.

  Oh, shit. She raced to the door, unlocked it from this side, and retrieved the doll from the bag in her bedroom. After pulling Zeroice’s paper free from the dress, she hauled ass back to the office and smoothed the crinkled scrap on the desk in front of the virtual keyboard. One finger tap opened a net crawler. She typed in the address and hit ‘go.’

  The window flashed white, displayed a progress bar for two seconds, and then the words ‘site has no content’ appeared.

  She shrugged. Guess he didn’t program graphics. I hope that worked. Curiosity got the better of her. A hand swipe minimized the blank window and she opened an internal search prompt into which she typed ‘Maya Oman.’

  A result panel opened with schedules. A few dozen photo shoots, a handful of video recording sessions, a real-time status application linked to the fourteen false Maya androids. She flung her hand at the screen, scrolling past pages and pages of old appointments. Her unease faded at finding no trace of anything indicating Vanessa had ceased trusting her. Though being worried about a traitorous child would require having a tiny scrap of care.

  The scrolling green text bounced to a halt when it reached the oldest entry. The heading of ‘invoice’ made her blood run cold. She reached out and poked it, opening a screen with an e-mail chain. She swiped down to the oldest message.

  From: Kerensky, R, MD

  To: Oman, V

  Subject: Invoice 15812

  Feb 2 2084 3:14 pm EST

  Miss Oman,

  The genetic material assembly is complete. We have your fertilized egg ready for implantation. To confirm, you are requesting the child be female? All early signs look wonderful. Our simulation has predicted the physical characteristics you are looking for will fall into the desired parameters. In basic terms, she will be exotic and pretty. As for your request to have an IQ in the 140-170 range, that we will not be able to confirm until the child is old enough for basic testing.

  Please let us know when you would like to come in for the procedure to implant the fertilized egg.

  From: Oman, V

  To: Kerensky, R, MD

  Subject: RE: Invoice 15812

  Feb 2 2084 5:34 pm EST

  Yes. Female. I do not have time to set aside for such an ordeal. Grow it in a tank and send me a notice when it’s no longer in need of diapers.

  From: Kerensky, R, MD

  To: Oman, V

  Subject: RE: RE: Invoice 15812

  Feb 2 2084 5:38 pm EST

  Very well.

  From: Kerensky, R, MD

  To: Oman, V

  Subject: RE: RE: Invoice 15812

  Jan 28 2088 11:34 am EST

  Miss Oman,

  Your daughter is nearly four and is beautiful and healthy. Thank you again for settling the invoice. Cognitive testing shows signs of intelligence notably above average. She is ready to go home with you as soon as you desire.

  Maya clicked on the attached file and found an itemized receipt for genetic work totaling 650 thousand dollars, or 168,831 NuCoin. She pounded both fists on the desk. The marble slab didn’t react. Grow it in a tank? You bitch! Despite being more furious than she’d ever been, the tears wouldn’t stop. Not being able to make a sound without giving herself away as an intruder frustrated her to the point of gnawing on her forearm while her body convulsed with silent sobs.

  She raked her hands at the screen and headed into the Ascendant manufacturing system, wiping her cheeks every few seconds. I’m not an ‘it.’ In a few minutes, she’d gone into the production management system and noted preset lot numbers for both Xenodril as well as A-Profen, a common headache pill that even Ascendant sold cheap. After some manual tweaking of code, she swapped several lot assignments in the distribution control script. The end result should be several batches of Xenodril inserted into packaging for A-Profen. She remembered Vanessa screaming at someone during a photo shoot about the Parkville warehouse security being unforgivably bad. A few more finger taps, and she programmed the system to route the mislabeled shipment there.

  She tapped her foot on air, waiting for some sign that Zeroice had made it into the system, not knowing if she should stay here or get the hell out. Still, she couldn’t do anything until morning. Showing up at the prison doors a few minutes past 1:00 a.m. would fool no one.

&
nbsp; Thinking of bed brought Sarah to mind, along with a healthy heaping of guilt at the unfinished game. Maya went into the Authority personnel database and ran a search on Baxter, the man who knocked Sarah out with his rifle. His file looked unremarkable, but then again, his particular breed of assholedom didn’t exactly stand out among the blueberries assigned to the Hab. Maya opened an e-mail client, lifted the address of Baxter’s supervisor’s supervisor from the system, and sent a message (as Vanessa) to her.

  Lieutenant Witt. There is an officer under your command by the name of Baxter whose flagrant disregard for his station made me take notice of him the other day. He caused the delay of one of my people, which resulted in significant losses of time and money. I do not expect your officers to show such disrespect to those who work directly under me. That one of your men’s names became known to me should in and of itself be a significant indication of my vexation. See that he is dealt with in the most appropriate manner possible. I do not want to become aware of this man’s existence ever again.

  -VO.

  With a big grin, Maya drove her finger down like a knife into the virtual keyboard to send it. Even if they eventually figured it out as ‘boo-shee,’ the email would make that prick sweat for a little while. She yawned again, but scooted closer and hunted around for anything she could find about Genna, Headcrash, Moth, or Icarus. The Authority didn’t have files on any of them, which surprised her. Granted… had they known for sure who Genna was, she’d have been executed already, likely shot right in the apartment while on the floor next to Maya.

  On a lark, she searched for Fade. The usual data popped up, explaining how the bio-weapon came about during the war. Ascendant scientists determined it had been designed in such a way as to allow for contamination on friendly targets to have a long period (one to two weeks) where the correct treatment resulted in a lack of permanent effects. This simplified combat theater distribution as they could throw it all over the place and treat their own people later. The pathogen attacked the central nervous system as well as internal organs; the telltale appearance of random grey blotches varied from one individual to the next, an engineered cosmetic symptom for psychological warfare. Spreading rumors of false high-contagiousness coupled with obvious signs of infection probably caused as much death as the agent itself.

  Maya scowled.

  The computer had no information on which country had made it, but it did prove that it hadn’t been aliens or some dangerous microbe brought down accidentally from asteroid mining. Ascendant, at the time a tiny bio-pharma company, developed Xenodril. Based on the tone of the article, Maya got the feeling the United States had been the target of Fade since they had to scramble to make the cure. Then again, Ascendant might have had purer motives back then and worked to help the people if the government only provided the cure to soldiers.

  “Meh.” She scrolled past it.

  A heading of ‘Limited Persistence/Area Denial’ caught her eye. According to that white paper, Fade virus lingered in the wild for only seventy-two hours, after which it became inert and harmless. A link chain of internal communications over the past four years led Maya to a series of messages that made her jaw hang open wider and wider.

  Once the old governments had collapsed to anarchy, Vanessa worked out an idea to pacify the unruly population and give them something worse than the government to fear. Ascendant refined the Fade virus and began to manufacture it, using the supposed bioassay testing drones to spray live agent every so often, all the while making up rumors of aliens or asteroid mining. Subsequent to each infection cycle, sales of Xenodril spiked, providing Ascendant the financial means to exert enough influence over the Authority to effectively rule the Eastern Seaboard.

  Much of the inland portions of North America remained under the control of unaffiliated city states and tribes of nomads, but pockets of established civilization existed in some areas, with almost as much in southern California and Seattle as the east. Only, the Authority didn’t have direct power over them. Ascendant did market medicine to the California-Washington-Commonwealth, but the CWC had a separate military force more closely akin to that of the prewar government… and apparently not on great terms with the Authority.

  Maya blinked. They’d love to know it’s Ascendant making Fade. Uhh… that would start another war. She bit her lip, unsure if it would be wise to tell them. War would kill a lot of innocent civilians as well. I’ll ask Mom.

  An article on ‘Maximum Effective Impact’ detailed the schedules for falsified reports of airborne contamination. By controlling the forecast for bacteria, they could manipulate the population into windows of not wearing breathing gear. Whenever they announced a ‘three-day record’ for clear air, a release of live Fade always followed. This technique resulted in a thirty-five to forty-five percent increase in infections each time. Which in turn resulted in another sales spike of Xenodril. They sometimes sent long-range drones far enough west to drop infections, and of course only Ascendant made Xeno. Thus far, it seemed the CWC had resisted any attempt by Vanessa to gain political influence, though they had caved and purchased Xenodril.

  Maya clamped her hands over her mouth to keep her dinner inside. She’d known Vanessa to be cruel, but this… the idea that Vanessa had actively been killing people to make money… Ashley’s face came to mind, and Maya shuddered with sorrowful rage. She tapped several of those articles and swiped them into an e-mail. The terminal stuttered and slowed, then flickered to a lockdown screen.

  Oh, shit.

  She grabbed the paper and ran out, stopping six steps away. After going back to lock the office door, she ran to her bedroom and took the bag with her into the closet. Remaining in the apartment seemed foolish, but her body couldn’t stay awake much longer. And going outside didn’t sound like any less of a crappy idea. The best thing she could do would be to act casual and play innocent if someone caught her here. She could always blame hackers. Hiding in the closet would cause suspicion.

  With her alarm set for 8:00 a.m., she climbed into her old bed. Exhaustion stalked her guilt, and within minutes, she’d passed out.

  aya’s eyes peeled open ten seconds before the alarm buzzed. She rolled over and slapped it silent before lying still for a little while, unable to find enough energy to get up. Knowing Genna was alive, at least according to the computer, took a ten-ton weight off her heart. Today, if everything went well, she would be back home.

  Excitement got her upright. She went to the kitchen and fixed herself a Hydra omelet. A moment or two after she swallowed the last forkful, the front door hissed open. She considered hiding in a closet, but discarded the idea when a flash of blue armor moved at the end of the hallway connecting to the front room.

  She had to get rid of the blueberry fast, before he found anything or got suspicious. Legs crossed, one bare foot bouncing at a casual bob, she glanced up at the Authority Officer when he barged into the kitchen with a rifle pointed at her.

  “Put that thing down.” She scraped the meal tray with her fork and nibbled on a few scraps of stringy meat.

  “This apartment was empty. Who are you and what are you doing in here?”

  “Who am I?” She shifted her eyes to him without moving her head. “Are you an idiot? You do know who you’re talking to, don’t you?”

  His weapon dipped a few inches. “Maya Oman was abducted two weeks ago.”

  “Oh?” She looked down at herself. “I don’t feel kidnapped. Maybe you’re hallucinating.”

  “I was here. Seven officers were killed, one of whom I went to the damn academy with.” He shuddered with rage. “What the f―hell is going on?”

  Maya uncrossed her legs and stood, took two steps closer, and leaned up on her toes. “Oh, that is sad. Sorry. The whole thing was staged.”

  “Staged?” He glowered at the wall. “But… Marc and Darian… they’re dead.”

  “Do you think Vanessa cares?” Maya lowered herself flat on her heels. “Do you really believe someone could kidnap me?” S
he threw a dismissive wave at the wall. “Please. My face is everywhere in this city. They wouldn’t be able to go two blocks before someone recognized me.” She scoffed, twirled her hand about, palm up, fingers with a slight curl. “And, do you think Vanessa is going to mind a couple of bl―officers getting killed? I’m sorry people you knew were hurt, but I don’t have any control over what my mother does.”

  He squinted. “That doesn’t seem―”

  “Plausible? Really? Do you even know what she’s like? How many ‘criminals’ get executed for probably being the people that are wanted? Look at me with a straight face and tell me she’d lose a nanosecond of sleep over a couple of dead officers. Her staged kidnapping almost got me shot in the head, and that didn’t bother her at all. I wasn’t supposed to be actually removed from the apartment. The security detail was supposed to kill the terrorists who showed up. We exposed two Brigade people who’d infiltrated the Authority. The whole thing was a set up to lure them out. Considering how badly things screwed up, it’s a miracle it worked.”

  He let his rifle fall slack at his side. “Damn.”

  Maya softened her tone. “Look, I’m not like her, but I’m not going to tolerate having a gun pointed at me in my own home. I’m sorry your friends were hurt, but don’t make me tell Vanessa you gave me a hard time… Officer Quinones.”

  “So they just planted you back in here like nothing happened?” He shook his head. “Everything okay? Are you okay?”

  “Yes. I’m fine. You can go.” Maya fell into the chair, gaze down.