“Josune. It’s me. Nika. Body exchanger. Remember. Don’t kill me.” She lowered her own body carefully.
The blaster didn’t waver. “Prove it.”
“You were damaged by a sparker. You went into a Dietel. You’ve pink patterning over your skin. Dendrites. But then you went into another machine, which ruined it.” The patterning was covered today. Alejandro couldn’t possibly have known. “You came from the Hassim.”
“Spicy flatbread. Airy-fairy modder.” She was babbling. She turned to Snow. “You’re Bertram Snowshoe. Banjo—” She didn’t finish. To Roystan. “Gino Giwari modified your genes. He did something to you. You don’t look as old as you are.”
“If you’re Alejandro, you could have beaten that information out of Nika,” Josune said. “If we find you’ve been lying, I’ll kill you.”
“I really am Nika. And please help me move my body before I go brain-dead.”
Carlos sheathed his weapon. “Where to?” He shrugged at Josune. “Airy-fairy modder isn’t something she’d tell him.”
“Thank you, Carlos. Upstairs.”
“Upstairs?” Snow raised his weapon again. “If you’re Nika, you’d use the Songyan.”
“Alejandro’s boss is coming for the exchanger. He’ll check both Songyans.” She wouldn’t have a hope. None of them would. Besides, this Songyan was already being used for the exchanger. “I’ve got old machines upstairs in my lab.”
Snow shook his head, but Josune indicated with her weapon. “Jacques, help. Snow can’t lift with his arm.” She looked at Nika. “I’ll watch him. Her.”
Nika turned to Snow. “We’ve at most five minutes to keep the body alive. After that, I’m brain-dead.”
“How come she’s alive now? She looks dead to me.”
“My mods keep the brain alive.” For an extra fifteen minutes. She hoped. She’d never tested it. “The genemod machine will repair any damage to other organs.”
Nika locked down the studio—including the front door—before turning to the lift. She typed in the override codes, because even the lift was protected from Alejandro. She didn’t want anyone else walking in on her.
Which machine should she use? The Dekker, because she could flood it, which would save precious minutes on the startup. Plus Snow now had some experience calibrating the Dekker. Most importantly, it was on air casters, and she could plug in a portable power pack. They might escape before Wickmore arrived.
Nika turned to Josune and Roystan. “The minds will switch back after twenty-four hours. Provided there’s a live body to go into.”
“How many hours to go?”
“Twenty-four. Less ten minutes.”
Josune nodded.
Snow stopped at the door to the lab. “It’s like a museum.”
At least it was a working museum. “Open the Dekker, Snow.” Nika made for a cupboard and pulled out a container of mutrient.
“There are other machines here. What about the Netanyu?”
“The Dekker.”
Roystan opened it for her.
Nika nodded her thanks. “You’re looking better, Roystan.” She started connecting inlets.
“I am better.” He watched Jacques and Carlos ease the body into the tank. “What can I do to help?”
Nika had most of the basic mixes up here in the lab. Not all. “Downstairs. Dendrian salts. Third cupboard from the left in the main studio.” But she’d coded them all against Alejandro, and that meant she’d coded them against everyone. “No. Wait. I’ll go. You won’t be able to open the cupboard.”
She flooded the Dekker’s chamber with stabilizing gel.
Snow gave a horrified mewl. “You can’t do that. It’ll kill her.”
Her body was technically dead, which Snow seemed to have overlooked.
“It’s the only way it’ll work fast enough.” She adjusted the calibration settings. “Snow, you know how to keep the calibrations steady. You can do that one-handed.”
He opened his mouth to protest but moved to calibrate, because the readings were already moving off.
Nika deftly hooked up portapacks of mutrient, additional stabilizing gel, and blood plasma, and snapped them in. If she used one for dendrian salts, she had two outlets left. She thought quickly. Hooked up naolic acid, careful to place it in the outlet farthest away from the mutrient.
“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” she told Snow, before he could tell her how dangerous that was. “Let the stabilizing gel drop to fifty percent and keep it at that. The mutrient at forty, and the salts at five. Keep the other three inlets at equal amounts of the five percent that’s left.”
She hooked up the portable power pack. “I’ll get the salts and then we’ll go.”
Roystan kicked off the brakes. “Like old times,” he said, as he pushed the Dekker toward the lift, Snow frantically calibrating as they went. Josune stayed clear, her weapon ready.
The studio bell buzzed while they were in the lift.
Nika used the manual override codes to link in and see who it was. Leonard Wickmore. Along with five suited men. Four of them were big and muscular. The fifth looked familiar, but she couldn’t place him.
She didn’t answer until they were out of the lift and she’d waved the others out of camera view.
“The bitch has everything manually coded. On automatic lockdown,” she told Wickmore. “It takes a couple of minutes to reset.”
Josune raised her weapon.
Nika closed the link. “This way he’ll understand a delay.” She wasn’t sure if she was disappointed that Josune didn’t trust her, or pleased.
She brought up the outdoor cameras. Two of Wickmore’s heavies were laughing. Presumably at Alejandro’s need to unlock the doors manually.
“I’ll stay. Delay them. You need to get away.” She stopped at the cupboard, grabbed the dendrian salts, and thrust them Josune’s way. “Take my body out the back. Keep it in the machine. Snow knows what to do. Don’t believe him when he tries to tell you it’s hopeless. The machine should keep me alive long enough to do repairs. Alejandro and I will switch back after twenty-four hours.”
She hoped. “I’ll let Wickmore in the front.” She hesitated, then looked at the machine. The exchanger was too dangerous to leave in Eaglehawk’s hands. Think what they could do with it. “I don’t suppose you brought bombs?”
Josune tossed the salts to Snow. “Of course.” She reached into her bag, took out some small white boxes, and placed one under the front of the Songyan and another at the back. Among the cleaning pipes, where they couldn’t be seen easily. “I’ll set it to blow after twenty-four hours.”
Nika was glad for Snow’s anguished “It’s a Songyan” to give herself time to recover. They were only machines.
But they were her machines, designed to her specifications. She blinked. This was a stupid time to get sentimental about a box, when lives depended on those boxes being destroyed.
“We’ll buy another one, Snow.” She looked at Josune. “There’s another Songyan in the smaller studio.” She indicated the way.
“The art,” Snow said, and looked as if he would follow.
“Calibrator,” Nika said. “You haven’t got time to sightsee.”
Josune set two more explosives under the smaller Songyan, then pulled out a timer. “I’ll set it for twenty-four hours.” She put that timer back into her bag, pulled out another one, and handed it to Nika. The countdown on the face showed 23:59:010.
“This is an emergency trigger. In case things go wrong. It will activate the bombs immediately. Don’t use it unless you absolutely have to.”
Nika nodded and glanced up at the screen to where Wickmore, at the front door, was getting impatient. He said something to the heavies he had with him. Two of them turned and walked briskly back along the street.
Making for the alley.
“They’ll be around that corner in no time. Go. Go.”
They took the Dekker out the back door.
Nika quickly locked up after them, moved to the front room, and typed in the manual codes to open the front door.
40
JOSUNE ARRIOLA
Over the road, a man smoked outside an open door. It was the only accessible exit in the whole street. “Across there.”
Roystan turned the Dekker. Snow turned too, but not as fast. “Did you really put a bomb under the Songyan?”
If that was the big black box—and Josune hoped it was—then yes.
“You can’t destroy the Songyan,” Snow said. “Do you know how much they cost?”
Did he understand how dangerous the exchanger would be in Eaglehawk’s hands? “It’s Nika’s life or the Songyan,” Josune said.
Snow glanced at Nika’s still body and didn’t say any more.
At the last minute, the smoker dived through the open door, lit kafismoke flying. Josune got to the door as he slammed it, braced her arm against the force, and pushed hard, before the smoker had time to lock it. Something crashed inside.
Josune forced the door open.
The smoker was on his back. Two large drums had fallen over. One was still rolling. They were in a storeroom. A man and a woman ran out from the kitchen. The man brandished a meat cleaver.
Maybe Jacques could swap attacking techniques with him.
“If you’ve hurt Amarri I’ll kill you.”
“Relax,” Josune said. “Amarri hurt himself.”
“Did not,” Amarri said, from the floor. “They weren’t going to stop. She’s like a battering ram.”
But the machete-wielding man had seen through the transparent lid into the machine. “What have you done to Nika?”
“We found her like that,” Josune said. “We’re trying to save her life.”
“I bet it’s that boyfriend again.”
“He sent some goons around to the back of the studio. We had to get her out of sight.” Josune helped Amarri up. “Are you all right?”
Amarri nodded, then peered into the box. “He beat her up bad this time.”
“This will be the last time.” Josune meant that. She might not be able to kill Alejandro immediately, but that would happen. As soon as Nika was back in her own body.
If Nika returned to her own body.
“You can go out the front.” The chef hurried ahead of them, clearing the way. More of a hindrance than anything else, for he took them through the dining room, and the space between the tables was too narrow for the Dekker.
“Excuse me,” the chef said. “Emergency. Coming through.” He snatched a cloth off a table as he went and spread it over the top of the machine.
Josune gritted her teeth but didn’t say anything, just watched the trail of destruction as he barged through.
Outside, she circled in the street and didn’t relax her grip on the blaster until she was certain Wickmore’s men hadn’t followed them. All clear. “Thank you,” she said to the chef. “We’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone we came through.” Given that the whole restaurant had seen them, it was a stupid thing to say.
“Our lips are sealed,” the chef said, pantomiming the action.
She wished he hadn’t done it with the hand that held the meat cleaver, but he didn’t appear to do himself any damage.
“Thanks. Nika owes you one.” And Josune followed the others down the street.
41
NIKA RIK TERRI
“Took you long enough to unlock the door,” Wickmore said.
Nika knew how Alejandro reacted to criticism. She didn’t know whether he reacted differently to his boss. She scowled. “She’s got this place locked up with so many manual locks it’s a nightmare. Paranoid.” She ignored the heavies as they blasted open the back door.
Wickmore’s tone was dry as he stepped past Alejandro. “I wouldn’t know why.” He stopped as he saw Tamati’s fallen body.
His voice changed. Turned as reasonable and gentle as it had been the day he’d murdered Chandra.
“Explain.”
Sweat beaded Nika’s forehead. She knew Wickmore saw it. She forced away her first instinct, which was to wipe her damp palms down her trousers. Alejandro would never do that. Instead, she flicked a contemptuous glance at the body, trying to channel her best Alejandro. “He was too slow to get out of the way when her friends came calling.” Because she had to explain why her own body was gone.
Wickmore’s eyes narrowed. “Friends?” He blinked five times, rapidly. Waited. Blinked again. Waited a moment longer. Turned to one of the heavies. “Contact Benedict. Drag him out of his interrogation, if you have to.”
“Yes, sir.”
Bad mistake. Wickmore hadn’t known the others had escaped.
Nika controlled her breathing, indicating the room that contained themselves, the guards, and Tamati’s dead body on the floor. “They came for her. No loss to us. I had the codes. I let them take her.”
She tried to smile. A cold, hard-edged smile.
What had Tamati and Alejandro told Wickmore about the machine? She’d have to assume they’d talked only about what the exchanger could do, not about the timings. Wickmore hadn’t taken long to get here after Alejandro’s call. He knew that Alejandro had been in Nika’s body.
“I was back in my body by then.” She looked at the damaged wall. “They threw around some heavy artillery before leaving.”
“And you managed to avoid Tamati’s fate. How enterprising of you.”
How could she talk her way out of this? It didn’t matter, because Wickmore continued talking. “The security feed will show us what happened.”
Nika’s returning smile was chilly. At least she hoped it was. If he wanted to see the feed, it meant he didn’t trust what she’d told him. “Of course.”
Wickmore looked at the guard trying to contact Benedict. He blinked on his own link again. “We’ve been compromised,” he told whoever answered. “Roystan and his crew are here, on Lesser Sirius. I want them found.” He listened a moment. “They’ll have come through the spaceport here at the capital. They didn’t have time to come in another way. Go through every ship that arrived in the last two days. Check them all. Stop anyone who tries to get onto a ship.” A longer pause. “I don’t care if you have to shut down the spaceport. Do it.”
Only the Lesser Sirius police could close the spaceport, but Nika knew the police would do whatever Eaglehawk asked. Lesser Sirius had once been a safe place to live. It wasn’t anymore.
Alejandro’s body had an involuntary tic in his jaw when he was nervous. Nika had never seen the tic, but she could feel it now.
Wickmore turned back to Nika. “Any other news you’ve omitted to tell me?” He was using his reasonable, friendly voice again.
This time she didn’t care that he saw the sweat that rolled off her forehead. She shook her head.
“Good. Get me the security files.”
Nika moved over to the link console near the door. Once Wickmore saw the files, he’d see her talking to Roystan and his crew, convincing them of who she really was. What had she told them? Had she given away Roystan and Josune’s secrets? She couldn’t let Wickmore get hold of that. He’d hunt them relentlessly forever after.
Could she destroy the file without giving herself away?
“You,” Wickmore told the not-so-heavy heavy with him. “Start prepping that machine. We’re moving it to a secure Eaglehawk building.”
“You can’t do that.” The words came out unbidden. Nika bit down on her lip before she blurted out anything else. The Songyan had twenty outlets built in, with piped feeds to large vats of mutrient, stabilizing gel, and six other common ingredients. The electricals were hardwired. They’d have to turn the power off. If they did that in the next twenty-four hours th
ey’d break the connection to the exchanger. There’d be no way for their bodies to return.
“And why not?”
Think fast.
“It’s built in,” Nika said. “How will you be able to put it back together the way she did?”
“Don’t worry about destroying the machine. I’ve brought in a technical expert for that.” Wickmore nodded at the man he’d earlier instructed to dismantle the machine.
“Have no fear I will destroy anything,” the expert assured her. “All our machines have override codes, and I know this particular model well.”
Nika realized why he was familiar. Nikolas Comantra. One of the Songyan service engineers. Not the engineer who did the regular servicing on her own machines. That was Sinead Agutter. But Sinead had once had difficulty with the fine sensitivity on the calibrator. She’d brought two other engineers in to work on the problem. One of them had been Nikolas Comantra.
Comantra had been modded since, probably more than once, but he still retained a certain look. And he knew his product, knew it enough that he could relocate the Songyan without damage. Especially given that he thought he was moving a machine that wasn’t in use.
Except that it was.
If they turned the exchanger off, what would happen to her body? The genemod machine would fix it, but whose mind would be in it?
Alejandro’s?
She turned back to the console. “If you move the Songyan, you could destroy the exchanger.”
Wickmore’s smile was wintry. “I’m starting to think you don’t want me to have this exchanger, Alejandro. Convince me why your career should last past you giving me those codes.”
“Of course I want you to have the exchanger. I simply don’t want to see it destroyed through not being careful enough.”
“It’s such a pity, Alejandro, that you choose now, of all times—right at the end of your career—to show some backbone.” The smile hardened.
Was that a threat? Working for Wickmore would be like Nika waiting in her studio each day, hoping Alejandro was in a good mood.
What did she have to lose? “Don’t forget that I have the codes to the exchanger.”
Stars Uncharted Page 36