by M. D. Cooper
He glanced at the jammer he’d set aside when he first entered the flat. It rested next to a pod of inert formation material he’d had delivered as he’d waited on the maglev.
From where he stood, he could see a logo inscribed on the base of the jammer. It was the same as the one emblazoned on the empty canister of infiltration nano Lilith had used to hack an unconscious Ethan.
It read ‘Norden Cartel’.
He glanced over at the image of Enfield Aerospace floating in the holo before him, and then back at the logo. Then he dove into the darknet, following the paths Lilith had used. He initiated a search using various combinations of words and phrases that included Norden Cartel, hack, and pulse cannon.
His progenitor’s behavior had always been impeccable; he hadn’t the first clue how to navigate proscribed sites, nor how to acquire the requisite infiltration skills Prime sought.
Prime was not hindered by such things as scruples. Fearless and impatient, he submerged himself in the murky layers of illicit hacktivity. Probing tendrils speared the darkness again and again, a relentless volley that sought the means to access secured systems, behind protected firewalls.
The cache he stumbled upon was buried deep inside a hidden Norden node. He’d skipped over it initially, but backtracked, as something about the way the data packets were organized caught his attention.
Their arrangement held the subtle suggestion of a matrix. It was something a less-educated individual would have passed by.
Prime attempted to access the data, but it was encrypted. He attempted several requests, each time receiving denial. The message format of the denial, and the specific response time, gave him a clue as to the underlying system, and again he tapped into the data he’d drawn from Lilith, and found a key.
Crafting a request token with the key, Prime sent it to the data structure, and it unlocked, granting him unfettered root access.
The trove of information contained within came in the form of a semi-sentient entity—a backup of a shackled AI named Ashley. Within her memory was contained the sum of decades of expertise that the cartel had compiled on the tactics of seamless and untraceable infiltration.
THE QUANTUM ROSE
STELLAR DATE: 05.17.3191 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: Krait-1 Mining Platform
REGION: Dust Belt, Alpha Centauri System
On the flight to the Krait-1 torus, Jason and Tobias shared the grisly crime scene they’d stumbled across en route to the Enfield dock. As they approached the torus’s nearspace, Logan sent them newsfeeds that had just come in, revealing that the victims had been Humanity First members. The news nets were speculating about the slaughter, some wondering if it had any connection to the cartel trial.
They waited while Logan sent the torus their fake shuttle ident and was directed to a berth along the torus’s short spire, and Tobias hacked into the Krait’s network.
The feed showed an older but fairly well-maintained mining platform. The residential quarter looked worn and a bit sparse, but it was otherwise clean and well kept; the modest shopping and eatery district looked cheerful.
Tobias said, and Jason heard Calista sigh.
He knew she wasn’t too fond of going in without weapons, although torus rules allowed for standard conceal-and-carry issue pistols.
She made a face.
The torus lived up to Tobias’s initial read on the platform as he and Calista walked its corridors behind the rolling tread of a disguised Landon. The space gave every indication of being a benign environment, which was why Logan’s warning as they turned down a service corridor was a bit unexpected.
The cry sang out over the combat net, and Jason and Calista dove for cover as projectile fire peppered the passageway. He flinched as the shots pinged against the meager cover provided by the exposed steel girder, one of many that lined this section of the Krait-1 mining platform.
He chanced a quick glance into the corridor, then swore and pulled back quickly as one of the shots narrowly missed him. Taking a deep breath, he let his racing heartbeat settle as he forced himself to think calmly through what must have happened.
Nothing in the diagrams Tobias had downloaded showed that these service entrances had any weaponry guarding them. He’d be willing to bet this was a recent upgrade, and those running the torus operations had decided to omit it from public diagrams. They had to suspect a rescue would be attempted at some point. They’d be stupid not to, since news of the AIs they’d recovered over the past year and a half hadn’t been kept a secret.
He didn’t know what had triggered the platform’s defense systems, but he suspected facial recognition scans had IDed either him or Calista. Esther had told them a surveillance drone on the Kepler Mining rig had captured their faces during Nate’s rescue; it would seem Kepler had decided to share that information with their fellow miners.
Now all he could do was hope the base layer he wore under his clothing would be enough to protect him from the chunks of plas that flew like shrapnel into the air, carved from the bulkhead and deck where the railgun’s shots had impacted them.
And avoid getting shot in the head. His very unprotected head.
Privately, he sent to Jason,
He grimaced, then saw Calista shoot him a questioning glance from across the corridor. He gave her a thumbs-up in response.
Something told Jason its owner would need to have a fire sale soon.
As promised, Shannon had envisioned a very special cover for Landon. She’d tucked the AI into a combat shell modified to pass as a cleaning bot. After getting past all the comments on how cute he looked, Landon had gone along with the unorthodox disguise with his usual, cheerful grace.
When his twin had sounded the warning, Landon had shed the bot’s facade and unfolded himself in less than two seconds.
His mech frame, compact and fashioned more for stealth than brute strength, crouched a few alcoves forward of his position, the flechette gun that took up most of one arm held ready to fire at Jason’s command.
Then he frowned down at the pulse p
istol in his hand. The thing was all but useless against those turrets. He hated feeling helpless like this, forced to wait for Logan to wrest control of the platform’s defense systems from Rose’s unwilling hands while Tobias worked to free the shackled AI.
Calista must have come to the same conclusion. He heard her laugh lightly over the net as she continued to tease Landon. It only sounded a little forced.
The projectiles ceased firing, sensors having failed to detect movement in the hallway. Jason tensed, glancing over at Calista, who shook her head once. Neither Logan nor Tobias had given them the all clear, so he wasn’t about to leave the relative safety of the column he crouched behind.
Jason grunted in annoyance.
Jason tensed at Tobias’s warning.
He relaxed as he took in the five humans headed their way. From their movements and the armament they carried, he suspected none of them were augmented. He tapped a query into the feed and was rewarded with a cursory scan of each that indicated standard L0 humans, all around.
Calista’s question was a good one, Jason admitted. If a general alarm had been sounded, the miners approaching could be the first of a long list of problems.
Logan replied. The AI paused, then added,
Jason smirked over at Calista.
With Jason’s much faster reflexes, taking out five unaugmented miners shouldn’t be too dangerous. At least, not if he planned it out right.
He grinned back at her, and she rolled her eyes.
After a moment, she sighed, shook her head and then favored him with a mock frown.
The aforementioned miners were brandishing an eclectic collection of weapons, but fortunately, none of them appeared to be anything he couldn’t manage. A few of them carried chem projectiles, one of them looked like he was carrying a metal pipe as thick as his forearm, and—
Is that a welding torch? Jason mentally shrugged.
As long as his actions drew their fire to him and away from Landon and Calista, he was good with whatever they threw at him. Since none of the weapons he spied were particle weapons, he should be able to evade easily. As fast as Jason was, his speed was still no match for relativistic ones.
He stepped out, hands held at his sides, palms open in a non-threatening manner. He nodded, giving the miners his best aw-shucks grin.
“Mornin’, friends. Guess I’m lucky you came along when you did.” He drawled his greeting, his voice smooth and easy as he cocked a thumb over his shoulder. Nothing to see here, people. Move along now.
“You folks have any idea what I might’ve done to set those things off?”
As he spoke, he slowly eased himself forward, angling his path on an oblique trajectory that would intercept the cart. His demeanor was casual, telegraphing a person completely at ease. It belied the fact that he had instantly catalogued each weapon, tagging its location and making note of its wielder’s stance. He’d also mentally assessed each miner according to the threat level they presented and had calculated the amount of time necessary to incapacitate each one.
None of this showed on his face as he stopped at the cart, leaning casually against it.
“Ain’t no friend of yours, spacer,” the man holding the metal pipe growled. He shifted his grip on the pipe, brandishing it threateningly.
“You’re not welcome here, spacer. And you sure as hell aren’t welcome to our AI.” This from the woman wielding the welding torch. With the flick of her thumb, she opened the acetylene line and triggered the spark that lit a flame hot enough to cut steel.
“Whoa, there,” Jason began, raising his palms in a placating gesture, only to be cut off by a third miner, who motioned at him with his pistol.
“Git your ass over here. You think we’d leave our AI unguarded after what you did to Kepler Mining a few days ago?” He made a show of pulling back on the hammer, cocking the old-fashioned weapon and leveling it menacingly at Jason.
Jason exploded from his position next to the cart, lunging to one side as the pistol fired, its bullet plowing harmlessly into the plas deck at the far end of the hallway.
With one hand, he muscled the cart into a better position to provide cover for the team. With the other, he grabbed one end of the plas shingle that hung from the top of the cart, advertising its wares. He ripped it off and with a quick snap of his wrist, sent the sign spinning like an oversized shuriken, the makeshift weapon’s sharp edges slicing through the air with precision. It struck the pistol-wielder’s
sternum and embedded itself into the bone, the injury painful yet not deadly.
The kinetic energy Jason had imparted to the plas sheet rocked the man back as he grabbed reflexively at his chest with his free hand. Its impact surprised him into squeezing off another shot—as Jason had suspected might happen. It was why he’d put so much force behind the throw, to knock the man back so that the shot would hit wide of its mark.
Jason wasn’t operating at his full capacity. Since it wasn’t necessary to do so in order to disarm the miners, he saw no reason to advertise his abilities. This was an old habit, one deeply ingrained within him. He had always believed it was in his best interest to hide who he was unless absolutely necessary. So he rode the cusp, using just enough enhanced speed to dodge the attacks, and just enough strength to render the miners harmless to the team.
It seemed the welder now wanted her turn at him. She jabbed the oxygenated flame, which was burning at almost four thousand degrees Kelvin, straight at Jason’s face. He sidestepped at the last moment, feeling the searing heat pass by the left side of his face as he pivoted. In one blurring move, he wrenched it from the miner’s hands, flicked the torch off and sent it—along with its tank and hose—sliding down the corridor.
The miner wielding the pipe used Jason’s focus on the welder as an opportunity to take aim at his head. He could tell the man had the full weight of his body behind the swing when he felt the displacement the pipe made as it cut through the air.
Jason now dipped fully into his altered state, his neurons firing so rapidly that time itself appeared to slow. He turned and watched the pipe descending, as if in slow motion, toward his head. He waited until the miner’s arm was fully extended, and the swing on its downward trajectory, before dancing out of the way. Glancing back, he winced as he saw where the pipe would land. It arced down, connecting solidly with the welder’s face. With a resounding crack, the woman collapsed, her jaw clearly shattered.
Stars, that had to hurt.
Before the miner had a chance to do more than gape in shock at his partner, now writhing in pain on the ground, Jason whirled, grabbed the end of the pipe, and jerked it forward. The sudden movement yanked the miner off his feet, and he fell to his knees. Jason whipped the pulse pistol from its holster in the small of his back, paused for a fraction of a second, smirked, and then casually flipped the pistol around and cold-cocked the man on the back of the head.