by M. D. Cooper
As he’d suspected, Calista had stayed behind to cover him while Landon had traversed the corridor.
He didn’t really believe anyone was behind those doors—and if there had been, he was certain Landon could have handled it—but damn, it was so much fun to needle the woman.
A quick chop with the blade of his hand disarmed the only other pistol-wielder. The man ended up with a wrist hanging at an odd angle and a knee blown out by the side kick he delivered just before moving to face off with his final opponent.
Instead of running like any sane person would do at this point, the woman set her jaw, gripped an overly-large wrench with both hands, and settled into a batter’s stance. She swung at Jason as he approached, but he just waited out the swing. When the wrench reached its full extension, he simply grabbed it and used the tool to deliver a punch to the miner’s solar plexus that shot her into the bulkhead before she dropped to the deck, out cold.
* * * * *
Okay, fine, Calista thought irritably. So she had stayed behind to cover Jason while Landon sprinted for the doors.
The man might be the next iteration of human evolution, but that didn’t render him immune to stray bullets, dammit. As far as she knew, blunt force trauma could cave his skull in just as easily as it would any other human.
So yes, she had stayed. It wasn’t like he was the one running this op anyway. If Tobias had a problem with it, Calista was sure the AI would have spoken up. But she knew the AI was more protective of Jason than anyone, having been with him since he was a kid.
The threat now neutralized, Jason had the audacity to wink at her and send her another smirk as the two jogged down the corridor to the service entrance to join Landon.
The AI mech was already at the node’s controls when they arrived. He’d located the platform NSAI; it had been left in place when Rose was installed. Now he and Tobias were working to reengage it so they could free Rose.
The torus’s lights flickered, then stabilized as the NSAI came online and resumed its duties.
Calista knelt and swung her pack from her shoulders as Landon switched each of Rose’s power terminals over to SC batteries. She opened the pack and lifted out a padded case with the isolation tube that would ensure safe transport.
As she reached for Rose’s test tube-sized cylinder to lift it from its alcove, she paused, glancing up at Landon to confirm that the shackled AI was ready for transfer. At his nod, Calista relocated Rose and seated her firmly into the padded case. Then she closed the unit and secured it inside her pack.
The AI inclined his head in a brief nod.
Calista nodded at Jason’s suggestion then followed as he and Landon wove their way past the unconscious miners littering the hallway, and out into the concourse that led to where the Sable Wind was docked.
As she walked, her eyes tracked from one side of the drab and utilitarian space to the other. Jason was on point, and Landon moved to bring up the rear. The sensors on his mech frame allowed him to monitor the part of the concourse they left behind much more effectively than a human could, while traveling at such a brisk clip.
The concourse had emptied in the wake of the autoturret fire, and she could hear their footsteps echoing softly as they traversed the cavernous space. Calista fought the feeling that dozens of eyes were watching as they passed shuttered businesses, then decided she didn’t care.
She much preferred this to the manner in which they had entered the platform. Low profile and covert weren’t really Calista’s forte. She was a woman used to direct action and preferred the solid feel of a weapon in her hand. She’d hated the feeling of vulnerability she’d experienced when they’d arrived posing as civilians.
Calista watched as Jason shed his pack, secured his weapons, and then slid into the copilot’s seat. His movements were smooth, economical, graceful.
Calista retorted lamely, her eyes drawn to the rock-hard abs and narrow waist that a tight-fitting shipsuit did nothing to hide.
As she placed her rifle in the ship’s weapons locker, she snuck one last look. Jason had turned, his face now in profile. The rough, day-old stubble he often wore did nothing to hide the dimple that would occasionally show when he quirked a smile, as he did now.
The man’s dark blonde hair was cropped close but still somehow always looked mussed, like he’d just tumbled out of bed.
Now, isn’t that a nice thought. If all L2 humans are like this, they should come with a warning, she thought to herself as she worked her way forward to the cockpit. Especially for pilots, who don’t need distractions.
* * * * *
He glanced back over his shoulder and met Calista’s eyes. He felt his grin ease into a lazy smile, as his eyes drifted over the woman’s lithe form.
The AI’s avatar smirked at him as the shuttle disengaged from the Krait-1 torus, and both ships plotted a course back to the El Dorado ring.
REFINERY 47
STELLAR DATE: 05.18.3191 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: KLM Labs Mandratura Refinery Asteroid
REGION: Cool Dust Belt, Proxima Centauri System
The pleasure yacht drifted silently along the inner edge of Proxima’s cool dust belt. Its owner, Karen Leighton, stood in front of a large viewing screen, staring out at an unimposing chunk of rock floating before her. Next to her stood the trade representative for the Incorvaia Syndicate. The woman loo
ked unimpressed.
“State of the art refinery, you say?” Linda Gardin’s tone was skeptical and a little disparaging as she flicked a glance back at Karen.
Karen smiled politely, her response courteous and deferential toward the woman she was aiming to impress. She knew the syndicate woman’s attitude was an act, designed to remind Karen that she was the supplicant, with Linda the one holding all the cards in this negotiation.
“I know it looks like just another shattered fragment formed from Proxima's protoplanetary disk, but I assure you, this is to our benefit.”
She turned away from the screen, its elegant frame serving as the focal point of the yacht’s viewing deck and entertainment theatre, and accessed the room’s holo tank. Bringing up a sim of the asteroid suspended in space in front of them, she rotated it, gesturing to a recessed area as she directed the image to zoom.
Simulated lighting winked on, illuminating a large docking bay suitable for the loading of warehoused goods.
“This asteroid is a discard from one of the mining rigs, abandoned by the company when it went bankrupt.” She shrugged. “Turned out the assay they’d made indicating the existence of rhenium mixed with molybdenite was a bit optimistic, and they ran out of resources before doing much more than extracting core samples.”
Karen dismissed the sim and returned her gaze to the viewing screen. “Their loss was our gain.” She gestured to the slowly rotating rock as the yacht rounded the asteroid’s terminator and revealed the shadowed depression shown in the sim that the ship was now approaching.
“We will dock, but only so that we can access secured internal systems,” Karen cautioned. “Mandratura is far too toxic to risk exposure.”
Linda raised a skeptical brow. “If the refinery has nanoparticle cleanrooms installed, I fail to see where the danger lies.”
Karen schooled her expression to hide a brief flare of annoyance. It was Linda’s job to voice reservations about Karen’s operation as she investigated the refinery as a potential investment opportunity.
It was Karen’s job to convince Linda that the mandratura operation was worthy of the syndicate’s credits. If that meant proving to Linda that she, Karen, knew what she was about—so be it.
“You’re right, we do have cleanrooms, and they’re in perfect working order. But,” she cautioned, “nanoparticle cleanrooms are for the distillation and manufacture of MDT. They don’t prevent the substance—specifically, mandratura in its fine particulate form—from getting out. And that’s the crux of our problem.”
Once more, Karen turned to the room’s holotank, this time bringing up a diagram of the refinery. “In a pharmaceutical manufacturing facility like this, you can rely only so much on NSAI workers. At some point, there must be a human—or AI—element in the quality assurance process.”
She highlighted one of the refinery’s cleanrooms and then tapped on an anteroom attached to it, marked ‘grey room’. “We have measures in place to minimize the spread of hazardous airborne molecules from within the cleanroom, but issues have begun to develop with homogeneous nucleation of mandratura particles. We’re finding that ultrafine refractory fumes are forming MDT nanodroplets, caused by condensation from the vapor phase. When these are ingested by human workers, well…” her voice trailed off, and her expression turned wry. “Let’s just say they’re treated to a very special, trippy kind of death. Turnover at my plant is a real bitch.”
Linda’s brows rose. “Exactly how much of a ‘bitch’ are we talking here? I can supply you with hundreds of human workers for the same price a single AI will cost you. Much less the dozen you’ve requested.”
Karen stared at her for a moment as she repressed the urge to narrow her eyes at the woman and snap a sharp retort.
You think I don’t know this? I might not be syndicate, but I’ve been in charge of this drug operation decades longer than you’ve been alive, honey.
Instead of voicing such a caustic comment, she merely turned back to the holotank, this time, bringing up the chemical composition of mandratura.
“I know that, to date, MDT refineries haven’t run into an issue of this magnitude. But that’s because they base their production on a different raw material from the one I use.”
Karen brought up an image of two plants and sent them rotating next to the chemical formula. “I personally did the genetic splicing for this mandrake-datura variant, maximizing its potency. When distilled, it delivers the highest combination of hallucinogenic and hypnotic effects of any tropane alkaloid in existence.”
At Linda’s blank look, Karen repressed another sigh, opting instead to bring up sims of users in the thrall of MDT.
“Controlled studies show our biggest selling point is the user’s complete inability to differentiate reality from fantasy. Following at a close second is the pronounced amnesia that MDT induces. Together, these effects make this one of the most highly sought-after recreational drugs on the market.”
She saw that Linda’s blank look had morphed into one more closely resembling impatience, so Karen jumped to her closing argument.
“My mandratura cultivar differs in that it is highly biologically active. Mednano cannot scrub it from the human system fast enough. MDT outpaces it in every trial. Of course,” she admitted, sparing the syndicate woman a glance, “it does come with a few more potent side effects, such as a painful photophobia that can last for many days. But so far, users are more than happy to take the bad with the, ah, good, so to speak.”
Linda nodded impatiently and actually made a little rolling motion with her hand. Karen stomped on a flare of anger at that and instead, brought up one final sim.
“This is why I need to purchase AIs. Take a look at what a very low volume count exposure does to these humans—and note the time stamp.”
As the sim played out, Karen observed Linda’s expression morph from skepticism to surprise to outright shock as, within minutes, the humans progressed from slight disorientation to the throes of hallucination, followed by tremors, convulsions and—finally—death.
After a moment of silence, the syndicate woman turned to Karen, eyeing her thoughtfully.
“You said you wanted a dozen AIs. I have a line on a few of them coming out of El Dorado. Would you settle for five?”
Karen’s eyes lit at that, and a surge of satisfaction filled her. She held out her hand. “Linda, you’ve got yourself a deal.”
MAELSTROM
STELLAR DATE: 05.18.3191 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: Enfield Holdings
REGION: El Dorado Ring, Alpha Centauri System
At the NSAI’s announcement, Terrance looked up from the pile of hyfilm sheets requiring his authorization to see their private transport approaching a wooded area. As they neared, he could see buildings nestled among trees and gently rolling hills; he knew somewhere inside that triangle of office buildings and carefully tended parks was the company Sophia Enfield had created as a front for Phantom Blade.
He sensed Eric had been equally busy on the flight over. It was funny how he could tell when the AI implanted inside his head was preoccupied with other things; it felt a bit like a low-energy hum, something just below audible range.
The AI sent a note of amusement to the executive.
Terrance groaned mentally.
The AI nodded.
Terrance smiled as the aircar came to rest with a slight bump.
Having true stasis technology was a ridiculously marketable trade commodity; he couldn’t think of a star system anywhere that would turn down that level of tech. Instead of risking cellular damage brought about by cryo-stasis, true stasis employed the cessation of all atomic motion. An individual in stasis could emerge decades—even centuries—later, essentially unchanged.
The latest report from Enfield Dynamics indicated that their new shell company would shortly be taking possession of several working stasis pod prototypes, recently out of QA acceptance testing.
I wonder how many pods we can produce during the voyage to Proxima? he mused. Which brings up another question….
Terrance sent as he programmed the Enfield aircar to park in an adjacent lot and await their departure, then reached out to trigger the hatch release.