Harlan shook his head and whistled. “You don’t want much, then. That’s quite the task you’re asking; I’m not sure that’s even possible.”
Gylfie locked eyes with him. “Then you better learn how to do the impossible. I’m done here, Harlan. I need out, and if you want to play the hero of the day, you need to promise it to me. You all do; otherwise, you’re on your own.”
“Fine, I’m in. I’ll figure it out.”
“I’m in, too,” Irena said.
“And us three,” Bella added. “Now that’s out of the way, can we get down to business? There’s a ticking clock we’re working against here. We can’t stop the merger, but we can stop the virus from penetrating the QCA and turning ten million robots into mechanical death machines.”
Gylfie nodded his head. “Okay, okay, but as soon as you’ve got your information, you’ll need to get the hell out of here. SMF soldiers were patrolling earlier. I doubt we have complete privacy down here anymore.”
“Don’t worry, old man,” Bella said. “We’ll be gone in a flash as soon as you crack those drives.”
“There’s three more things I need before I start: noodles, vodka, and privacy.”
Bella stood up from the table. “We’re on it.” Wilbur joined her, and they left to get Gylfie’s supplies.
The pair returned after five minutes with the vodka and noodles.
“Thank you,” Gylfie said. “Okay, now the privacy. Everyone but Harlan must leave. This might take a while.”
Irena shared an expression of alarm with Harlan. “It’s fine,” he said. “We go way back. We work well together. You’ll be safe with Bella’s crew. I’ll let you know as soon as we’re finished here.”
“If you’re sure.”
“I am, trust me. We’re going to fix this.”
Irena placed a hand on Harlan’s shoulder before joining the others.
“Okay, Harlan, let’s relive our glory days and crack this case wide open. Pour the shots while I get the q-bit hooked up to my system.”
“Sure thing, boss.”
Gylfie stopped in his tracks. “Boss, eh? It’s been a while since I’ve been called that. Shame that prick Hugo Raul has my old title now, the jumped-up little turd.”
Cables trailed from the q-bit core to Gylfie’s rack-mounted hardware. The old ex-silicon runner hunched over his system, patching cables and adjusting wireless connections. He reminded Harlan of a mad scientist depicted in the latest films. A quaint throwback to the crazy genius archetype of the old days.
“We’re ready to go,” Gylfie said, returning to the table. He took a shot of vodka and then placed the abbot’s CPU and the drive recovered from the Vanguard member into a docking enclosure. He then tapped a command on his terminal and a pair of projected keyboards appeared in front of Harlan and Gylfie on the table.
“We’ll have to work as a team on this.”
“That’s fine by me. As long as your old brain can keep up.”
“At least I’m not relying on a peripheral. You know you don’t need that crap to do what you do, right? It’s a crutch.”
Harlan shrugged. “It helps me focus. Milo lets me multi-task.”
“Bullshit. That’s what you think it does. But it doesn’t. It’s just a placebo for your insecurity.”
— He’s getting old and confused.
Maybe Gylfie had a point, but whatever the truth, and despite its snarky nature, Harlan had grown accustomed to Milo and couldn’t imagine working without it. It was like a faster transport between the conscious and the subconscious. Or at least that was what the sales literature had told him. And what he’d been telling himself.
“Look, Harlan, I’m sorry if I upset you. My old brain can cut to the quick a little too efficiently at times. You can stick whatever you want in your brain. Let’s just get on with the job before the shit really hits the fan.”
“Whatever you say, boss.”
Gylfie reached behind him and grabbed the small round base of a holographic screen, which he placed in the middle of the table. It flickered to life and showed a terminal window displaying the root system of the chip and drive.
Harlan took a deep breath and dived into the abbot’s ID chip.
Gylfie took his third shot of vodka and started the process of cracking the security on the personal drive. With the q-bit whirring away like some creature in the corner of the room and Milo chugging through his subconscious, Harlan knew they would complete their task, but whether they would find anything useful remained to be seen.
25
After strolling through the market for a quarter of an hour, Irena joined Bashir, Bella, and the others at the noodle bar. She ordered a coffee from the bar woman, who gave Irena an odd look. Irena couldn’t decide if it was curiosity or hostility.
Given that her mother had just declared the merger and her running for the presidency, she expected those that recognized her as Victoria Selles’ daughter would act differently now. She thought about disguising herself, cutting off her hair or dying it, perhaps.
Greta sat down with a violent thud on the stool next to her. She leaned in close. “Don’t look so scared. Harlan is as skilled a runner as I’ve ever seen. He’ll figure this out.”
“It’s not him I’m worried about.” Irena blew the steam off her coffee and took a sip. “It’s what my parents might do if they get into power. I don’t even know them anymore.”
“It’s true what they say about family,” Bella said. She stepped up to the bar after finishing her conversation with Bashir and Wilbur and stood at Irena’s side, placing a hand on the younger woman’s shoulder. “It’s a well-worn cliché to say you can’t choose them, but you can choose your friends. There’s a reason why clichés exist. They’re born from truth.”
Greta laughed. “I’m not sure she chose us. And I’m not sure you chose us, either, Captain. As far as I remember, I was in desperate need of work, and you were in desperate need of a heavy to get some gangsters off your back.”
At first, Irena thought this to be a cold statement, but a moment later she noticed Bella’s smirk, indicating this was an old, familiar joke.
From his position on the opposite side of the bar, Wilbur fiddled with a button on his jacket and snorted. “I hate to be the contrarian of the party, but I really do dislike all you people quite considerably. Although, you,” he added, pointing to Irena, “are not so bad. Even if you are the spawn of two crazed, narcissistic megalomaniacs.”
“I guess those particular traits skipped my generation,” Irena said, finding herself smiling and warming to this misfit group of rogues.
“Best not breed, then,” Bashir added, who was sitting to Irena’s right. His face was glossy with steam from a hot bowl of noodles. “You don’t want to be responsible for bringing those genes back.” He smiled generously with a charm exuding from his soulful eyes. She couldn’t quite place the origin of the genes the baby-designers had chosen for him, but he had a richness and fullness of features she liked very much, even considering his bruised eyes and a broken nose given to him by Greta.
Since humanity had mostly fled Earth, and the idea of nations or races had eroded, mixed breeding had softened the contrasts between cultural types, creating a more homogenous look. Watching old media from a few hundred years ago brought that difference to light, so now it was considered quaint to think of people belonging to races or ethnic tribes. People were so much more contrasted back then, she thought. Pale whites and dark blacks and many distinctive shades in between. Now, however, the majority were much closer to each other.
She had thought that perhaps this would have brought people together, especially after the devastation of the Last War, but it seemed to her that skin color, cultural background, castes, or other social divisions weren’t the problem: humanity would find a way to divide itself over anything, no matter the difference. She supposed it’d take many more generations yet to extinguish the fully deep-rooted sense of tribal individuality and grasp the concept that hum
ans—and all life—were the expressions of the very same thing: consciousness.
As far as the human race had come, even to the point of accepting its own creation of the abbots as a species unto themselves, it was clear to Irena they still had a long way to go in understanding not only their role within the universe, but the nature of consciousness. For all the technology they had developed, that particular frontier still remained as much of a mystery now as it did in ancient times.
Bashir’s smile faded, replaced by an expression of concern. “I’m sorry, did I say something out of turn?”
“No, it’s just me. I sometimes drift off into my own thoughts. As for breeding, I currently have no plans for children. The thought always terrified me. The amount of responsibility required…” She trailed off and considered her own upbringing. Her parents had bypassed their responsibility completely. They’d expected teachers, counsellors, and professors to raise her, and if she did say so herself, she hadn’t turned out badly.
And probably, she thought, better than if her parents had brought her up.
“I understand,” Bashir said, returning his focus to his food. Irena wanted to continue with the conversation, wondering if he had something to say on the topic given he was an orphan with no biological parents. How did he view the role of family, the concept of parents, when his genetic code was selected from raw materials and grown in artificial wombs? She wanted to probe further, but knew for some it was a difficult topic.
Despite that, she found herself warming to him. He had a gentle disposition that seemed at odds with his career choices until now. She hoped she’d get more time to talk with him and find out what made him tick. While he ate, she turned her attention to the rest of Bella’s crew. “What about you guys? What’re your family situations? Any kids?”
The group remained silent. After an awkward pause, Bella spoke. “For a brief time, I wanted a child. I wanted the domestic life. Husband, baby, career… but that ended, and now I’m here. It’s quite a long story.”
The Mazzari Enterprises captain regarded Irena with a look of brief yearning. It seemed that the older woman had a history she wanted to share, but was too nervous to go into it.
“I’m a good listener,” Irena said. “And it seems we have a little time. If you want to, that is?”
Bella sat closer to Irena. “Sure. Why not? A little team bonding never hurt anyone.”
The rest of the crew huddled together at the other end of the bar to give the two women their own space. Irena appreciated it. She had put them on the spot and, given that she’d only known them for a few days, was probably prying too far. But with the lull in their quest while Harlan and Gylfie did their thing, she couldn’t hide her curiosity about the people who had saved her from certain death on Earth. They had remained tight-lipped during their journey back to Atlas station when they had rescued her, presumably out of fear that she was an SMF agent, or that she’d simply report them for illegal salvaging.
She was about to apologize again to Bella and tell her that she didn’t have to talk, but the older woman must have sensed her hesitation. “It’s okay. I don’t mind you asking, really. It’s nice to talk about something other than criminal activity and conspiracies for a few moments. I’ve not taken the opportunity to ask how you’re doing. That whole Earth situation must have been a little emotional.”
They both smiled at the understatement.
“You could say that,” Irena said. “Harlan has been great, though. And to be honest with you, this whole situation with my parents is somewhat of a relief. It’s kept me active. Otherwise, I’d probably have given in to the pressure to return to Earth and continue the work down there. Or sat in my apartment running it all over in my head, blaming myself and wondering why I didn’t do more to save my colleagues.”
Just the thought of it brought the images back, of Darnesh, Siegfried, Dr. Osho… Irena looked away, closed her eyes, and swallowed the welling up of emotion. She’d learned to do that from years of verbal abuse from her father—and, to some extent, her mother.
Bella gripped Irena’s shoulder and lowered her voice. “That entire blame issue will come at some point. I’ve seen it with Greta. It’s natural and part of the whole messed-up human experience. And when it does, I want you to know that I’m a good listener, too. When my career in the arts failed, I spent a few years training in psychological analysis to help people who spent so much time out on the far reaches. Deep space living can really screw people up.”
Irena leaned in a little closer. “Is that what happened to Greta?”
Bella shook her head. “I’ll let her tell you her experiences. It’s not really my place. But I did help her when she joined me. Those early days of Mazzari Enterprises were tough. Wilbur was a frenzied animal… Don’t let his nervous persona fool you: he’s got some real spark in him when he needs it.”
“I’ll bear that in mind,” Irena said as she cast a quick glimpse at the small man. He leant over his bowl of food, eating quickly in short staccato movements, as though he believed someone could steal away his meal at any time. She pictured him retaliating, fast and efficiently, and then returning to his twitchy, shy ways.
“So,” Bella said, regaining Irena’s attention, “my back-story, for what it’s worth… not many on this station, or any of the stations for that matter, know me as anything other than the hard-faced bitch captain of Mazzari Enterprises. Before I got into all the salvaging and contraband running, I was on the path for a career in the arts, singing classic opera.”
Irena stared at her with surprise. “I would never have guessed you were going to say that. You’re so…”
Bella’s dark, thin eyebrows arched with a full expectant expression. “What? Criminal? Violent? Rough-and-ready?” She then eased her hardness as a sly smile curled the edges of her fulsome lips. It appeared to Irena that beneath the homogeny, Bella, like her name suggested, still carried some of her family’s Italian heritage.
“I was going to say practical, strong, great with ships… and frankly a great leader of people. Those aren’t attributes I’d apply to an opera singer.”
Bella grinned and waved away Irena’s awkwardness. “It’s a family thing. Apparently, a few generations down the Mazzari line, there were a number of fairly successful opera singers. Our family has always had a musical and theatrical side to it. Both my parents are concert pianists, although these days they mostly stay in the shadows, composing for the technically superior but artistically barren abbot artists.”
The question of Bella’s brother rose in Irena’s mind, but she was reluctant to bring him up. She bought some time to think it over by taking another couple mouthfuls of noodles. They were turning soggy now, and the artificial soy-flavor compound had taken on a sharp metallic taste.
“You want to ask something else,” Bella said, framing it as a statement.
Irena nodded, swallowed her food, and asked, “What about Gianni? Did he always want to go into the sciences, or did he follow the family tradition of music?”
“It’s okay to bring him up.” Bella paused and held Irena’s gaze as if to convince Irena of her strength, but she really didn’t need to. Irena knew she was as strong as anyone she’d ever met. “The truth is he was always so good at everything he put his mind to. He was a great pianist, better than my mother even. But also an equally proficient scientist. It’s why I know he’s alive despite how the video feed from his shuttle looked. If anyone will find a way to survive anything that comes at him, Gianni will.”
“Were you close growing up?”
“Very. We were like twins. Best friends.”
“I grew up an only child.” Irena hated that the words made her sound like she was playing a trump card for sympathy. She didn’t intend for it to sound that way.
There were some benefits to growing up alone: she had lots of time to think, to indulge her interests. Although, at times, she had wondered what it would have been like to have an older brother or sister. For some reason,
she had always assumed in her imagined scenario that she would be the younger sibling.
“I’m sorry,” Bella said. “That must have been difficult with your parents. I felt a certain degree of pressure from my mother and father to follow them. And to be as talented as them and Gianni, but because he was obviously gifted, their focus was split, so I never felt it too badly. It must have been hard with both of your parents having only you to channel their hopes and dreams into.”
Irena laughed. “The only thing they cared about were themselves. I got off lightly in that regard. Maybe not others, but I’m out of it now. All I want to do is stop them. They’re no parents to me. They never really were, now I think on it.”
Bella gave Irena a side hug and squeezed her. “Well, you’re always welcome to join our little band of weirdos and outsiders. We might not be a family by blood, but family by choice is stronger, better—and a hell of a lot more fun… if not a little dangerous.”
Before Irena could reply, a young man—no older than a teenager, dressed in dirty jeans and an engineer’s vest—ran through the marketplace, stopping by the traders and the few citizens milling around. He talked frantically, gesticulating back toward the elevators.
Eventually, he came to the noodle bar.
“Something bad’s going down,” he said. “The SMF are on their way. I saw ‘em get in the elevator on level four. They swept level three and are now heading down here. They’ll be here in a few minutes… you better get out of here.”
“What do they want?” Bella demanded.
“Hell if I know, but they ain’t been down here for years, so it’s something real bad, right?”
“Right. Thanks, kid.”
Irena placed the coffee on the bar top and slipped off her stool. “I’ll let Harlan know.” She ran across to the RDC and knocked four times in the pattern Gylfie had shown her.
Bella and the others joined her when Harlan opened the door.
Vanguard Rising: A Space Opera Adventure Page 18