Erebus

by Ralph Kern

“That seems pretty damn lax to me. Surely an AI could be programmed to make a guestimate of weight from someone’s size and then flag up any discrepancies if it falls out of acceptable boundaries?”

  “Oh, they do, but they’re not great. Modern covert augmentations are designed to fall just inside the standard customs weight tolerances. After all, different people could weigh different amounts based on their size. An exceptionally muscular person who is nevertheless slight of build could weigh more than a chubby person who is fat.”

  “Okay, makes sense,” I said before moving on. “Is there any apartment CCTV or holo at Frain’s place?”

  Vance called back to Frampton over her shoulder. “Dexter?”

  Frampton made a few gestures, and a CCTV clip from the apartment lobby appeared on the large wall screen. “Watch.”

  A palatial lobby appeared. It was a long rectangular room full of plants and modern art but no people. I saw the outer doors slide open. No one came through. Moments later, one of the elevator doors opened up and then closed.

  “Sensor ghosting is a fairly mature technology,” Cheng said. “If he has a decent e-warfare package, he could literally overwrite the recording as he moved. He wouldn’t even have to think about it; he could just let his package do the work.”

  “Spooky.” The effect was like a poltergeist walking through the lobby. Doors opening without anyone actually opening them

  “That it is,” Vance said with a smile.

  “Okay, if that isn’t Frain,” I asked the obvious question, pointing back at the image of the man from the elevator on screen, “who the hell is he?”

  “That’s the million-dollar question. Shall we go ask him?” Vance said.

  “I think we should,” I nodded. “While we’re at it, maybe he can shed some light on the Eston Mons facility. It’s likely the target of this attack.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” Vance agreed. “He’s on Concorde right now on Drayton’s list, awaiting interview.”

  “Now that is a coincidence,” Cheng said, the faintest hint of menace escaping through his normally cheery facade. “I think we need to stop those two getting together. They may have a bit of a falling out.”

  CHAPTER 23

  CONCORDE

  “Hey, Giselle. I hope things are going well with the Sahelia job. We’re picking our way through a few dozen leads at the moment. Maybe at some point in the next hundred years or so, we will see some light at the end of the tunnel.” I finished recording and fired off the message to Earth. It was an amateurish tactic, but maybe Drayton, or whoever was monitoring our coms, would think we had nothing and not be too worried.

  Sihota smoothly brought the Icarus into the landing dock of Concorde, and we disembarked. Cheng had Smith in a viselike grip, which I suspected was firmer than a pair of handcuffs. We had taken him back to the brightly lit campus and put him in a holding cell. Now we stood in the middle of the quad and looked at each other.

  “We need to decide how we’re going to play this,” I said, squinting from the bright lights of the false sun strip above us. “Both at once or one then the other?”

  “I would suggest Frain first. We know where Drayton is. Frain is out of our control at the moment,” Vance replied.

  I watched as a flock of birds took off in a dark, chirping cloud from the top of one of the buildings. They were so at home here. They didn’t care they were flying around in a big spinning metal doughnut.

  “He could be a handful. I certainly would be,” Cheng said as a statement of fact more than a boast.

  I looked at the slightly built man. It hadn’t really occurred to me just how dangerous he was. He could probably take on an entire squad and barely break a sweat. “We better get some help then,” I said.

  ***

  The temporary buildings that had been set up for the contingent of people offloaded from Magellan were basic but comfortable. The low structures were divided into small rooms, each with their own en suite. They were a far cry from some of the horrendous temporary accommodations I’d stayed in over the years, that was for sure.

  “To be clear, we are going for shock and awe here. Alpha Team under me will be the arrest team. Bravo will be support. They will pursue and engage if he gets through us,” Cheng said, briefing the team of twenty heavily armed JAS officers. They wore near-military-grade, dark-blue armor, all hard shell, and they had twin-mode carbines capable of putting an elephant down. All of us had a map of the building block where Frain was projected in our HUDs, marked with our positions. “Frain will be called for his turn to be questioned, and at the moment he leaves the billet, we surround him and arrest him on suspicion of multiple murders. Ladies and gentlemen, I can’t emphasize enough how dangerous this subject is. If he chooses to fight, then don’t think twice about opening up—no demands, no callouts, just put him down. Incaps first. If they don’t work, go to kill shots. I want everyone back and safe, am I clear?”

  The JAS agents looked at each other uncomfortably. Beyond training, they probably had never had cause to even look at the kit they were wearing, and now they were being called on to use it against someone who was probably a one-man army.

  Cheng was going to take tactical lead with me sticking to his hip. I had donned my scout armor. I hadn’t even had time to sort out the bullet mark on the chest plate from Sahelia, or that’s what I’d told myself. Part of me felt that the scar on the breast plate was like a medal of honor in memory of Dev.

  I couldn’t see Frain getting around us all, but then, I’d never had cause to take on someone who was as enhanced as we suspected Frain was. We had dug through his past as much as we could and got nothing. The only thing we had to go on was to assume that he had similar capabilities to Cheng, which, he assured us modestly, would make him one tough customer.

  My attention snapped back as Cheng finished his briefing. “Any questions?” he asked. The JAS officers shook their heads. Some shifted nervously. “Very well. Load up.”

  CHAPTER 24

  CONCORDE

  We spent the afternoon driving unmarked civilian cars full of JAS officers, one at a time, onto the parking lot next to the billet. Hopefully, it wouldn’t spook Frain if he saw an electric vehicle arrive every hour or so, but that made an uncomfortably long wait for the first unit, which had to sit for four hours behind tinted windows.

  Finally, everyone was ready, and we all listened in as Vance linked to the billet. “Hello, Mr. Frain? It’s your turn next. If you would go to the parking lot, someone will pick you up and bring you over to the investigation building.”

  The deep voice on the other end agreed. I looked at the three other JAS officers in the car with me. They all looked nervous. Latana McDonagh, who I was seated next to, turned out to be a ten-year veteran of the force. The only problem being that the most she’d had to deal with in her career were a few low-level assaults.

  “You good, McDonagh?” I asked.

  She swallowed and gave a nod. It was sometimes easy to forget that ninety percent of people in the solar system hadn’t even seen a fight, let alone had to face a cybernetically enhanced killing machine. “The door is opening,” she croaked.

  For the first time, I saw Xander Frain in the flesh. He didn’t exactly cut an intimidating figure, dressed in a simple black tee shirt and blue denim jeans. Not for the first time when dealing with suspects who had done some bad things, I surprised myself with the utter lack of emotion I felt toward him. It was like I couldn’t associate them with the crime they had committed. Should I feel rage at Frain for the death of Dev and hundreds of innocent people? Fear of what his enhancements were capable of? Joy at him being apprehended? I felt none of these emotions other than a sense of weariness and the hope that we didn’t screw up.

  He crossed the lot toward Cheng’s car. Cheng stood outside of it, waving casually. Once Frain reached the middle of all the JAS vehicles, Cheng’s voice came over the link. “Go.”

  I could feel the adrenaline surging through my system. My HUD sen
sed I was going into fight-or-flight mode, and tactical options sprang up unobtrusively onto the display. If I wasn’t so focused, I would have been bemused by the big blinking Call Emergency Services? icon appearing in my vision. I should’ve switched the distress mode off.

  Twenty officers and I rushed out of the cars, all pointing carbines at Frain. I closed on Frain’s position, my weapon aiming straight for his center of mass. I saw Cheng walk into the center of the circle created by the officers and me. There was a pregnant pause as Frain did a full three-sixty. He looked utterly calm, calculating, even. I could see him weighing the odds. He turned back to Cheng, staring at him for one tense moment. A facsimile of a disarming smile spread slowly across his face. He held his hands out in front of him, palms together. Apparently, he knew the drill.

  In one smooth move, Cheng slid a pair of handcuffs onto his wrists.

  “Subject secure,” I said over the link.

  “Confirmed, secure,” Vance responded.

  Together, Cheng with a firm grip on Frain, we walked back to the waiting car.

  ***

  The cell we put Frain in was as secure a one as we could find, helped by a couple of officers covering him with weapons at all times. We walked back into the office, giving each other a verbal pat on the back, and found Vance, Drayton, and Frampton seated in there.

  Drayton looked over at us and smiled. “Well done. I was expecting more of a fight from him.”

  We all looked at each other. It was Vance who finally said, “So, Sonia, when were you going to tell us about the Eston Mons base?”

  “What?” she said, the smile frozen on her face. Without changing in the slightest, it had gone from genuine to forced. “What base?”

  “Red Star had a secret facility on Io,” Vance said, enunciating every syllable. “When were you going to tell us?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The smile was finally slipping from her face as she looked from one of us to the other.

  I crossed the cluttered room full of interfaces. I stopped in front of Drayton and looked at her closely, trying to divine whether she was telling the truth or not. “We have a survivor from the Eston Mons facility. He’s cooperating, and so will you,” I said.

  To her credit, Drayton knew how it worked. She wasn’t going to beg. She nodded at me. “To the cells?”

  “To the cells.”

  They were getting pretty full now.

  CHAPTER 25

  CONCORDE

  “We’ve found her,” Frampton called out as he entered the office, a wide grin on his face. “Two light-days out. That puts her well beyond the heliopause.”

  “You found who and what?” I asked. I was a touch distracted, watching Cheng and Vance question Drayton.

  “Magellan. I asked a friend to do a full trawl on the deep space arrays’ sensor data.” He was practically dribbling with excitement. “Four days after the Io incident, an anomalous emission of exotic particles was picked up. That’s the signature of an A-drive bubble collapsing. It just got uploaded to the array systems cache for later review. They probably thought it was a malfunctioning gateship. My buddy at Cheyenne dug it out. Magellan is out there and intact!”

  I gave a self-satisfied grin as I watched Frampton put up the data from Cheyenne on the wall screen. I knew the place was one of the hubs for the various radar and sensor systems that helped keep a grip on all the traffic floating around Sol. As for Frampton, I swear, the guy had a talent for the dramatic. The image first showed the sun before it started to zoom out. Quickly, the orbits of the inner planets, Venus, Mars, and Earth, appeared and shrank down. Then the outer planets, even Pluto’s massive orbit reduced in size to a small circle. Finally a blinking dot appeared, far beyond even that distant world.

  “Wow…that looks a long way away.”

  “Oh yeah, it is. Other than the Oort cloud prospectors and gateships heading out-system, there’s no reason for anyone or anything to be out that far. The timing’s about right, and so is the course.”

  “So what are we going to do about it?” I asked.

  “Sihota has already requested that the Gagarin go take a look for us and see if they can pull anything off the ship’s command and control systems. They will be leaving within the hour.”

  “Good,” I said.

  ***

  I went back to doing what I was doing, watching the show.

  “We know about the Eston Mons facility,” Vance told Drayton. “We even know it’s a Red Star operation. What we want to know is, why would someone want to blow up a whole moon to take it out?”

  Drayton was at the table, her elbows on the desk, looking as composed as could be. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Cheng walked around and squatted down next to her, his eyes locked on hers. “Sonia, we have a survivor. He’s talking. He knows that someone from Red Star has been assigned to make sure this mess is cleaned up. That someone is you.”

  She turned to face Cheng and simply shrugged. “Get me back to Montreal. I want my lawyer.”

  “You know what I can do to you, Sonia. Don’t you?”

  “I said I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Drayton was becoming more irritable than composed now.

  Cheng nodded and stood up. “Like that, is it? No problems. Share this link with me, and then if you still decide you don’t want to tell me after I’ve asked so nicely, so be it.”

  I saw Drayton and Cheng look at each other, and both of them seemed to lose focus, taking on the demeanor of someone who was watching a full VR on their HUD. I saw Drayton give a start. She shuddered, even let out a horrified-sounding yelp. This seemed to go on forever, but when I checked the time, only a couple of minutes had gone by.

  They snapped back, focusing on each other again. Drayton’s demeanor had changed again. She looked scared and defeated.

  “I feel personally insulted, Sonia. You infiltrated us, pretended to be one of us. That upsets me, and I would enjoy the opportunity to…vent my frustrations,” Cheng said in a voice terrifying in its calmness. “So, Sonia, you can go back to Montreal—if you help us…Or you can come with me.”

  “Okay.” She spoke quietly, her voice tremulous. She was clearly horrified by what she had seen. “I’ll give you a HUD file.”

  The file appeared immediately on the holodisplay in front of me. From the movement of his eyes, Cheng was already looking at it. I glanced back at Drayton. She sat in the chair, hunched and pale, her eyes lowered. I dreaded to think whatever the hell it was Cheng had shown her. I resolved to find out just what the hell he was up to. His interrogation style was starting to worry me.

  But first…the HUD file.

  CHAPTER 26

  IO

  “Standby for hard drop. Ten seconds,” the authoritative, disembodied voice called. Sonia Drayton sat with four men and one other woman locked into harnesses in the cramped covert-drop pod. From the outside, it looked like little more than a regular cargo pallet, dozens of which had been offloaded from the A-drive liner and put aboard the cargo tender.

  Drayton stared vacantly at the man opposite her, a Joshua Rosenberg, some kind of programming technician. They had become very familiar with each other over the last few days, having spent the majority of that time forced to look at each other.

  The countdown reached zero, and a loud bang reverberated through the pod as the explosive bolts released the pod from the tender. Its solid booster fired, jarring the occupants and setting them on a course for Eston Mons.

  Drayton watched the limited feed from outside as the pallet fell toward Io, firing its engine in bursts. The sections of the pallet’s hull she could see had gone from a bright white to pitch black as the adaptive camouflage engaged. It would change as the craft got closer to Io, taking on the same dirty yellow color as that moon. She watched the extinct volcano (or as extinct as a volcano got on Io) grow larger and larger. The crater, at first a dark speck, grew to fill her view. They were on the bull’s-eye, perfectl
y placed to land where they wanted to inside the black hole atop the mountain. The pallet had passed the rim of the crater before Sonia felt the shudder of the landing engine firing, slowing them with horrendous force.

  With a spine-jarring jolt, the pallet came to a halt. The door opened up, and a heavily armed guard entered the cabin. His gaze lingered on each of the six people, checking their faces. Finally, he said, “Welcome to Eston Mons. If you’d like to come with me, please.”

  ***

  “This thing is truly unbelievable,” Drayton said. “The briefing packages I saw back in Montreal were threadbare to say the least.”

  Drayton and the operations director, Al Delaney, sat in his office, which, like everything in the scratched-together base, was bare bones. The base itself wasn’t what she was fixated on, though, not by a long shot. No, her attention was riveted on the gently spinning hologram that projected from Delaney’s desk.

  “Aye, that it is,” Delaney responded. “We have barely even scratched the surface, and already what we’ve found will—well, you’ll see for yourself soon enough.”

  Drayton took a long sip on her coffee and placed it down gently on the desk. She had spent the last week harnessed into the cargo pallet and was still used to zero-g; her habits had not quite adapted yet.

  “So it’s operational? It actually works? I read your report, the parts that weren’t redacted, anyway. That thing’s thousands of years old at least,” Drayton said, her eyes tracking over the hologrammatic image.

  The thing wasn’t fully visible on the holo; it hadn’t been fully explored yet. It was just too large for the hundred or so personnel of the Eston Mons facility to investigate in its entirety. Even the drones and robots, of which scores had been deployed, had found no end to it. If the shape extended as it appeared to, its main core looked like a massive underground spike driving deep into the heart of Io. It was three miles across at its highest point, which itself was a mile below the base of the volcano. The cables that extended from the artifact were just as impressive. Once they had known what they were looking for, they had found them all over the planet, enveloping it like a vast net, buried beneath millennia of dust and sulphur that Io’s volcanoes constantly pumped out.