The Nexus

by J. Kraft Mitchell

  THE NEXUS

  J. Kraft Mitchell

  Copyright © 2012 by J. Kraft Mitchell

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of the author.

  To the youth at Calvary—past, present and future. Always remember you are a part of something much bigger than yourselves.

  Thank you...

  Becky and Emil, my go-to people for all things sci-fi.

  Mom and Dad, for not saying it’s silly of me to want to be a novelist (which it is).

  Pastor Tom, for already calling me a writer even when I wasn’t.

  The Wednesday night Bible study guys, for the support and the prayers.

  Albert and the Diedrichs, for the pointers.

  Hannah, my biggest fan and my best critic.

  PART I: The Offer

  1

  WATCH for the light, the man on the phone had said.

  So Jill watched. She watched from an alley across the street while the rain poured down her face in little snaking streams. The light would come, she knew. Any moment it would appear in the window three stories up the old brick building. When a client on the phone said something would happen, it happened. People didn’t hire someone like Jill unless they’d already made sure of the details of their plan.

  She kept watching. Rain kept falling. Drops sparkled for an instant whenever they fell past the amber streetlamps. No other light shone from anywhere on this block. Over the rooftops the skyscrapers along the Avenue of Towers glittered in the distance. But here there was no traffic, no night life, no sound except the far off hum of downtown and the pattering of the rain. It was just one of the floating city’s outer neighborhoods that had been abandoned.

  Then a square of gold appeared with a flicker. It was a light in the window Jill was watching.

  Jill’s heart beat faster. The errand was starting. You always got a nameless feeling when an errand started. It was something like fear, something like excitement, something like pride—but different than all those things. The feeling was good, Jill told herself. It gave her the drive and the focus to do her job. And no one could do better at this sort of job than Jill could. She pushed stray rain-soaked locks of black hair away from her dark eyes and crossed the empty street.

  Don’t enter the building until the light turns on, the man on the phone had said. Once you’re inside, enter no room but the room with the light.

  She walked up the stairs to the front door of the building. If it had a lock it was broken; it opened easily. Light from the streetlamps threw amber patterns across the stairs in front of her. The creaky steps went up and doubled back, went up and doubled back again.

  Down the narrow third floor hall she saw a line of light beneath one of the doors.

  She went into the room. It had no furniture except a table. A single lamp stood over it, and a small cardboard box lay on it. The box was plain and unmarked like the man on the phone had said it would be.

  She grabbed the box and left in a hurry.

  A man with a long coat and brimmed hat stood in a dark, empty room. The room was on the ninety-ninth floor of the Trans-Spatial Communications building downtown. He looked out the window at the countless lights of the city.

  Metropolitan Satellite IX. That was the original name of the city. Some called it MS9 for short. But to the million or so people who called it home, the floating city was known as Anterra.

  The air was hazy with the rain. It wasn’t real rain, exactly. Down on earth real rain fell from rainclouds that formed naturally in the atmosphere. Here on Anterra, rainfall was manufactured by the Climate Control Center as often as the citizens voted for it.

  He waited.

  It was quite a view from the ninety-ninth floor window. The man saw the other skyscrapers along the Avenue of Towers. Then there were the high-rise apartment buildings and offices of downtown. Then the stone-pillared buildings of the financial district along the lakeshore. Beyond all this spread the patchwork of neighborhoods that surrounded the downtown area and the lake. From this vantage point the man could see all the way to the rim—the edge of the satellite, outside the city limits.

  And beyond the rim, even through the rain and the haze, he could see the Home Planet.

  Earth. At this time of night it was a huge semicircle of shadow, like a massive, dark sun half-risen over Anterra’s horizon. All that could be seen on its surface were the faint glows from the largest cities in that region of the globe.

  Funny how things turned out, the man thought to himself.

  The floating city had been designed by the United Space Programs. Their goal had been simple: to create a better place for humanity, a place free of the crime and corruption of earth’s societies.

  The first eight Metropolitan Satellites were experimental. Finally, after years of labor, the United Space Programs built Metropolitan Satellite IX—history’s first human society outside Planet Earth.

  More than eighty million people applied for citizenship. In the end, just over one percent were selected. They were the best of the best humanity had to offer. They were educated—plenty of engineers, professors, doctors and lawyers. They were people of integrity, with not so much as a minor traffic violation on any of their records. They had passed strenuous psychological examinations to ensure that they had no violent or dishonorable tendencies. They had undergone careful interviews to confirm that they would be devoted to the good of their new society.

  Basically, they were the perfect citizens. Perfect citizens for a perfect society.

  ...Or so the United Space Programs had said.

  In almost no time at all, corruption tainted the floating city just as it tainted the cities on the Home Planet. Now, almost a century after its founding, Anterra had a massive, thriving criminal underground.

  Funny, the man thought to himself again, how things turned out.

  “Director,” a voice crackled in his earpiece, interrupting his thoughts.

  He touched a tiny button on the lapel of his coat. “Go ahead,” he said. His accent was something like the British back on Earth.

  “Sherlock just told me the sensor went off. The package has been picked up; she’s on her way.”

  “Excellent.”

  “You sure you don’t want us to arrest her right away?”

  “No. Keep it simple and wait until she’s at the drop point. Let’s witness the whole job. That will mean more leverage for us once she’s in our hands.”

  “Whatever you say, sir. She’ll probably be at the TSC building within the hour.”

  “We’ll be ready.” The man turned away from the window, faced the dark room, and waited. “As ready as we can be,” he added quietly to himself.

  JILL never thought of checking inside the box. She didn’t know what was in there, and she didn’t want to. She didn’t think of who may have left it, or why. It could be drugs, guns, stolen jewelry, stolen technology, or who knew what else. She was just an errander, and erranders weren’t supposed to worry about that stuff. If she got caught, she could always claim she didn’t know anything illegal was contained in the box. That was one of the nice things about her job.

  Of course there were some bad things about being an errander too—like the fact that it was illegal, for instance. Another drawback was that erranders didn’t make too much money. But they didn’t have to worry about too much, either. You didn’t have to do any of the scheming or plotting or decision-making. The big-time criminals did all that. All the erranders had to do was whatever the big-timers told them to do.

  ...And make sure they didn’t get caught. Jill was particularly good at not getting caught.

>   The package was secure in the luggage compartment of her skybike. There were hardly any other skyvehicles out here in the suburbs. Most skytraffic was downtown. Anywhere else in the city it was illegal except over major highways. She had to keep her skybike at ground level until she got to Route 6 heading north toward downtown. Now she was hovering thirty feet above the highway, as the law prescribed, and going the exact speed limit. The last thing you wanted to do while you were on a job was draw attention to yourself.

  The rain kept falling, glittering in her headlights. Jill watched the downtown skyline creep closer, and saw the pointed top of the TSC building. That’s where she was headed.

  She had to stop by her apartment first. She dropped her bike to ground level again as she angled down a side street into a nice neighborhood. She headed east—which on Anterra meant toward earth. Soon she’d left the big houses and manicured lawns behind and crossed into less-reputable territory. The hoodlums were out tonight in spite of the rain, slinking along the littered sidewalks and graffiti-covered cement walls. She passed a fuel station and turned into a dimly lit parking lot. She parked in front of a ten-story apartment building that may have been a decent place when it had first been built a few decades ago. Now it had decayed into the rundown type of place you would expect an errander to live.

  She unlocked the front doors and stepped into the faintly lit lobby. Muffled noises came from a dark corner where a couple sat fondling each other on a sofa. Jill ignored them and crossed the discolored tile floors toward the elevators.

  Fat Frank, the landlord, was getting off the elevators just as she was getting on. Fat Frank was the skinniest guy Jill had ever seen.

  “Well, well; good evening, beautiful.” He greeted her through a creepy smile that was missing a tooth or two. Fat Frank called all his female tenants “beautiful,” and all his male tenants “buddy,” because he didn’t know their real names. Most of them were erranders, living and working under aliases.

  “Frank,” she said with a nod.

  “Back home to relax after another night of hard work, are we?” He stood between her and the elevator, regarding her with yellowed eyes that wandered a little too much.

  “No relaxation tonight, unfortunately. Still on the job.”

  “Well, then,” he said, finally stepping aside, “good luck! Don’t get caught, beautiful.” Fat Frank was always reminding his tenants not to get caught.

  “Not planning on it, Frank,” said Jill. The elevator door closed behind her and mercifully cut off any further conversation.

  She got off on the ninth floor, and unlocked her small apartment. One glance at the place reminded her that work, not housekeeping, had occupied all her attention lately. She stepped through the clutter into the bedroom, and opened the closet. Her outfit for the rest of the night hung ready—a dark business suit unlike anything else Jill owned. She’d bought it yesterday, specifically for tonight’s job. It would be her first time blending in with the uppity business crowd along the Avenue of Towers.

  She put on the suit, and put rain gear on over that for riding. Then she grabbed the briefcase that would complete her disguise. It looked like the sort of briefcase a typical Anterran businesswoman would carry. But it wasn’t. First of all it had a special insulation that would block metal detectors. Second of all it was carrying a handgun that the metal detectors would pick up otherwise. It was loaded with stunners, not real bullets. But no one could tell the difference by looking.

  She would probably be the only armed businesswoman on the Avenue tonight.

  JILL headed north again. The skyline of downtown was in front of her. Earth’s massive dark form was to her right. It was still several hours before the sun would rise over the top of the Home Planet and cast Anterra into daylight.

  Soon she was immersed in the lights and noises of downtown. Traffic never stopped or even slowed down around here. Near the Avenue of Towers shoppers and diners ambled along beneath umbrellas. Music thumped from the clubs. Drunken laughter drifted from the bars. Neon signs blinked. Buses roared. Cabs honked. City nightlife was in full swing.

  She stayed at the first level of skytraffic. Ground traffic roared thirty feet beneath her. The second level of skytraffic hummed thirty feet above her.

  She took a right turn, and she was soaring along the wide and showy Avenue of Towers. Here the leisure traffic was mixed with an equal population of business traffic. Like the rest of downtown the offices along the Avenue were no less busy this time of night than they were at any other time.

  Jill dropped her bike to ground level. She parked in a side lot next to the TSC building and grabbed the briefcase and the box. She went into a restroom off the TSC entryway, took off her rain gear and stuffed it in a garbage can. Then she opened the briefcase and took out a small but elaborate bathroom kit. By the time she’d done her hair and makeup, she couldn’t help smiling slyly at herself in the mirror. She was eighteen; but with this outfit and makeover she could easily pass for early twenties, and there were plenty of aspiring businesswomen of that age working here in the TSC building.

  She left the restroom and passed from the entryway into the huge lobby. Her shoes clicked importantly on the polished floor. Other formally-dressed men and women ambled about the lobby, hardly giving her a second glance. She blended right in.

  At the end of the lobby was a wide reception desk where visitors were supposed to sign in. But Jill wasn’t playing the part of a visitor. She walked confidently toward the elevators, hoping the desk attendants would assume she belonged here. Apparently they did because they didn’t stop her.

  She passed a large decorative fountain with an abstract statue, and reached the elevators. There were ten of them in a row, each with gleaming metallic doors.

  This was the tricky part.

  Jill stood off to the side for a moment, waiting for a break in traffic. Finally she was able to step onto an empty elevator without anyone following her. She was alone with the uniformed attendant who stood by the buttons. She set the box down next to her.

  “What floor?” the attendant asked as the doors closed. He seemed cheerful. His shift must just be starting. Who could stay cheerful riding up and down elevators all day?

  “Ninety-ninth, please.”

  “Sure. Just need to see your identification.”

  She knew he’d be asking for that. Any floor above the fiftieth required identification.

  “Right,” she said.

  Then she darted a hand to the button that held the elevator doors closed.

  The attendant blinked. “What the...?”

  Her briefcase fell open and he was looking down the barrel of her gun. “Ninety-ninth, please,” she said again.

  He nodded slowly, and reached for his key as if he was going to comply. Then he lunged for the alarm button.

  As if she wouldn’t have anticipated this. A swift kick sent his arm away from the button. Another to the gut had him doubled over.

  “I’m kind of in a hurry,” she said, eyeing him over her gun.

  “Do it yourself,” the man moaned.

  “Fine.” She pulled the trigger and loosed a stunner at his neck. He slumped unconsciously against the reflective elevator wall. Jill grabbed his key and slid it into the slot for the ninety-ninth floor. Then she grabbed his limp hand and pressed it against the print-reader for the required confirmation.

  The elevator started moving up.

  She looked up at the tiny security camera that had caught the whole thing. She smiled at whoever would be watching the recording later. By the time they found the unconscious attendant and reviewed the security footage to see what had happened, she would be long gone.

  2

  THE elevator doors opened. Jill stepped out into the ninety-ninth floor lounge. It was empty. She put a potted plant in the elevator doorway to keep it from closing. Take the corridor to your right, the man on the phone had said. At the dead end, take the corridor on the left to Suite 9999-B.

  She carried her b
riefcase with one hand, and the plain, unmarked box under her arm. She didn’t pass anyone in the halls. The lights were dim, as if these offices had closed down for the night.

  She found the door that said 9999-B, and reached for the doorknob.

  Then she froze.

  Something wasn’t right.

  When you lived on the streets—when you made a living as an errander—you developed certain instincts. You got a sixth sense for when things weren’t quite as they should be. And right now, at Suite 9999-B of the Trans-Spatial Communications building, things were not as they should be.

  Jill wasn’t sure what was wrong, exactly. Maybe the drop point was compromised. Maybe this whole errand was a setup. Maybe something else. It didn’t matter, really.

  All the mattered was getting out of there.

  She turned and ran, grabbing her gun out of the briefcase as she went. She heard the door to Suite 9999-B burst open behind her. Someone was yelling.

  She dropped, spun around on the floor.

  Two people came after her. They wore armored suits and helmets with dark mirrored eyes. Cops.

  A setup.

  THE man in the long coat and brimmed hat stood with his back to the window.

  “We’re blown,” a voice crackled in his earpiece.

  “She didn’t come?”

  “She showed, but now she’s running away.”

  Two shots sounded from the hallway outside the empty office.

  The man frowned. “You’re not killing her, are you?”

  “We’re not the one’s doing the shooting, sir.”

  JILL’S stun slugs couldn’t pierce the armored uniforms. But for all they knew she was sending real bullets at them. They took cover and raised weapons of their own. Maybe they were only armed with stun slugs too. Or maybe not.

  Jill didn’t stick around to find out. She was back on her feet running down the hall. One hand still gripped her weapon; the other hand took out the electronic key to her skybike—a very special key.