The Kinsmen Universe

by Ilona Andrews

  "When Melko surrenders." He slid a datacard across the table. "Your mission for today, Captain. Penetrate the secure block of the Melko bionet, burn the data, and get out with your minds intact. Brodwyn expended too many resources on your training to lose you."

  Claire Shannon dashed through the woods. Tall trees thrust to the distant skies on both sides of her. Their dark limbs scratched at each other, their jagged branches thrusting out like talons ready for the kill. Behind her, the team sprinted, single-file. Lean, furry, they surged through the woods on all fours, their clawed paws digging into the forest floor as they ran. She saw them as beasts with glowing eyes. No doubt they saw themselves as something else.

  Many years ago the need for faster data processing forced larger corporations and governments to implement biological computer systems that seamlessly integrated with the inorganic computers. It was discovered that only psychers could connect directly to the bionet and that the connection overwhelmed their minds. The human brain couldn't cope with the tremendous influx of information, and it deluded itself by turning code and synthetic neurosignals into a dream, interpreting the streaming data as a familiar environment, knitted from the individual psycher's memories and imagination.

  Every psycher perceived the bionet differently. For Nicholas it was hell with molten lava and fire-belching dragons; for Liz it was a mountain pass strewn with snow, where avalanches and snow creatures waited at every turn. Claire saw a forest. Code became trees, secure data turned into fortified castles, and enemy psychers turned into monsters. If it looked scary, it was a threat.

  A hint of movement made her spin in mid-step. A large red-eyed bird with wicked dinosaur jaws instead of a beak raised its wings, preparing to dive at her from a tree branch.

  Claire leaped.

  The bird swooped down, talons out, teeth-studded jaws opened wide. Claire turned her head, throwing her body right. The jaws missed her by a fraction of an inch.

  Her silvery fangs closed on the bird's long neck, piercing flesh. The pressure of her jaws crushed the vertebrae, the synthetic neurosignals conjuring the taste of blood in her mouth. They dropped to the ground, the bird flailing under her.

  The rest of the team dashed past them.

  Claire planted a clawed paw on the bird's head and ripped, tearing the neck in two.

  The bird stopped moving.

  Threat neutralized. An enemy psycher was dead.

  Claire sprinted after the line of beasts, caught up, and sped by them, resuming her place at the head of the pack. She always took the point. She was the strongest psycher and it was her duty as an officer to protect the rest of her team.

  The bird's dimming eyes lingered in her memory. She had terminated a human mind. She would have to kill others before the mission ended. She would do it today to keep Liz and the rest alive, but eventually the Intelligence would send her on a solo mission, and she wasn't sure what the outcome of it would be.

  Claire scanned her environment. The woods before them were clear. Deserted. Anxiety pulled at her mind. Where were the enemy psychers? She had just killed one - usually that meant a concentrated assault. The branches should be teeming with them.

  She twisted to glance back. Only one beast followed her - Nicholas, his coat a pale grey. He took another step and exploded into a hundred tiny dark ribbons, melting into nothing.

  The shock punched her.

  Claire shot out of the bionet and out of her chair, her vision still a blur. A blink and she saw the room: gun-grey walls, a long console, five chairs by it, one empty - hers, and four others supporting prone bodies, her teammates, her soldiers, each with a gaping hole in the back of the head. In a split second she saw it all: the jagged edges of the head wounds, the red blood dripping on the floor from Liz's blond hair, and Major Courtney Rome, a smoking gun in his fingers, his pale grey Intelligence uniform splattered with crimson spray and brain matter. Courtney's face was slack. His mouth drooped down. His eyes stared at her, hollow.

  She grasped his mind in a steel fist, ripping through the feeble protection of the psych blocker like it was tissue paper. He cried out and dropped the gun. She forced his brain to haul him upright, every muscle painfully rigid, his body barely balanced on his toes.

  They were dead. This morning all of them had eaten a spare breakfast in the commissary. They shared coffee. Liz hid her new nails. Now they were dead. She had protected them for so long and he'd put a gun to their heads and murdered them one by one.

  "Why?" she snarled.

  "The war is over," Courtney whispered. "We lost."

  "What?"

  "We lost," he repeated, his voice a hoarse squeak. "The Headquarters sent out an emergency bulletin five minutes ago. Melko is occupying our continent. The surrender security protocol was initiated. I have to terminate you. You know too much."

  She seared his mind. Death was instant. He didn't have the time to scream.

  As his lifeless body dropped to the floor, Claire turned and pushed the dimmer switch on the console. The room turned dark. Her fingers flew over the keypad.

  The opaque window in the wall before her faded, revealing the interior of the Intelligence compound below. People dashed back and forth across the floor.

  She pushed a key, letting the audio feed filter into the room. Gunfire punched the silence. Massive shredders whined, crunching electronics and slicing pseudopaper into atomic dust. Chaos reigned.

  The war was over.

  Her heart hammered in her chest. Her pulse pounded through her head, too loud in her ears. Claire stared at the four corpses in their chairs. She wanted to hug Liz and cry.

  She couldn't give in to panic and shock. She had to think.

  She was a Type A Psycher. An imminent threat. If Melko Corporation found her, she would be killed immediately. When you lost a war, you didn't get to keep your guns. She was infinitely more dangerous than a loaded gun.

  Claire shut off the audio feed and dimmed the windows. She checked the door. Courtney had engaged the electronic lock. Not enough. A heavy life support unit sat in the corner, for the times when psychers suffered an attack but held on to life. She put her shoulder into it, pushed it across the doorway, barring the door from the inside, and walked past four heads dripping blood back to her seat.

  She had to log into the bionet for the last time to erase herself from Brodwyn data systems.

  "Step onto the platform," a Melko soldier ordered.

  Claire obeyed, stepping onto the raised circle in the middle of the room. Six high-caliber gun turrets swiveled on their mounts, locking onto her. To the right and left, two Melko soldiers took aim at her head. Across the room an older woman behind a crescent metal console studied the digital screen.

  Three weeks ago she had escaped the Intelligence building and returned to her mother's apartment. It was vacant, like many others, and during her last foray into the Brodwyn bionet, Claire had assigned it to herself. She had resurrected her mother's data and took on her identity, keeping only her name and her date of birth intact. Only her neighbors could have betrayed her. This morning she was arrested with the rest of the residents of the building and marched down to this depot. Nobody spoke out against her.

  The older woman peered at her.

  "Name?"

  "Claire Shannon."

  "Occupation?"

  "Secretary."

  "Do you have any implants, modification, or kinsmen abilities to declare?"

  "No."

  Claire's mind was hidden behind four layers of solid mental shields, enclosed in a hard outer shell, accreted over the period of the last four weeks as a result of constant mental strain. Her surface thoughts coated this shell, as if it were a mirror. Her defenses would withstand a concentrated probe from an adept. To the outside world, her mind appeared very much alive, but completely inert psychically. Precisely the way she liked it.

  "Place your hands on the rail in front of you."

  Claire locked her fingers on the metal rail.

  Pale
green light slid over her. Two dozen scanners recorded her temperature, pulse, and chemical emissions, assessed the composition of the sweat and oil on her fingertips, and probed her body for combat implants.

  A cold male voice announced with robotic precision: "Implant scan, class A through E, negative. Biological modification negative."

  "Initiating psycher pressure probe," the woman said.

  Beneath her mental core, fear washed over Claire. Pressure Probe, PPP, meant pain to a psychic mind. The stronger the psycher, the worse the agony. She had to bear it. Her pulse couldn't speed up. She couldn't wince.

  It began as a soft buzz in the back of her skull. The buzz built, ratcheting up to deafening intensity, louder, louder, LOUDER. Pain pierced her mind, as if a drill had carved through the bone, grinding, widening the hole with each rotation, turning her neurons into a mess of human meat. The world dissolved in agony.

  She was gone, drowning in pain. Her reason melted. Her mind dissolved.

  She gave herself away.

  It was over.

  The pain vanished, suddenly, as if sliced by a knife.

  "PPP negative," the male voice announced.

  "Subject cleared the security evaluation," the woman said.

  She passed. Somehow she had passed.

  The soldiers lowered their weapons.

  The woman faced Claire. "You are being deported."

  "I'm sorry?"

  "We don't want your kind on our planet." The woman grimaced. "You cost us billions and forced us into a three-hundred-year war. If things were fair, we'd line the lot of you up and put you out of your misery, except that the Interplanetary Right to Life Act gets in the way."

  That's right, flashed in Claire's mind. She was a civilian and under the protection of the Right to Life Act. Breaking it meant an instant trade embargo. For a planet like Uley that imported most of its food, it would mean a slow death sentence. The Melko retainers couldn't kill her or any of the Brodwyn civilians. They couldn't load them into spaceships and kick them off planet without a definite destination either.

  "Melko Corporation made arrangements with other planets to deport you," the woman said. "In your case, you're going to Rada to some kind of flower province. It's one of the merchant planets. Many kinsmen families all competing for their territories. They are cut-throat on Rada and they're only taking the duds like you, no kinsmen allowed. I don't expect you'll last there long, which is just as well. Exit through that door."

  Chapter Two

  "PPP Negative," the computer announced.

  Claire held onto the rail of the platform. She was swimming up a deep well filled with blinding pain. Negative. Negative. She had passed through the screening again.

  Please, please let it be for the last time.

  "You may leave the platform," Rada's Immigration Officer invited.

  She kept swimming. Almost there. Finally she surfaced and her vision returned in a rush. Claire stepped off the platform. The Immigration Officer took her measure. He was lean, dark-haired, and older, his skin either naturally olive or tanned by the sun.

  "Come on," he said. "Let me give you your orientation."

  She followed him to a small office and sat in the cream-colored chair he indicated. The officer took his place behind a light glass table. A narrow crystal vase sat on the edge of his table. Inside it flowers bloomed, whirl upon whirl of bright petals, some blood red, some yellow, some deep purple near the root of the petal and white at its end. So vivid, almost painful.

  "Dahlias," the Immigration officer said.

  "I'm sorry?"

  "The flowers. They are called dahlias. You are assigned to the city of New Delphi." Behind him the digital screen displayed the city perched at the top of a tall plateau, its sides a sheer cliff of red rock. Elegant skyscrapers of pale white stone, buildings of glass and steel, wider houses with balconies... There was no rhyme or reason to it. Trees grew here and there, bright spots of green. Claire stared.

  "New Delphi is the commercial center of the south," the officer said, "but the city itself is located in the Province of Dahlia, hence the flowers. There are other provinces as well. Large urban centers are rare. It's mostly gardens, orchards, family estates. When you hear people speak of 'the provinces,' they are being nostalgic about a less hectic way of life."

  The image of the city turned, presenting her with seven long platforms thrusting from the side of the cliff, one above the other, like mushroom ridges on a tree. Tunnels carved into the rock led to the Terraces, probably from somewhere within the city.

  "These are the Terraces. This is where you'll find most 'provincial' style restaurants and shops. They are pricier than places in the city but you pay extra for authentic taste. Your apartment is right here."

  The image slid down, the buildings rolling by. The picture zoomed in, and she saw a ten-story structure of pale yellow stone. Balconies lined its sides.

  "The neighbors from your building are also being placed in this general area. You aren't housed together, because we want you to be assimilated into our culture as soon as possible. But you will see familiar faces. Your apartment is yours for the next three months. That's how long your probation period is. After three months, you must assume the mortgage payments, which means you must find employment."

  The image zoomed out before she could catch any more details.

  "The city is divided into territories between kinsmen families," the officer continued. "A lot of kinsmen keep private security forces, and a lot of these private soldiers have combat implants. The dominant kinsmen families have vast commercial interests and they often clash, sometimes violently, in an attempt to expand their influence. Duels and assassination attempts are not uncommon. If you see something like that in progress, try to step to the side, out of their way."

  "Your people kill each other in the streets?" Unthinkable. How could this be allowed?

  "Sometimes. Most kinsmen are so enhanced, the fights rarely last for longer than thirty seconds. Don't worry. They almost never injure bystanders. It would be very rude."

  "Rude?" This whole planet was insane.

  "Of course. With all of the targeting implants and inborn abilities, they are so fast, you would have to actively work to get in their way. Killing a civilian would be sloppy and the height of bad manners. Our crime rate is low compared to equivalent cities from other planets, and aside from kinsmen settling their affairs, New Delphi's security force has very little tolerance for foolishness. Assaults are rare, crimes like theft and burglary are more frequent. When a criminal commits an illegal act in New Delphi, chances are he's committing it in a territory of some kinsmen family, who will deal with the matter accordingly. Which isn't to say you should go alone into dangerous areas of the city at night or leave your door unlocked."

  The officer looked at the screen in front of him. "Your first priority is finding a job. You will receive job recommendations from this office. You must follow these recommendations. Failure to comply will result in deportation to Uley."

  "So they aren't really recommendations, are they?" Claire asked.

  "No. They are not."

  "I see."

  "If you fail to obtain a job after five recommendations, you will be downgraded to Class B and recommendations will no longer be provided to you. If you fail to obtain employment within your three-month probation period, you will be deported. If you engage in any criminal activity during your probation period, you will be..."

  "...Deported?" Deportation would mean death. Melko Corporation would kill her if she returned. They made it abundantly clear before she boarded the spacecraft.

  "We understand each other." The officer nodded again. "Your first job interview is in one hour. When you walk out of this building, you will see a row of aerials. Your aerial is number 57/78. The course is already programmed into it. It will take you to your job interview and then to your apartment. Should you obtain employment, the aerial will return for you in the morning. If you like it, you may choose to
assume payments for it at the end of your probation. Here are the particulars." The Immigration Officer slid a data card across the table.

  Claire slid it into the tablet she had been issued. The tablet's screen blinked and pale words emerged from the background: Guardian, Inc.: Extrasensory Security Protocols and Biocybernetic Safety.

  Her hands went cold. "I'm not a psycher," she managed.

  "We know. You show no psychic activity at all." The Immigration officer nodded for emphasis. "The Escana kinsmen family has all the psychers they could want. What they need is support staff with quiet brains, so they can work without interference. They have an Admin Specialist opening and you will apply for it." He peered at her. "Unless there is a problem?"

  Passing PPP was one thing. PPP was simply a painful pulse generated by a computer. Walking into a building filled with psychers, whose job it was to find and eradicate psychically active intruders... Declining the recommendation would instantly arouse suspicion. "No problem," Claire said.

  "You sure?"

  "Yes." Unless one counted certain death as a problem. "I just didn't want to fail before I started."

  "Don't worry," the officer said. "You will make an excellent drone."

  "May I have your name?" The dark-haired receptionist smiled from behind the counter.

  "Claire Shannon," Claire said. The smiles looked odd to her. The aerial had touched down in a parking lot and she had to walk two blocks to the Guardian building. In the five minutes she spent outside, she realized that people of New Delhi spent their lives baring their teeth. They smiled when they opened the door, they smiled when they bought groceries, they smiled if you accidentally happened to meet their gaze on the street. It was deeply unnerving.

  "May I ask the purpose of your visit?" the receptionist asked. Behind her on a white stone wall, elegant pale gold letters spelled Guardian, Inc. Under it smaller letters read: Your thoughts are safe with us.