"I took a little bit of convincing, too, and even I'm willing to admit that he's more rational than I am. What's the real reason?"
"Those psychoanalysts have twisted your mind up, Silo. You're digging a dry well on this one. Come on. We're behind schedule, and we might have to make another stop just to pay for your little spree."
"Fine. You want to be that way?" Silo said, setting the now significantly de-accessorized Ma down. "Step up."
"What now?"
"I owe you three slaps."
"Oh really, Silo, are we children?"
"I guess so. And now it's time for the little boy to take his medicine."
"And if I don't?"
"Then I won't help you."
Garotte grumbled an assortment of profanities and took up a position before her.
"Now, please do remember that you've spent a great deal of time in high gravity so you may want to-"
He was interrupted by a shattering palm across the cheek from her left hand. The force was nearly enough to spin him around, and left him clutching his jaw less out of pain and more to make sure it was still attached.
"That is for pulling me out of a prison that we both know I belonged in," she hissed.
"Good lord, woman. You-"
A second left palm met his face. "That is for dragging me back into a life I considered myself lucky to have gotten out of."
"Now that's not-"
A final slap came, this time from the right, impacting with a sound like an over-eager butcher tenderizing a side of beef. He pivoted three times and made a brief and heroic attempt to keep his balance before finally succumbing to gravity, collapsing in a heap. His eyes turned upward and presented a pair of images of a righteously wrathful woman standing over him.
"And that..." she said, pausing until she could quell the shudder in her voice. "... is for saying that I am not a soldier anymore."
Her fists were clenched tightly, her breath coming and going in short, shaky breaths, as though it was taking all of her will power to prevent them from leaving in cries.
"If you need me, I will be in the sanitation booth. I feel dirty," she said, snatching a change of clothes and marching off to the ship's nearest approximation to a shower.
When the door shut, Ma tapped her way over to Garotte, who was still flat on his back. She hopped onto his chest, dropped her pad, and queued up a sentence. As it was spoken, she looked him in the eye. "It has been said that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. This is empirical evidence in support of that aphorism. It would behoove you to be mindful of it in future interactions with the gender. And that goes double for me."
"You aren't a woman. You are a computer," he said, still somewhat dazed.
"I am an artificial intelligence who self-identifies as female," she replied, picking up her slidepad and hopping down beside his head before continuing. "You indicate that further action is necessary before a rescue. What did you have in mind?"
"... I don't want to tell you."
"Why not?"
"Because... at this point... It appears that we need a spectacularly effective, long lasting, and destructive distraction if we want to be able to rescue Karter. I can only think of one thing that fits the bill to the appropriate degree."
"Yes?" Ma replied, a devilish grin of self-satisfaction coming to her face. Bizarrely, a foxy face is quite well suited to that particular expression. "Please, continue."
"We need Zerk," he said, as though the admission was physically painful.
"A petty individual would take this opportunity to point out that this precise course of action was repeatedly endorsed," Ma pointed out.
"Yes, well. I suppose it is fortunate that you aren't at all petty."
"Quite. I will plot a course extension so that I can provide travel estimates to the facility currently responsible for Zerk," she said, tapping away.
Garotte stared at the ceiling for a few moments more, muttering quietly to himself, "I wonder who will end up killing me. The terrorists, or these two..."
Chapter 22
In Purcell's space station, the commander was standing at the open door of the fabrication lab. Karter had been working double shifts with most of the engineering team since he'd been sent to complete the weapon designs. There was a flurry of activity, mostly engineers trying to absorb as much information about techniques and procedures as they could from the inventor, and to make sure that any given adjustment wasn't some sort of attempt to circumvent his captivity. To that end, any remaining space was packed with security personnel, but they had not been necessary. It was for that reason that Purcell had decided to observe. This was the longest that the inventor had gone since his capture without violating any subsystems, damaging any equipment, or attacking any crew members. He was actually cooperating. It was like having a caged tiger start laying down and rolling over on command.
"You, report!" she demanded when she spotted her second in command among the flurry of activity.
"Commander! You didn't need to come here. I was going to bring your report momentarily," replied Marx.
"I haven't been informed of any hull breaches, plasma leaks, network corruptions, or power failures. I was beginning to think Karter was dead."
"No, Commander. As a matter of fact, the sedatives have completely worn off, and he has not become any less cooperative. It appears that, so long as he has a task at hand, he is unconcerned with escape."
"Appearances can be deceiving, soldier. I see he has added two new pieces of equipment."
"Three, actually. The engineers haven't had much time to analyze them. Karter claims that they are for," he began, pulling out his datapad to check the wording, "'calibration, refinement, and other stuff you wouldn't understand.' We tried to remove them, but the fabrication began throwing errors when we did."
"How much progress have you made?"
"Three missile frameworks have been completed and are awaiting alloy. Three more are nearly complete."
"He has provided you with the full plans?"
"No. There is a final module, dealing with the alloy, that he is holding back."
"What is the status on the ships with the alloy?"
"We've received an update. Both ships experienced equipment malfunctions. The ship carrying the alloy is still several days away. The gunship failed much nearer to Tessera. It is having difficulties reaching full propulsion power. It may take more than a week to arrive."
"Both of them had failures?" she growled.
"They'd both been outfitted with the propulsion mechanisms from the raid on OUCP testing facility 266. The engineering teams said they were prone to de-sequencing when run at close to threshold for long durations."
"Mmm. The price you pay for the enhanced efficiency... Very well."
"Boss Lady!" Karter proclaimed, looking up from a panel he was busy affixing to a cylindrical piece of machinery. "You've got some half decent engineers in this cult of yours."
"We are not a cult!"
"Uh huh. Have you got the stuff?"
"The alloy has been delayed."
"You run a sloppy ship. I'm getting close to using up the available resources. Once that happens, I'm liable to get... bored."
"Do not threaten me, Dee."
"That's not a threat. You and I both know that my mind tends to wander. Let something that big wander around aimlessly and it is bound to do damage. Like an elephant with ADD. Once these babies are done, you might consider giving me, oh, I don't know, a few more chunks of data regarding that transporter."
"I have no interest in having you randomly transporting equipment and crew into deep space."
"Yeah, you're right. I'll just have to find something to keep me busy. Out of curiosity what do you figure would happen if all of the maneuvering engines fired in opposite directions simultaneously?"
"Even you would not be able to achieve that."
"Sounds like a challenge to me. Which would be more entertaining, full blast together or full blast apart?"
<
br /> Purcell stared viciously at Karter. He didn't even do her the courtesy of returning the gaze, instead resuming his tinkering at the partially assembled missile. She turned to walk away.
"3-8-4-4-9," he said over his shoulder.
The heads of half of the security crew snapped in his direction. Purcell turned slowly back to him.
"Is that supposed to mean something to me?" she said, her voice carefully controlled.
"Oh, didn't they tell you? That's the code for my cell."
"How did you--"
"I got bored," he said, looking briefly in her direction with an irritated look on his face.
Her expression hardened. "I'll admit, Karter, you've given us little opportunity to become bored. We've been very busy. Busy learning to use your systems. Busy organizing various attacks and operations. Busy taking care of your arm while you are in your cell."
She nodded to her second in command. With a tap at his slidepad, there was a tone. A moment later Karter jerked away from the device he was working on, face contorted in pain so intense that the cry stuck in his throat. His artificial arm was completely stiff, the rest of his body convulsing. A second tap at the slidepad brought it to an end.
Karter shook once or twice more before a grin came to his face. "You installed a stun device in my arm? Now that's more like it. Devious, underhanded, with a complete disregard for human decency... You, boss lady, are a woman after my own heart."
"The only way I would want your heart, Dee, is on a plate."
"And you think that zapping me in the shoulder is gonna scare me into good behavior? You know what's more dangerous than boredom? Spite. You haven't seen that yet. Boredom keeps you on your toes. Spite has a body count. Always."
"Like you, I haven't shown all of my cards. Trust me when I say that it is in your best interest and mine to keep your mind on the job."
"Then you'd better make sure I've got a job to do."
"Fine. Finish the CME Activators you can make. When you are through, survey the remaining materials and give me a list of any of your little toys you can make with the spare parts. We'll see what you are capable of."
A smile came to his face. If it was any wider it would have met at the back. "Now you're speaking my language. Okay, so I'll pop in the thrusters, push the initial code and AI, hook up the field generators and cannons..."
"AI? Cannons? We asked you for missiles."
"You asked me for the CME Activator. That's a deluxe piece of equipment. Bells and whistles o' plenty. Never let it be said I don't give my clients what they pay for. Just wait until you get a load of the goodies I've got in mind, though. A whole army of soldiers to test my stuff? This is going to be epic!"
With that, Karter went merrily back to work. In her lengthy tenure in the military, Purcell had not had very much contact with the designers of her weapons and equipment. Much to her chagrin, much of the equipment she routinely used had been designed decades prior, with only minor updates in the intervening years. There had always been the picture in her mind, however, of engineers of weapons and machines of war as solemn in their duty, aware of the death and destruction that their creations would cause. Karter hooked up wires and tapped at consoles with the eagerness and interest of a model train collector tinkering with a new caboose. Considering that this particular model was capable of crippling an entire star system, it was more than a little disturbing to see him applying the finishing details with a smile on his face. She shook the thoughts from her mind.
"You're with me," she instructed Marx.
The soldier fell into step beside her as she paced back toward her quarters.
"I trust you have been monitoring the media coverage of the Weston University operation?" she asked without looking.
"I have, Commander. Our organization is on everyone's lips."
"And has our agenda been established?"
"Supplementary reports have included footage from one of our issued demands from several years ago. It isn't up to date, but it communicates the message."
"Mmm. Good. Long past time for that. Now, the footage included a man, Trevor Alexander."
"Yes, Commander?" he said, curiously.
"What do we know about him?"
"Only what was said in the report. Former racer or something like that."
"Any military history? Past collaborations with people we are currently watching?"
"Not that I know of. I can have it looked into."
"Do it. Our benefactor seems to think his presence is a major complication, and much as I am loath to admit it, he has yet to give us bad information. If this man is about to become a problem for us. I want to be prepared. Where is he right now?"
"I don't know, Commander. Presumably still on Tessera."
"You say the gunship is still near the planet. Do we have any operatives still on the surface?"
"Not for long. We're pulling them out now."
"Keep them nearby, and try to keep an eye on this Alexander fellow. Follow him. Lay the groundwork to track him, and be ready to neutralize him if he even begins to look suspicious. Two of Karter's collaborators are already in action and unaccounted for. If this is another of them, I don't want to take any more chances. We are too close."
#
In a luxurious hotel suite in the Pavilion on Tessera, the level of frenzied activity was nearly as high as it had been in Karter's fab-lab. Rather than a mad scientist making unilateral adjustments and being trailed by a swarm of engineering worker bees trying to keep up, this particular swirl of activity was orbiting a pretty young reporter barking orders at her harried assistant. Lex had briefly been recruited to help, but it quickly became clear that he lacked the necessary clerical or communication skills to be particularly useful. Thus, he found himself on the couch wearing an almost-clean shirt from his bag and watching as his girlfriend attempted to do the work of an entire newsroom with only the help of a single, barely recovered intern.
"Have you gotten to anyone on Virga? I want to see if that facility he named actually had a break-in, like he said," Michella barked.
"Not yet. It is the middle of the night there. I don't think we'll get anyone by morning," Jon explained, a slidepad in each hand and three more laid out on the table in front of him.
"And what about Manticore?"
"Still having communications trouble, and besides, they are a maximum security prison. I don't think they will be forthcoming."
"You leave that to me. Just get them on the line. And--"
"Mitch," Lex said.
"-- don't forget that other place. I'll get the name in a second. He said--"
"Mitch," Lex attempted, a little louder.
"-- they might have six people working there as maintenance--"
"MITCH!"
"What is it, Trevor!" she replied in exasperation.
"I was just wondering if you were planning on breaking for dinner at some point?"
"We'll get room service to bring something up later."
"It wasn't so much the eating as the going somewhere besides here and eating," Lex said.
"You and I both know that if we leave the hotel, we're going to be helplessly buried in crowds of people split between reporters trying to get interviews and our adoring public."
"I can think of worse things."
"I don't have time for it right now. I've got to get as much info together and verified as possible. Now that these Neo-Luddites are big news, I don't have a monopoly on the research, and there are people out there with more resources than one intern. And I've got that stupid keynote to worry about."
"The keynote? But... Terrorists bombed the city! They didn't cancel it?!"
"The Rackton city council begged them to finish. They don't want it to seem like Rackton isn't a safe place anymore."
"It isn't a safe place anymore."
"They got what they want, they won't be--"
"I've got Manticore on line... On..." Jon interrupted, trying to indicate the correct device with hands
and arms completely immobilized by other devices. "On the one next to the wadded up napkin!"
"Trevor, I'm sorry. I don't have time right now. I've got to get this done. Later, after the keynote, we'll sit down and--"
"Virga on the slidepad next to the coffee."
"Later, Trev. I promise."
He nodded, standing up and heading for the door. "No problem, babe. I'll be downstairs. Maybe I can get a few people to buy me drinks."
"Just don't accept any drinks from someone prettier than me."
"Shouldn't be a problem," he said, turning to her and flashing a smile, "There's no such thing."
She returned his smile with one that could outshine the sun, then smoothly put on her game face and picked up a slidepad. "Warden Menlo? Yes, this is Michella Modane. I'd like to thank you so much for taking this moment to speak with me..."
Lex shut the door and turned, suddenly coming face to face with an elderly Asian woman dressed in a Pavilion service staff uniform and carrying a bundle of folded laundry. She looked ancient, frail, and extremely irritated.
"Did you leave these?" she demanded, dangling the clothes in front of his nose.
"Uh... yeah. Were you the one who had to clean them?"
"More like decontaminate. 'Complementary' has limits, you know. Less than two types of body fluids."
"I must have missed that in the fine print."
She squinted at him before adding, "You're the one on the news."
She delivered the line sharply, like she was accusing him of stealing a pie off of her window sill.
"Yes, ma'am."
"Well, here's your clothes, Mr. Hero. In light of your heroic deeds, this will still be complementary. But the recommended gratuity is two thousand credits, and if you want someone on my staff to clean and fix that burnt up, bloody shirt you were wearing on the news, same gratuity."
"Yeah, that's fair," he said, digging out a few chips.
Once the extorted tip was delivered, she handed him his clothes, gave a stiff nod, and marched off down the hall.
"Service has gone a little down hill since the last time I was here," he muttered, bleeping the door open to stow them inside.
After pausing to listen to Michella wheel and deal for a few seconds, he shut the door and made his way down the hall and into the elevator. It didn't take very long for the crowds of hero-hungry well-wishers to find him. It was astonishing how tightly the people of Rackton were clinging to the act of 'heroism' he and the others had committed. It was as though they believed that if they gripped it tightly enough, this silver-lining would somehow undo the dark cloud. Thus, Lex was dragged to one of the Pavilion's many lounges, showered with drinks of steadily increasing alcoholic content, and asked to share his tale again and again. The sudden return to fame, now that he could afford to enjoy it, was intoxicating. More intoxicating, though, was the nearly unbroken string of progressively more elaborate beverages that were sent his way. It had been longer than he'd cared to admit since he'd been a part of a social gathering as lively as this, so he indulged a little more than he should have. The night turned into a pleasant haze of inebriation that allowed a few minor details to slip by him. He failed to notice that his speaking volume had drifted well out of the acceptable indoor range, for instance, and he forgot that mixing beer and liquor tended to end poorly for him.
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