The Hands We're Given
Page 16
One of the girls yipped in terror as a man swayed. Aidan watched as Kevin turned and caught him under the arms, holding the man up until he steadied.
Health-related issues, Aidan thought. Not good.
"You're doing fine, girls," Kevin's voice was encouraging in Aidan's mic. "Let's just keep moving, shall we? A mile's walk to the vehicle we've got for you, a nice drive down to Pueblo, and you're on your way. Nothing to worry about as long as we keep moving."
Aidan wished they could have pulled the vehicle in closer, but within a mile of a Corporate installation, they ran too high a risk of something as large as a truck being spotted as they drove in.
He flipped up his visor, checked his tab. Twenty-eight minutes before the fence came back online. Thirty five minutes before the next ViperDrone fly over. Fifty minutes before the next satellite pass.
Lazarus helped Kevin get the weak member of the party through the mesh. The logistics officer smiled wryly as he herded the group to his commander. The man he supported gave a weak travesty of a smile as well, reaching out to shake Aidan's hand with fingers that trembled. "Saul. Thanks for taking care of us."
"Part of what we're here for," Aidan replied with a grim smile. "You okay?"
Saul's jaw tightened. "I guess I've gotta be."
Aidan didn't exactly love the sound of that answer, but he gave the man a nod. "Okay, everybody stick close and follow us. We'll get you out of here."
They made a ragged line, the civilians tripping over rabbit brush and kochia, coughing as they breathed gritty dust kicked up in the wind. Aidan glanced over his shoulder and winced. Lazarus had dropped back to support Saul, who was barely on his feet.
Discreetly, Aidan dropped back. "What's up?"
Lazarus shot him a dark look. "Guy's having some trouble, is all. He'll get there," he snapped.
Aidan held Lazarus's eyes until Saul gave a dry bark of a chuckle. "Hope so. Been stuck in a safe house for two weeks. Go-between got spooked. Didn't get food for a week. Kinda hard to walk."
Aidan's mouth grew dry, but he managed a smile. "Keep leaning on us. We'll get you through."
Saul's death's-head smile flickered again. "Thanks."
Aidan gave both men a smile. Lazarus returned only a glower. Okay, not helpful.
Stepping away, Aidan helped one of the little girls step around a patch of nasty cholla. From behind, he heard a bottle rattle softly.
"Glucose tabs," Kevin murmured. "See if they help."
"Thanks," Saul muttered.
Aidan shot his logistics officer a quick, grateful grin over his shoulder. The logistics officer returned a discreet thumbs' up and a small smile.
A quarter of a mile later, Aidan turned at the sound of a yelp behind him. His gut turned over on itself. Saul was on the ground, hands and knees braced against the gritty soil. He could barely raise his head when Aidan knelt beside him.
"Saul? I need you to try to lean on Lazarus. I need you to try to get up." He put as much calm as he could into his voice, wishing he sounded more sure himself.
Saul shook his head. "Can't." As if to prove his point, the man tried to push himself up, slipped, and would have fallen face first into the dirt if the two men on either side hadn't caught him.
Aidan could hear the rest of the group slowing, hear their anxious murmurs as they clustered around.
Saul drew a ragged breath. "Look. I know your guys' protocol. Mills Clause. Just get the kids out of hearing range first."
Aidan's heart skipped a beat. He raised his head. His munitions officer stared at him blankly, thoughts shuttered behind his eyes. Page fifteen of the Civilian Evacuation Procedure. The Mills Clause.
Behind him, Kevin spoke quietly. "Try a few more of the glucose-"
Saul hacked a parody of a laugh. "Man, grow up. I'm out. Get moving. No time for this."
Aidan felt as if he'd been riveted to the ground. The Mills Clause. It was procedure, and as ranking officer, his job included its execution. If a civilian was incapacitated but still coherent, they would become a goldmine of information if they fell into Corporate hands. That couldn't happen. And leaving a man behind to slowly die in the desert was probably worse than a bullet.
A bullet.
He could hear his breathing, ragged in the confines of his helmet.
The Mills Clause.
His throat felt tight.
Procedure.
A bullet.
Aidan shook his head so fast he felt as if he'd wrenched his neck. "Yeah. No time. Lazarus?"
The man stared at him with empty eyes. Aidan swallowed, feeling the ache in his tight throat. "You've got the tripods for two guns right?"
The taller man nodded, watching Aidan like a bird of prey.
Aidan glanced at Saul. "Get them out."
They were fifteen minutes late to the truck, and eighteen minutes late arriving in Pueblo. Their dark-eyed go-between already had his mouth open when Aidan got out of the truck inside the old warehouse, already complaining.
"-the hell were you? I thought you'd got nabbed. Another five minutes, and I was gone, man! What the fuck?"
"Ran into a problem," Aidan stated shortly. "We're here now."
The darker man sneered. "Yeah? You were supposed to be here half an hour ago, mama guevo. I want to get out of here and now I have to wait another fucking hour while the satellite finishes its pass and- Hijo de la gran puta."
Aidan followed the man's shocked gaze to where Saul was being manhandled out of the back of the jeep. The makeshift stretcher couldn't have been comfortable, but Saul had fallen asleep on it. The belts of the three Dusters and everyone else in the party wrapped around the struts that had been Lazarus's gun tripods had made carrying him possible. Four of his fellow activists laid the sleeping man gently on the floor.
The border runner turned hot eyes on Aidan. Stepping in, he glared down at the shorter man. His voice was a hiss.
"You're supposed to leave the ones who can't make it in the desert with a bullet in them, you amemao. That's the procedure."
Aidan had expected to feel his body tense as the man tried to loom over him. He hadn't expected the cold anger that came instead, but it ran into his gut and up his backbone. One more person who wanted to throw away anybody who wasn't up to their standards. One more asshole.
But this asshole had to listen to him.
"He can make it fine," Aidan stated, absently thrilled that anger dropped his voice so low. "He needs sleep and a couple meals. But he's going to make it. You do your job and you'll get your money."
"We'll help," one of the activists added, defiance and fear in his voice. Aidan glanced at the man kneeling beside his friend, met his eyes and gave a quick nod. The man smiled anxiously, nodded in reply.
Behind Aidan, the border runner snorted. "Here. I need a thumbprint saying you dropped them off. I'm reporting this to your people, I hope you know that. It's your fucking procedure."
Aidan shrugged, holding the man's eyes as he placed his thumb on the surface of the tab the man held out. "Then it's not your problem. It's mine."
Before the machine beeped, the border runner had looked away.
Aidan glanced at his men, nodded in the direction of their truck. "Let's go."
It was quiet inside the vehicle for a long, long time. Aidan stared out the window as Lazarus drove, trying to control the shaking of his hands.
He'd just done that. He'd really just done that. He'd just figured out a situation that could have killed them all and stared down a Dominican border runner.
He'd have to explain breaking procedure to Magnum. But that shit-show could wait for another day.
He drew a slow breath. "Kevin?"
"Yes?" the man in the back seat asked.
"Add new tripods for Munitions to the 3D-print list for the base. Check and see if we need any special materials for it."
"Of cou
rse."
Silence.
Half an hour later, Lazarus shifted in his driving seat. "I thought you were supposed to be the one who made us follow procedure from now on."
"Depends on the procedure," Aidan replied quietly. "Always thought the Mills Clause was stupid."
Silence.
Lazarus cleared his throat. "I got a bottle of black rum the other day. Told Sarah it was rifle-barrel cleaner, so maybe she hasn't drunk it. You guys want a drink when we get back?"
Aidan had to force himself not to whip around and stare at the man. Swallowing hard, he managed a smile.
"Yeah. That'd be great."
Lazarus nodded once. "Okay, then."
The rum was awful, but the drinking felt good. For the first time since he'd arrived, Aidan found himself smiling as he walked into his quarters and shut the door that night.
In his pocket, his tab pinged.
Pulling it out, he read the words. Then he read them again.
Message Handle: Sector40COM
Message: Congratulations Headly. One month today. You kept the deal.
Meeting with me day after tomorrow.
Going to do two months?
Aidan stared at the message for a long, long time. When his hand was steady enough, he typed six letters.
Message Handle: AceOfSpades
Message: Yes sir.
Event File 19
File Tag: Talent Search
Timestamp:13:00-7-4-2155
"And in further news, the woman charged with copyright infringement by Cavanaugh Corporation when her daughter's genome was found to contain proprietary information was-"
"Can't you turn that thing down?"
"Hmm?" Kevin asked, pulling out one ear bud. The strains of The Doobie Brothers' 'Drift Away' floated out into the room.
Yvonne rolled her eyes. "I said, can't you turn the room's wall screen down? It's driving me nuts."
Absently, Kevin tossed her a set of 'buds in their baggie, eyes on his screen and tab in his lap. "It's a cheap room and they'll notice tampering or signal interference. Stiff upper lip, my dear girl."
He saw Yvonne give him her patent 'older sister is not amused' expression out of the corner of his eye.
"You put four white noise and sound box filters on the room and you're worried about messing up the wall screen?"
Kevin shrugged. "White noise filters aren't interrupting any other signals. We've only got one more day to go. Now do be quiet. You wouldn't want to let the neighbors hear a married couple fight would you? It'd set a terrible example."
He smiled thinly as he heard Yvonne sigh and flop onto the bed. Of course the question of 'the neighbors' hearing anything was moot with four sound boxes sitting discreetly under and inside furniture, sending out a subsonic white-noise buzz that blocked anyone more than twenty feet away from discerning actual sounds. This model created electrical signals that would be read by any listening devices as the normal sounds of a couple chatting about nothing and moving in a room.
The question of the two of them being a married couple was laughable too, though they could pass for either husband and wife or brother and sister easily on undercover runs. That was always useful. This sort of teasing served him well for dispelling the tension in the room, but he wished Yvonne would hush and let him really concentrate.
Yvonne glanced up with mild interest from her spot.
"What are you working so hard on anyway? We got the contact, the new ID and intel they needed."
"Trying to track that coder we heard about a while ago," Kevin replied distractedly, studying the screen. "Several of the best session prediction algorithm software sets recently put up for sale on the GreyNet have the same signature in their headers. It was on the software Jazz sold us too." He hit the directional button on his tab, and the hologram of the screen dissolved and reformed facing Yvonne. "See this?" he added, underlining the little glyph with a finger as Yvonne leaned in.
<(-_-)>^^^^^/__
"It may be entirely coincidence, but the work's very much of the caliber that Jazz's new friend produces. I'm interested in seeing what else this kid's getting up to. I got the contact approval, so I'm hoping to find somewhere in the Social Streams or the Greynet where she's active and I can discuss terms with her, but so far no dice."
Yvonne snorted a laugh. "What the hell is that? Is it supposed to be some kind of bug?"
"A bogeyman of some sort, I was thinking," Kevin replied thoughtfully, squinting. He reached up, then dropped his hand with an annoyed sigh yet again. The contacts did a fine job, but they didn't give the tactile satisfaction his glasses did. "Or maybe a dragon?"
Yvonne glanced up slowly, an entirely different sort of giggle escaping her.
Kevin raised a brow. "What?"
"I was just thinking about the way Aidan looked when you showed him the vid with the dragon in it." Yvonne held her barely controlled grin a moment longer before losing control and bursting out in a fit of giggles. "Oh god, his face. I think that level of gamma broke his brains."
"I object!" Kevin exclaimed, shoving the woman in mock affront as she rolled helplessly giggling into his lap, "Dragonheart's a cult classic!"
"That bullshit is so gamma it's got three heads," Yvonne refuted, shaking her head with a grin.
Kevin rolled his eyes, a sheepish smile stealing across his face. "All right, it isn't the best thing ever made, but you're supposed to watch it for the conceptual message. I mean, valor! Chivalry! The world needs rather more of that."
"Yeah, well," Yvonne shrugged, sitting up. "Your all valor-y knight was a total scammer." Brushing her hair out of her eyes, she rested her chin on her fists, watching her basemate.
"You and Aidan have been doing a lot of movie nights. Nobody is even bothering with the rec room on Tuesdays anymore."
"He's interested in the history of film, so we've been doing an informal tour of film eras," Kevin demurred, turning his screen back to its forward position. "I'm enjoying discussing the subject with someone who evinces a modicum of taste."
In fact, he'd been enjoying discussing everything with Aidan on Tuesday nights these past months. It had been a long time since he'd been around someone who listened and actually considered ideas you tossed out before speaking.
Most people were only waiting until their conversational companion shut up and let them talk, but not Aidan. The man was possibly the most relaxing conversation partner Kevin had known. He was the kind of man you could say anything to without fear.
Almost anything, Kevin reminded himself. He'd been getting dangerously sloppy lately around Aidan. He'd said things he shouldn't about his own childhood, and he knew it. Aidan was all too easy to talk to sometimes. But he really was interested in the movies and the ideas that came out of them. Finding films that would make his blue eyes light up had become something of a hobby in itself for Kevin. But Yvonne didn't need to know that.
The wall screen's inane chatter didn't fill the silence in the room. Kevin kept his eyes on his screen as Yvonne watched him.
"It's been three whole months of vid nights. You started into this century yet?"
Kevin smirked, shook his head. "Not even close. We started with 'Who's On First'."
"Hunh?"
"Black and white vid. Don't worry about it."
"Okay then."
Kevin found another code sample, glanced at the header. Dragon signature. He downloaded it.
"He's kind of working out, isn't he?" Yvonne's voice murmured over the noise of the screen.
"Mm?" Kevin asked absently.
"Aidan. He's kind of working out, isn't he?" Yvonne added. "He's been really good on the mission planning. We're getting shit done right again. Sector's finally off our asses. Laz is kind of okay with him as commander now, too. I mean, he's stopped pulling shit and getting write-ups from Liza and Damian all the time."
"So
have you, for that matter," Kevin added, squinting at the screen. He heard Yvonne snort.
"You know I was only doing shit to keep Laz company."
"Tell that to the last poor bastard you kneed in the crotch," Kevin demurred wryly.
Yvonne gave a little 'humph.' "Guy asked for it, picking on Sarah. If I didn't do it, she would've."
Kevin didn't bother to respond to that comment beyond a murmur of commiseration.
Silence.
"You kissed him yet?" Yvonne asked, cocking her head. "Aidan, I mean, not Laz. That'd just be weird."
Kevin finally raised his eyes, giving his friend a long, level look.
"Yve, I'd like to live into my forties at least. Don't get sloppy about on-Grid conversations."
Yvonne snorted down her long, delicate nose. "Oh, don't even. We just planned and executed a deep-cover intel drop out of here. If it's secure enough for that, it's secure enough for this. Chickenshit," she added, elbowing him gently.
Kevin sighed, resetting his screen so that it projected at eye level and sitting up a little. "People can have hobbies and platonic relationships. Not everything is about sex, Yve." He stored a copy of the next code snippet, and dug up a new one. Yvonne flopped back again. He could feel her watching him.
"Kev, honey, if you're crushing and you want to get your mind off it, I know this guy, Dustin, on Base 870. He's a nice guy. He's gay. He'd be good for you. I know it's been tough since Peter took off on you, but-"
"No, Yvonne," Kevin replied with the weariness of the world in his voice, deliberately misconstruing her words. "Being gay is a negligible little issue that may get me shot one day. What's 'tough' is the fact that certain people assume you'd like to sleep with every other gay man on the planet. I can make my own arrangements, thank you. I'm all grown up these days."
"Sorry I asked," Yvonne muttered.
Kevin wished he'd kept his mouth shut.
Twenty minutes passed in silence. Kevin shut down his tab and stood. "I'm going to run and check in with Dilya. If you want to check up on Rivera, we can head home tomorrow morning."