Jupiter Rising

by Zachary Brown

  The honor guard saluted as Colonel Anais and General Gerrard disembarked from their hopper, one hour behind schedule. The parade ground was packed: Alpha and Bravo Company present and accounted for, and a slightly ersatz Charlie Company with its spaces filled in by civilian personnel dressed in recruit uniforms. Anais’s orders. There was to be no evidence of trouble.

  Ken and I stood with the other instructors and senior admin officers lining the main entryway. Anais gave me a brief glare and nod as he passed with the General at his side and Devlin miserably in tow. The General himself was short, round, and looked twice as miserable as Devlin. Then again, if he came bearing more casualty lists, he had reason.

  That was it. They went directly into Anais’s office, leaving Devlin outside the door. We’d busted our butts for a two-minute showpiece. I should have been glad that Charlie-C hadn’t faced closer inspection, but instead I was mad at the utter lack of recognition that something terrible had happened.

  “Fucking PR,” I grumbled as we dispersed.

  + + + +

  Breakfast in the mess hall was a nightmare. Arvani packed the observation glass in a solid, intimidating mass of tentacles and eyes, surpassing the worst of my Manhattan memories. They didn’t need to be there. For every Arvani pressed up against the glass like a curious child, there were tens, hundreds, or thousands watching footage of our movements from the comfort of their ocean dwellings. The Arvani were always watching but, like my Granddad said, sometimes they wanted us to know we were being watched.

  No one lingered. Ken went first, muttering about needing to check on something in Communications. Devlin and I left soon after. The feeling of constant surveillance persisted even away from the mess hall. Part of that was because it was true, but another part was the presence of the visiting general. An ordinary stroll down the corridor became something to be done with straighter spine and a snappier step. We had become used to carefully self-censoring our conversations, but the weight of the night’s events was too much for casual chatter. That weight only grew as I saw something disquieting: Private Jasen Russo walking down an adjacent corridor, flanked by two military police officers and carefully avoiding eye contact with anyone.

  “Devlin—” I began.

  “Not now. Anais told me to come to his office after breakfast.”

  + + + +

  I frowned at his brusque tone, but I followed him to Anais’s office. The secretary informed us that the Colonel was (fortunately) still busy with General Gerrard and would send for Captain Hart later. We made ourselves scarce before “later” somehow became “now.”

  “Good. Now I have a few minutes and we need to talk privately,” Devlin said.

  “My quarters, then,” I replied.

  The door barely had time to close before Devlin exploded. “Didn’t you search her?” he demanded. “Why didn’t you search her? How did she get a grenade past you of all people?”

  “Right, my mistake,” I shot back as I turned away and yanked open my locker. My EPC-1 was in my grab-and-go bag with some clothes and other emergency gear. “And whose idea was it to bring thirty unarmed recruits to the party?”

  The door opened again—we flinched, but it was only Ken. “Guys,” he warned. “You can still be overheard the old-fashioned way.”

  I tried to speak calmly. “Rai’s gone, but I can find her. I’ve got a lead—but I won’t be able to do much if I stay here.”

  Devlin’s eyes widened as I pulled my bag strap over one shoulder. “You are not going to pull your AWOL shit now. Not after what just happened.”

  I shook my head at his stubbornness. “We don’t have time to dance with Anais and CPF regulations, Devlin. Rai’s trail is getting colder.”

  Exhaustion and stress cracked his voice. “You can’t lone-wolf this one, Amira. When are you going to realize that you’re part of a team?”

  I groaned. He was trying to guilt me, as if I wasn’t feeling guilty enough. “Devlin, this isn’t the time.”

  “Bullshit. You think I don’t know what you’ve been doing since we got stuck out here? You’re trying to reach your old networks. You’ve given up on the CPF.”

  “That’s not true,” I snapped. “Anais wants to downplay the base security breach. Well, I’m helping. If he asks, tell him I’m investigating.”

  “No. I’m ordering you not to leave. We work on this together.”

  “Excuse me?” I said. “Did you just say you’re ordering me?”

  “People died, Amira, people under our command—”

  “Devlin,” Ken interrupted Devlin’s rant. “Let her go.”

  We both stared at him.

  “I just heard that the Arvani investigation of the breach traced stolen security codes back to our IT department. I’m not sure who really did it, but . . . there’s been a confession.”

  “Jasen,” I said.

  Ken nodded.

  I dropped on the nearest bed and dragged my hands over my tired eyes. “Shit.”

  “He’s covering for his people,” Devlin said with sober respect.

  “Of course he is.” I hammered my fist on the bed. “Dammit! He won’t even get CPF justice. The Arvani will take him and execute him.”

  Ken sat beside me. “That explains why they were so many gawkers today. Hoping to catch our reactions when we got the news.”

  “Devlin, I’ve got to find Rai. If anyone has to be executed, I want it to be her. Talk to Anais, tell him Jasen’s just a bootlegger. Make him stall.”

  Devlin raised his eyebrows. “I’ll try, but . . . are you sure? If you take down Rai, won’t that make enemies of your old friends?”

  “They’re not friends if they’re walking in with bombs.”

  “Point,” Ken said.

  Devlin twitched at the tap of a summons. “Anais wants me. I’ve got to go.  Amira . . .” He paused, shook his head, and left without another word.

  I blinked, also startled by a message tap. JP—I’d almost forgotten about her, but she hadn’t forgotten me.

  meet me in New Jacksonville

  The message was rushed in content but solidly layered in encryption. I was as cautious with my reply. Why?

  come and see for Jasen not for Rai

  Explain. My counterdemand was met with silence. Ken was staring at me.

  I stood up. “I’m going on a recce. I may be some time.”

  6

  * * *

  Getting out was easy, too easy, thanks to Anais’s insistence that the base maintain a veneer of normality during the general’s stay. I flashed a two-day leave pass at the guard and got waved through the gate. Makani drove me to the train station and wished me all the best, and that was as much rebellion as she could manage. Although there had been no other arrests after Jasen’s confession, IT staff was still under scrutiny and she knew not to stray too far from base.

  New Jacksonville was a dangerously confusing place. It was an anomaly, an unplanned modern city packed beyond capacity with the displaced masses who fled north and west after the Arvani flooded most of Florida. Major roads were fairly reliable, but temporary shelters and their access roads came and went as the transient population moved in and then moved on. There was no way to tell where JP was, except to ask.

  I’m here, in New Jacksonville. Where are you? Where should I meet you?

  Silence. Time to implement Plan B. I turned in place in front of the station, staring, looking lost.

  “Miss! Do you want a guide, miss?”

  Seven seconds. Not bad, but I’d been faster to the mark in my day. I looked at the boy—no, not a boy, a girl dressed as a boy but not yet comfortable in the costume of big boots, long shorts, and pirate-style embroidered headscarf. “How long have you been in New Jacksonville?”

  Wide eyes, wide smile, big lie. “Three years, miss. I know how to get around. Can I carry your bag?”

  “No. It’s too heavy for you. I need a hostel and a tech shop. Nothing too pricey, I’m not made of credit. How much and what currency?”r />
  The child squinted at me, turning the grin from friendly to fiendish. “Tech shop organizes my credit. See?”

  She showed me a nano-ink logo on the back of her hand. I nodded slowly, approving. It was a recognized brand. “Okay. Let’s go to the tech shop first.”

  We walked for a few minutes away from the station along an alley, and then stepped out onto the sidewalk of a busy city street. I stayed in character as naïve traveler, gawking and stopping occasionally. The place was a mess. Not like how New York or Washington DC was a mess—part bombed out, part taken over by alien structures—but in that unique mess that humans make when settled meets nomadic in awkward truce. Mid-rise buildings in the traditional stone, brick, and concrete were extended and linked with platforms of wood and tarp. Some of the tarp was solar-capable and more. I looked more closely at the girl’s headscarf, and noticed with all my senses the various shawls, capes and wraps so popular among the pedestrians. New Jacksonville folk wore their tech and their wealth in fabric threaded with golden circuitry. It wasn’t uncommon tech, but I’d never seen so many in one place before. Still, it made sense—if you’re constantly on the run, you don’t want tech you have to stop and grab. That’s why I have nano-ink.

  The tech shop was located in a clean, midsized building with no auxiliary structures, no squatters, no beggars. Very respectable. They could probably afford to pay for protection and maintenance. The owner was a big man who wore pants and T-shirt in mismatched blacks, a pale purple head wrap, and a brown logo-stamped wristlet with an input interface. He was predictably cautious and not at all brimming with the milk of customer service. “Got any ID?” he asked gruffly. He was staring at a cluster of screens on his wall. They appeared to be security-camera views of the area, and I gave another thought to the crime rate.

  “What kind do you take?” I asked.

  He looked at me, at my hair actually, and looked away again. “You a CPF groupie?”

  My surprise was unfeigned. “Groupie?”

  He waved a hand. “Purple hair, like that sergeant. Fashionable, even when it’s not the real thing.”

  “I don’t groupie,” I said. “What kind of ID do you take?”

  “DNA, nano-ink logo, chip. No cards, no papers, no plastic.”

  I had the CPF enlistment logo, but I wasn’t about to use that. I took a risk. “DNA.”

  At last I became more interesting to him than the screens. He took out a lancet from his wristlet and pressed the STERILIZE button. I nodded when I saw the steam and presented my right hand. He ignored the outstretched palm and jabbed it into the side of my elbow. I hissed but didn’t complain. People could secrete pouches of foreign blood in the expected places—fingertips, palms, inner elbow. He checked the result, resterilized, and repeated the process with my right earlobe and below my left collarbone to confirm. There was no double take. There are many Amira Singhs in the world, and I’m sure he never learned the name of that purple-haired sergeant who occasionally showed up in Devlin Hart news clips.

  “So, what do you want, Singh?” he asked.

  “Communications and news access, the usual channels.”

  He typed my details into the wristlet, but I caught the assessing glance at my nano-ink, and the silent “yeah right” in his slight smile and eye roll.

  “I like to start small in a new place. Shows respect.” My tone made it clear that I didn’t owe him an explanation, but I was willing to have this casual, neighborly chat.

  He nodded in agreement, his gaze still on his wristlet, finished his typing, and handed over a datachip. “You’re set. Did Tica guide you all right?”

  “Yeah.” I looked over at the child, who was leaning on the wall just inside the door, watching the street, probably looking for marks. “She’s taking me to a hostel next.”

  He raised his voice. “Hey, Tica. Show her the Gator Raid.” He briefly caught my eye. “Lots of your kind there,” he added more quietly.

  My kind? Soldiers? Nano-inkers? Sneaks? “Thanks,” I said aloud. Then, as I left the shop and followed Tica, it finally clicked: Aggregator Aid. When Accordance tech became the standard, a lot of human service providers and innovators in IT hit rock bottom fast and hard. The Aggregator Aid Association emerged in response—half union, half social club. In some cities, membership was open with IT types in the minority. Interesting that the New Jacksonville one was true to its roots.

  Just how true came as a bit of a shock. Tica brought me right into the lobby of the hostel, confirmed my credit deposit by messaging her boss, took an additional credit tip from the concierge because why not, and skipped off without any goodbyes. I looked around the lobby warily. There were just a few people, two or three groups sitting and standing and talking together, but they made me wonder, Is this place a convent? Music and radio DJ patter blared from the corners of the room, suggesting that no, this was not a convent in spite of what appeared to be an exclusively female clientele.

  “Yes dear,” the concierge prompted, trying to return my wandering attention to her and her desk.

  “Uh . . . yes. Can I . . . stay here?” I asked.

  Her gaze flitted to the nano-ink on my face and arms. I noticed she even glanced down at my right leg, well covered in thick twill, as if she could see the tattoo there above the knee. “Yes dear, you can stay here. Do you wish to?”

  I looked around the lobby again. Older women, mostly. Black shining hair worn in a long single braid. The long wrap, subtly but densely embroidered with tech. Their outfits were varied, but I couldn’t shake the sense of some uniformity, as if they’d all grown up in the same neighborhood . . . or institution. I spared a quick, cynical thought that in this case “my kind” meant “of Indian appearance.”

  “Sorry,” I said brightly to the concierge. “Yes. Yes, I would like to stay here. Not sure how long yet.”

  “Well, let’s put you down for a week, and we’ll see what happens after that,” she said. “Do I register you as Amira Singh or as Sergeant Amira Singh?”

  I did a quick revision of the situation. There were suddenly too many eyes turned toward me, too many curious and assessing looks. “Amira Singh,” I said firmly to the concierge, ignoring everyone else.

  Or trying to. My peripheral vision caught the moment when the silent staring turned to whispering and staring. The concierge merely smiled and blinked rapidly as she processed some invisible information. “I’ve put you in room 5B with Lia Chaudry and Karina Wilmer. Second floor. You share bathroom facilities with 6B.”

  As she spoke, I received information packets: directions to 5B, the rules of the hostel, and my invoice for a week’s stay. I nodded in thanks and began to walk in the direction of the stairs when the concierge added, “Sorry, dear. You need to pay in advance to get your door code if you’re not backed by a corporation or institution. Of course, if you’re here as part of the CPF . . .”

  I didn’t bother to turn around. I stopped and sent the signal to release the credit to the hostel. The invoice instantly updated with a code attached. I kept walking. The room was near the stairs, which I appreciated, and neither Chaudry nor Wilmer were visible, although the privacy screen around the third bed was sealed shut. I passed the unmade bed in the middle of the room and dumped my bag on the bed by the window. I fell next to the bag with a big sigh and closed my eyes.

  Sneaking through the networks is easiest when you have another network to work from. The tourist access purchased from the tech shop gave me a decent entry point, but something told me to stay cautious. The first thing I noticed was the privacy screen in the room. Professional-grade, good enough for any sex worker or establishment. Strange to see that level of screening in a hostel. Then I paid attention to the formal networks. Accordance throughout, of course, and as basic as could be expected of a civilian network in a minor city of mostly transients. New York was different. The networks were as solid as the buildings, the surveillance as constant as the threat of anti-Accordance forces and, if I were to imagine the worst, Conglom
erate as well.

  The informal networks of New Jacksonville were another matter altogether.

  I’ve discovered nooks and niches, hidden places carved out from existing structures and shielded by the normal. I’ve stumbled over dead spots of unusual silence, light shining through unstopped cracks, static and frequencies appearing and disappearing for no good reason. New Jacksonville was hiding in plain sight as a mosaic of independent micronetworks flashing in and out of existence, shorter than the lifespan of a trace. The natural result of having thousands of semilegal personal networks making brief connections to other personal networks, or something more significant? And there was still no reply from JP.

  “Hi.”

  I got my feet off the bed and under me, moving from prone to standing in a second or two. The speaker backed off nervously until I sat down, then approached again with an outstretched hand.

  “I didn’t realize you were sleeping. Sorry.”

  “S’okay. Hi.” I shook her hand and glanced past her. The privacy screen on the other side of the room was gone, revealing a neatly made bed, but the middle bed was still unmade. “Amira Singh. You’re Wilmer?”

  She nodded. She was a lot younger than the regulars. Short hair, no wrap, jeans, and singlet.

  “Where’s good to eat around here that won’t drain my credit?”

  She shrugged. “There’s a couple of food trucks in the neighborhood that aren’t too bad.”

  I nodded.

  “You’re in the CPF?” she asked. Her voice had that stressed, hurried sound of suppressed hope.

  I grew instantly cautious. “Was. Why?”

  She looked down. “My brother got conscripted months ago. I haven’t heard from him in weeks.”

  “CPF doesn’t just let go of its conscripts. Have you asked them? He should be in the records. Unless you . . . can’t ask them, because you were a conscript too.”

  She met my eyes again. The soft, shy persona was no more. “Some of us can’t dance between loyalties as well as you can, Amira Singh. So, can you help me contact him?”

  I frowned. The EPC-1 hidden in my bag was not my only weapon. I pulled my hair out of its ponytail and settled the hair tie around the knuckles of my right hand while idly finger-combing my hair with my left. “That’s not a priority for me right now, especially if he doesn’t want to be contacted. Have you considered that?”