Outriders

by Jay Posey

  The man in the black coat’s face was partially obscured by another bystander, but it looked like Lincoln had captured enough for Thumper to work with. “I got a closeup of one of our admirers.”

  Wright glanced at him sideways, with an eyebrow raised.

  “Seriously?” Mike said. “When did you have time for that?”

  “I had about two seconds between when Wright let me go and when you zapped me,” Lincoln said.

  Wright grunted and turned back forward. That was probably all of the reaction Lincoln could have hoped for from her. Almost as good as an actual pat on the back.

  “Pretty quick thinking for someone busy getting his head kicked in,” Mike said.

  “I’ve had a lot of practice.”

  “With the thinking, or the head-kicking-in?”

  “Both.”

  * * *

  BACK AT THEIR RAMSHACKLE HQ, Lincoln fed the image to Veronica, who through some combination of complicated algorithm and scary black magic would hopefully identify and start tracking the man in the black coat. Thumper had already linked her system in to Shackleton’s local closed-circuit security system, so they had a wide net of coverage.

  “So, that’s my bad,” Thumper said. They were all gathered in the planning room, looking at the top-down on the thin-skin. She pointed at a white circle on the map. “Right here’s where they got you. Detector pinged home while you were in this sensor radius. Bad luck, really, but could have been avoided if I’d known they were that sophisticated.”

  “What kind of sensor is that?” Mike asked.

  “Reads like a standard e-kit, which the detector’s shielded against. But it looks like someone’s been making some modifications. It’s a good bet they’ve tweaked other stuff too, so I’ll have to be more careful in the future. Sorry about that guys, I should’ve known better.”

  “Even the screwups give us information, Thumper,” Lincoln said. “Though I’m not sure how you could have known beforehand.”

  Thumper shrugged away the attempt to make her feel better. It wasn’t really her fault, but she wasn’t going to let anyone tell her that.

  “How technical a job is it to do that kind of work?” Lincoln asked.

  “It’s definitely not something they teach you at community college,” she answered. “Probably a good thing we didn’t try with the skeeters.”

  “Does any of that give us a read on the safehouse location?” Wright asked.

  Thumper shook her head. “Not yet. But Veronica’s building up off the detector’s data now. After she chews on it for a while, we might find some trails we didn’t have before.”

  “Guess we’ll be laying low for a couple of days, huh?” Mike said.

  “I wouldn’t count on it, Mike,” Lincoln said. “Either we stirred them up, or we didn’t. If we didn’t, we operate as usual. If we did, I want to keep the pressure on, see how they react. Just enough to keep them up all night, not enough to make them pack up shop.”

  “You’re not going back down there,” Wright said.

  “Me, no,” Lincoln answered. “But I’m all right with you and Pence showing your faces around a little more. Nothing makes these people more anxious than the idea that someone else’s operation might be overlapping their territory. You get enough secret squirrels running around out there, everyone starts getting concerned about the whereabouts of their nuts.”

  Mike chuckled.

  “Thumper, are you in touch with Mr Self?” Lincoln asked.

  “Yeah, I’ve got a direct line to him.”

  “Package up what you’ve got on our friend in the black coat and let him take a look. Maybe NID can save us some legwork.”

  Thumper nodded.

  “What about the rest of us?” Mike said.

  “Business as usual,” Lincoln said. “Long days, little sleep, let’s keep our eye on the ball.”

  * * *

  FOR NINE TERRAN DAYS, they kept the buildings under constant surveillance, gradually narrowing the possibilities down. Veronica was able to pick up Black Coat’s movements, and though it wasn’t as simple as just following him back to home base, they were able to capture a substantial amount of data from him. Adding to that some well-executed go-look work by Mike, Wright, and Sahil, the team started piecing together at least a partial list of the man’s associates. That in turn gave Veronica even more data to chew on, and eventually Thumper’s analysis of the paths taken, the time spent in various locations, and about a hundred other data points gave them three high-probability targets to focus on. The buildings that Wright had named Othello, Juliet, and Puck.

  It was just before the simulated sunrise of the tenth day that they finally got their break.

  “Hey, Link,” Thumper said. Lincoln opened his eyes. He’d racked out on the floor in the main room. “Come take a look at this.”

  He cleared his throat and rolled up to a sitting position on the sleeping bag, checked the time. Not bad. He’d slept almost half an hour. Wright was still at the main table, reviewing a packet NID had sent over. Lincoln got to his feet and went into the front bedroom. It took until he was crossing the threshold to realize she’d called him “Link”; the first time anyone on the team had called him by a nickname.

  “Yeah, what’s up, Thump?” he said.

  Thumper expanded the projected screen and pointed to a still image of a man Lincoln hadn’t seen before.

  “This fella here just came out of Puck,” she said.

  “You recognize him?” Lincoln asked.

  “Nope, and neither does Veronica here. I ran facial and came up empty. He might be coming out of the building here now, but he never went in. At least, not as long as we’ve had eyes on it.”

  “You get it over to Self yet?”

  “Not yet. Wanted to see what you thought.”

  “Run it.”

  Thumper bumped the video feed back a few seconds, and then played it at normal speed. After a moment, the man came out cautiously, conspicuous in his attempts to be casual. He was a small man, slightly built, with long, wild hair, and a beard to match; Filipino, maybe, or Indonesian. Almost as soon as he appeared, two other men crossed the street to intercept him. They each looked like they outweighed the first man by a good hundred pounds or so. The three had a restrained but heated conversation, and then the smaller man went back inside.

  “What do you think?” Thumper asked.

  “I think that’s our guy,” Lincoln answered. “And I think maybe this safehouse wasn’t exactly his idea.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Get it over to Mr Self, see if he can pull an ID,” Lincoln said.

  “Roger that. Might be a bit before we hear back. It’s early.”

  “You want some coffee?”

  Thumper nodded. Lincoln went to the kitchen attached to the main room and started the preparations. Wright was still sitting at the main table.

  “Sergeant?” he said, holding up a mug. Wright looked over at him, gave him a shrug and a nod.

  Mike and Sahil were both in the adjoining apartment, on the other side of the blanket covering the hole in the wall. They’d come back in an hour and a half or so ago, after doing a little more work Downtown, as the target area had come to be known. Under normal circumstances, he would have given them at least four hours of sleep. But if anything interesting came back from Mr Self, he was going to have to cut that short.

  Lincoln set the brewer to maximum. Long years in rough places had taught him that no matter where you were, or what was going on around you, nothing soothed hurts and covered a multitude of sins like a freshly brewed cup of coffee. If he was going to have to wake Sahil up, he wanted to do it with a peace offering in hand.

  He hung around the kitchen, leaning against the counter with his arms crossed and his eyes closed, stealing a few moments of light dozing. When the brewer chimed, Lincoln poured three mugs and fixed them up for himself and for his teammates. Cream and sugar for Thumper, way too much sugar for Wright. He delivered Wright’s to her o
n his way back to the front room.

  “Thanks,” she said, without looking up.

  “Yep,” he said.

  In the bedroom, he handed Thumper her mug, and then stood next to her, looking over Veronica’s displays and sipping his own coffee.

  “How long you think it’ll be before we hear?” he asked.

  Thumper shrugged. “Mr Self seems pretty on the hop, so I’m sure he’ll get to it. But you never know with NID. Could take them hours to find something. Or, they might not find anything at all. Or, you know. They might find something that they don’t want us to know, and then we’ll hear back from them pretty fast that they couldn’t find anything.”

  Lincoln chuckled.

  “When was the last time you slept?” he asked.

  “I got a couple hours,” she answered vaguely.

  “In the past forty-eight?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. Hard to keep track around here.”

  “Why don’t you knock off for a bit? Until we hear back? I’ll run the station.”

  “Nah, that’s all right, sir, I’m good.” She waggled her coffee at him.

  “If we get something to move on, I need you sharp,” Lincoln said.

  “I’m never anything but,” she answered. “Sleep’s for suckers, sir.”

  “Yeah, well,” Lincoln said, and he took a seat in a folding chair by the wall. “You’ve got a pretty big sucker for a CO, then. I feel like I could sleep for a month.”

  They sat in silence for a few minutes, each sipping their coffee. But Lincoln felt sleep sneaking up on him in the quiet, and he didn’t want to nod off.

  “So, sergeant,” he said. “What’s your story? Where are you from?”

  “I’m from Detroit, sir,” she said.

  “Oh, that makes sense. Grew up around this stuff then, huh?” Lincoln said, pointing over at Veronica.

  “A bit, yeah. Lot of good schools. My folks were encouraging.”

  Lincoln nodded. And then a thought occurred to him.

  “Wait… you’re not… uh…” he said, suddenly unsure of how to ask, or even if he should. Thumper looked over at him and, after a moment of watching his struggles, smirked.

  “Of those Colemans?” she said. “Yes, sir, I’m afraid I am. Vernor Coleman’s my granddad, Tucker’s my dad.”

  “Wow,” Lincoln heard himself say. He tried to play it off. “Sorry… I just… That’s cool.”

  “Yeah, I don’t really like to float that around too much. Not that I’m ashamed of it or anything. But you can imagine the attention it brings.”

  Vernor Coleman was the visionary credited with nearly singlehandedly building Detroit into the second-largest spaceport on Earth, behind only the one in Bamoko. Which Coleman had also had a hand in creating. Lincoln didn’t know how much of the story was true and how much was legend, but it was well known that Vernor Coleman had gone from the basement to the penthouse, and had taken a whole lot of people along with him to the top. There was no telling how many billions his family was worth.

  “You mind if I ask how you ended up here?” Lincoln said.

  “Stuck in a crappy apartment on the moon, you mean?” she said. “Pretty sure that’s your fault.”

  She smiled and shook her head.

  “You mean like, why am I sitting here as a sergeant instead of in some office back home telling everybody what to do?”

  Lincoln raised a hand and shook his head. “I didn’t mean to put you on the spot. If you don’t want to go into it…”

  “I always had a thing for the gear, I guess,” she continued. “And I wanted to serve my country. It’s been good to my family, seemed like someone oughta give a little back. And my folks were really supportive of the idea. At least until I enlisted. My dad was uh… a little irritated. I think he thought I was going to take advantage of the family connections, get a nice appointment, play air force for a while. You know, the safe stuff. That would have been good PR for the Coleman name. Tucker’s little girl, off to serve the nation.”

  “Air force, huh?”

  “Yeah,” she said with a chuckle. “He flipped his lid when I told him I’d gone army. He’s gotten used to it now, though.”

  “Does he know what you do?”

  “Sure,” Thumper answered, and then flashed a smile. “He knows I fix computers.”

  “And I’m guessing you’re not here just for the hazard pay,” Lincoln said.

  “Not so much. I like the army. Growing up…” She paused, looked down at her cup of coffee, took a sip. “You can probably imagine… a rich, black girl in tech. The neighborhood, the country club, the schools, the jobs… everywhere I went, somebody always had a reason why I didn’t belong where I belonged, you know?” She shrugged. “Around here, nobody cares about anything except whether or not I can do my job.”

  “And nobody around here can do the job the way you do it, Thump,” Lincoln said. He raised his mug in a salute. “I wouldn’t trade you for the world.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “But you haven’t known me that long. You’ll get tired of me once the shiny’s worn off.”

  “Don’t bet on it.”

  She smiled and sipped her coffee. “You know, sir. For an officer, you’re almost tolerable.”

  “It’s the coffee, isn’t it?”

  “It definitely helps,” she said.

  The conversation trailed off into a comfortable quiet for a few moments. Comfortable enough that Lincoln finally felt like he could ask a question he’d been hesitant to raise.

  “Can I ask you something,” Lincoln said. “About the Process?”

  Thumper’s posture changed, and the subtle shift in her expression made Lincoln wonder if, just by mentioning it, he’d already crossed a line.

  “Yeah,” she said. “But I gotta tell you it’s not something we really like to talk about too much, sir.”

  “Sure. Sorry. I don’t really know the etiquette…”

  “Oh, it’s not that. I don’t think there are enough of us around for there to be any etiquette yet. It’s just… it’s like combat, right? No way to talk about it meaningfully with anyone who hasn’t experienced it. And when you’ve both been through it, there’s not much you need to say. But ask away.”

  “So you’ve uh…” Lincoln couldn’t quite bring himself to form the words he’d started, and changed them midsentence. “… been through it then?”

  Thumper nodded. “Once, yeah.”

  “With the replica?”

  “Oh,” she said. “Oh, no, I’ve never had things go that wrong. Mine was just a training accident. Fluke kind of thing.”

  “I’m sorry,” Lincoln said.

  Thumper gave a little half shrug. “Hey, I’m still here, right?” And then a moment later, she added, “It does kind of freak me out if I think about it. So mostly, I don’t.”

  “Has anybody had to use a replica yet?”

  “That’s… I think that’s probably not my place to talk about, sir.”

  “Sure, yeah,” Lincoln said. “I’m sorry, Thumper. It’s still just… I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around the whole thing.”

  “Yeah, it’s weird. But you know, the weirdest thing is how weird it isn’t. How normal it feels… after. Seems like it oughta be a much bigger deal. And it is, in a way. Kind of the biggest of all deals. But… it also isn’t.” She took another sip of her coffee, then shrugged. “I’d say you’ll see what I mean, but honestly sir, I hope to God you never have to.”

  Lincoln nodded. “No one’s going to need it on my watch.”

  “I know you’re an officer and all, sir,” Thumper said. “But I’m pretty sure that’s not a promise you can make.” She gave him a little wink, but the weight of the comment remained. And of course, she was right.

  Lincoln didn’t have a response. But even if he had, there hardly would have been time to say it. Veronica chirped, and Thumper turned back to face her terminal. “Looks like Self got something.”

  “That was fast,” Lincoln said.
“Does that mean he’s telling us he doesn’t have anything?”

  Thumper didn’t respond at first, already lost in the report that NID was sending over.

  “Oh, no way,” Thumper said. And went quiet again.

  “Yeah?” Lincoln prompted, after several seconds. He got up and walked over to stand behind her.

  “I never would have guessed it,” Thumper said. “That’s Yayan Prakoso.”

  “Should I know him?”

  “You don’t?” she said. “Sorry, no… of course not, you probably don’t follow that kind of news too much. But uh… remember how I was saying if you wanted to break in to 773’s sensor suite through a handshake, you’d need a code god to do it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well,” she said, and she pointed at the image on her screen. The man on the display wasn’t an exact match; he was beardless, with short, buzzed hair. But he had the same small frame, and the same sharp eyes. “He’s kind of a celebrity in certain circles. Went dark a couple of years ago, had all kinds of rumors about him. I gotta be honest, sir. I’d kind of like to get his autograph.”

  “Well then,” Lincoln said. “Let’s go ask him for it.”

  * * *

  THE TEAM ASSEMBLED in their planning center, laid out plans on the thin-skin. Sahil and Mike both looked ragged, but the cups of coffee and the promise of action kept them from grumbling too much. Not that Lincoln could remember ever having heard Sahil grumble at all.

  On the left side, the thin-skin showed images of a number of individuals, with Prakoso at the top. The others were all people the team had ID’d as Apsis personnel, or close associates of Apsis. The right side of the thin-skin displayed a top-down view of the three blocks surrounding the building labeled Puck, as well as a closer view of Puck itself.

  Lincoln touched the thin-skin over the image of Puck, selected a wireframe view of the floorplan.

  “This one ain’t real complicated, sir,” Sahil said. “Go in, get the guy, don’t get shot.”