Scardown jc-2

by Elizabeth Bear

  “I hadn't heard you were such a patriot.”

  “Twenty years in service, ma'am.” Just spit it the hell out, Jenny. “Prime Minister. There are a number of things we're going to have to go over, if you have time — but the short form is, the starflight program is the key to Canada's current survival, and Alberta Holmes plans to have you killed. And I aim to ensure the one and prevent the other—”

  Gunfire.

  Riel's eyes lock with mine. “That's just too perfect, Casey,” she says, calmly setting her fork aside. “Can I hire your stage manager?”

  “You won't have much use for him once I wring his throat. Are you armed, Prime Minister?” Richard, can you tell me anything?

  “No.” Two voices at once.

  “Then get down, please.” Richard, record this if you can. And whatever you do don't distract me.

  Shots closer now. An older assault rifle, one of the Korean ones by the sound of it, and a big handgun, too. I count and hear — some return fire, two or three. Probably everybody out there has smart targeting and palm locks. I couldn't use the damn things if I could get my hands on them. I wonder how the Mounties are faring. I wonder if it's Indigo and Farley, or if Holmes has sent someone else. Best to keep something like this small, I imagine. And then the pressure changes as the front door is opened, and I hear more gunfire — the wrong gunfire — and curse. I liked that cop.

  Riel crouches beside the fireplace. I shove the biggest chair in front of her. “This had better not turn out to be an elaborate scheme to prove your loyalty. You're also not armed.”

  “I don't need to be.” I cross the room on cat feet, flatten myself against the wall beside the single door. If it were me, I'd shoot through the wall a couple of times before I came into the room. But then, I do a lot of things more carefully than most people do.

  Fucking amateurs.

  Except not so amateur as all that.

  The door comes off its hinges, a hail of—

  steel-jacketed slugs and splinters—

  triggering, heartstop and

  shit

  (I was never this fast)

  steel hand moves

  before

  I think

  left side profile narrow target

  arm blocking face

  center of mass

  impact whine as a bullet

  ricochets

  slaps my fist like a fist

  put it into Farley's

  wide-

  eyed face

  right hand stiff-fingered

  jab for the windpipe

  he goes down like a sack of

  bullets like a dropped firehose

  bone shatters you never forget what it

  (never like this Constance stay down damn you)

  feels like

  fire creases my shoulder

  hip

  pounds a horse kick into the thigh

  stagger back

  catch myself, skip

  if you only dip a knee it doesn't count as a fall and

  over the ruin of Farley I see

  Indigo

  staring at me.

  Blood and I don't know what else dripping from my clenched left hand, blood soaking dark rings down my chest, ass, leg. It didn't hit the bone; leg will take my weight. How many times you get lucky in this life, Jenny?

  Just one time less than you need to, in the end. Just like everybody else.

  Farley rattles and falls silent, and a sharp scent of urine and blood clogs the air. “Put it down, Indigo.”

  She has the handgun—9-millimeter Polk, palm lock, laser sight, smart trigger — leveled at my heart. The little red glint in her right eye, the little red dot on my lapel tells me she's targeted. Five feet. Awful close. Inside the safety zone for controlling somebody with a handgun.

  Except I'd trip over the body I just made. I'd never get to her before she put me down.

  “Casey.” I don't know what I expect. B-movie vengeance dialogue. Something. She doesn't smile. “You don't look much like your pictures anymore.”

  “You know,” I say, “I was four years younger than you when I met your uncle. Put the gun down, Indigo”—say the name. Always say the name—“and I'll get the chance to tell you about him sometime.”

  And I won't have to bury you next to him.

  Maybe.

  I hear her breathing, smell Riel sweating in the room behind me, hear their heartbeats like off-tempo drums. Red drips off my hand and my left thigh feels like somebody ripped it open with a rake. Shock any second, if I'm not there already. Farley's face is dripping down my shirt front. A single strand of Indigo's hair drifts in front of her eyes, drawn and released with the rhythm of her breath. I never got used to having guns pointed at me.

  It all takes maybe half a second, and that's long enough for every detail to tattoo itself on my retinas with a rusty needle. “How many people have you killed, Indigo? Has it started to get easy yet?”

  She blinks. I — almost — think I see the pistol waver. I relax enough to start drawing a single, slow, meticulous breath, and Indigo pulls the trigger.

  I can't say I don't deserve it.

  We don't always get what we deserve.

  The damn thing hits like a rhino and I go back three steps, left fist slammed against my chest, all that red making the floor slick as ice and this time I do land on my knee, which twists that garden rake in the other direction, a little animal burrowing through muscle and flesh.

  The look on her face when I lever myself back to my feet and show her the mushroomed bullet squashed between my steel finger and thumb makes me wish I had a fucking camera.

  Pity I'm bleeding too much to chase after her when she turns to run.

  11:00 AM

  Friday 15 December, 2062

  National Defence Medical Center

  Toronto, Ontario

  The drone of the air ambulance filled Valens's ears, buffet of the rotors as it dropped like a thirsty mosquito out of threatening clouds and settled on the hospital roof. Ducking, Valens ran to meet it, swore out loud when he saw Casey was conscious, a dark line of discomfort creasing her forehead as flight medics jostled her stretcher out of the chopper. He pushed past them, to the head of the gurney, grabbed a side rail and helped push.

  “All that blood yours?”

  She opened her eyes, blinked at him. “Not so much. Maybe a third. You set that up, didn't you?”

  “You'll get another medal for this.”

  Casey grinned. “Damned funny how things come around, ain't it? Ow,” she added, as the gurney plunged through a doorway that didn't snap open quite fast enough.

  “Don't worry,” Valens said, stepping back as they wheeled her into the operating room. “I'll make sure you get what you need.”

  Startled pupils widened. “You're not coming in?”

  “Maybe next time. Right now, I have somebody to blackmail.”

  He smiled more to himself than her, and tasted victory quietly all the way back to the lab. Holmes's vehicle — a new model year Rolls-Royce — was in the parking lot. Some people still appreciated the classics. She wasn't in her office. He found her in the executive meeting room, hard-copy financial charts spread across the polished interface plates. She didn't look up when he opened the door and came in, but she did when he lowered the window shades and activated the room's antispyware protocols. “Alberta,” he said, and sighed. “What possessed you to recruit Indigo Xu?”

  The Unitek VP stood and began shuffling her papers together. “She existed.”

  The soft rasp of sheet on sheet annoyed Valens. He reached out, laid the flat of his palm down on the pile. “Do pay attention. For once.”

  “It is reckless,” Alberta Holmes said, pale eyes narrowing as she looked up, “to pass up an advantage because one is not yet mindful of the use to which it may be put. Actually, you gave me the idea.”

  “I did?”

  “Hiring Barbara Casey. She turned out useful — and such a hook in our pilot. Gene
vieve's strongly motivated by guilt, isn't she?”

  “So?”

  “So Casey was a hook in Indigo, and Indigo was a hook in Casey.”

  “You're not denying you were behind the attempt on Riel?”

  Holmes cleared her throat and glanced at the clear green light burning over the door, assuring the room's occupants that it was secure from outside listening devices. “There was an attempt on the prime minister?”

  “Don't you find it demeans you to lie? No. I suppose you don't. There was an attempt, and I can prove that you knew enough about Riel's movements today to set it up. It's back to hanging for treason these days, Alberta. Only capital crime that Canada has ever had.”

  “So turn me in.”

  She had courage. He'd give her that. “That would defeat the purpose. But we do things my way from here on in.”

  3:00 AM

  Friday 15 December, 2062

  National Defence Medical Center

  Toronto, Ontario

  Gabe sat beside Jenny's bed, soaking in the betadine and baby powder and vinyl smell of hospitals, and counted every slow, even breath that slid in and out of her lungs. Elspeth brought him lunch and he surprised himself by eating most of it, hunched over a plastic tray in the too-small plastic chair. He pushed the whole mess aside after a little while and sat back, wrists laid across sprawled thighs, and watched Jenny sleep until the silence grew unbearable. He let his head tilt to the other side, and shook it sadly. Gabe, you sure can pick 'em, son. “Marde, Casey. Haven't you learned to duck yet?”

  Her lips barely moved, but her eyelashes fluttered. “It was a non-ducking-type situation, Gabe.” Her face screwed up as she squinted at him. “Could you kill the fluorescents? They're murder on my eyes.”

  “Certainement.” He stood, did as she asked, and came back to the bedside. “What happened?”

  “Got my ass shot off.”

  “Yeah, I knew that part.”

  “Get the curtains, too? Thanks. I figure Valens used me as a stalking horse. Or Alberta did. Anyway, it worked. How bad did I get hit?” She raised her left hand to her mouth, coughed, and rolled her eyes. “And have the doctors-in-their-infinite-wisdom seen fit to allow me a pitcher of water?”

  “Your wish is my command, fair Genevieve.”

  She smiled dreamily when he kissed her on the mouth, and grabbed for the paper cup like it was going to get away. “Damn, that stings, but it doesn't hurt as much as I expected.”

  “You're healing at an accelerated rate, Valens says. You impressed the hell out of Riel.”

  “She's okay? Does that mean we get to keep the space program?”

  “For now. Riel's going to set up teleconference interviews between you and Valens and this investigator in Hartford. After we get back from the Montreal.”

  “Oh!” She thrust the paper cup back at him and lifted herself on her elbows, wincing.

  “Jen. Lie down.”

  “Richard—” she said, and Gabe grimaced.

  “Ellie is currently getting her ass handed to her by Valens over that. I have my turn this afternoon. There's good news and bad news. I was going to save it—” He glanced down, caught himself picking at the slick, rolled edge of the cup with his thumbnail, and set it down.

  “Now.” The chenille spread stretched taut over her hips as she hiked herself up against the pillows. “Since the cat is out of the bag anyway.”

  “I'll tell you more when I know.” Gabe's HCD beeped. He pulled it out and glanced across its face. “And that's Ellie. She's out. You get to go home tomorrow morning, by the way.” He grinned at her surprise, though he could still feel each heartbeat echoing in his chest.

  “So soon?”

  “Told you that you were healing fast.” He bent down to kiss her again, and didn't think about the sickly sweet smell of blood and antiseptic that pressed his sinuses when he did. “Jenny, that's two heart attacks you've given me in under six months. Just in case you're keeping score.”

  “I hate getting shot, Gabe.” A funny expression rearranged the corners of her mouth, and she looked at him for a long few moments before it spread into a grin. “Tell Valens to save the bullet for my charm bracelet, wouldja?”

  “I'll tell him you said so, yeah.” And a few other things besides, Gabe thought, but didn't let it show in his face. Didn't let the sensation like barbed fishhooks in his chest show either. He scrubbed sweat on his slacks and backed away. “I have to go talk to him about Richard now. I'll pick you up tomorrow morning if I'm not in jail. Deal?”

  She nodded and waved him off, as if sensing his reluctance. “Deal. Now get.”

  As he rode the elevator, he recognized the curious feeling in the pit of his stomach for a cool, watery sort of detachment. The trip back to the lab was managed in a hands-folded state of contemplation; he was badging himself into the front doors of the Allen-Shipman Research Facility before he managed to pierce that bubble of calm and find what he half suspected lay underneath.

  Rage.

  Cold and sweet and unstoppable as the flow over Niagara, impersonal and directed as a smart bullet. A chilly, implacable kind of fury that steadied his hands and straightened his spine, made his crisp footsteps soft along the carpeted hallways.

  Valens's door was open.

  Gabe didn't knock before he went in.

  “Castaign—” Valens stood, hands on the edge of his desktop, and started to step around it. He didn't have a chance to get those hands up before Gabe was on him, letting that rage lift Valens by the biceps and propel him backward into the wall with 130-odd kilos behind it. Something framed fell. Gabe heard shattering glass. Valens gasped, open-mouthed, and groaned, but that was all. Cloth wrinkled under Gabe's dry, angry palms.

  Gabe slammed Valens into the paneling one more time to make sure he had the colonel's attention, then leaned in close, gripping Valens's face in his hand. “Fred,” he said softly. “I'm a reasonable man. Give me one good one why I shouldn't break your neck.”

  A wet cough. Gabe thought Valens would struggle, braced for a kick that didn't come. “Put me down,” the colonel said through his teeth, “and I'll explain. I'm too old for this shit.”

  It was an act of will for Gabe to open his hands. Valens's flesh sprang back under Gabe's grip. He hoped the bruises would be large and purple. “I don't want an explanation.”

  “Fine.” Valens straightened — against the wall. Gabe didn't step back. Valens left his arms hanging limp, hands soft and open at his sides. “Reasons. Jenny will live. Riel owes her a favor. And I have a leash on Alberta Holmes.”

  Gabe's fingernails were carving crescents in his palms. He stepped back, because the alternative involved a broken hand. “Before we move on to Richard,” he said, pleased with the poisonous levelness informing his tone, “I want you to know that if anything happens to Jenny, or Leah, or Elspeth, because of you—” A tight-lipped pause, and he let his voice go that much softer. “—I will bury you.”

  Valens drew one tight breath and looked down, tugging his sleeves into place. “That's fair,” he said. “I think you should know that the odds just improved. For all of them. And — on other business — I approve of what I think you did with Richard: sneaky, and it gives us a second AI we can move to the Calgary, doesn't it?”

  Gabe swallowed hard. “It does.”

  1600 Hours

  Friday 15 December, 2062

  National Defence Medical Center

  Toronto, Ontario

  Riel wears green colored contacts; I think her natural eye color is brown. Funny thing to notice as she bends over me to take my hand, generous lips thinning beneath a narrow nose adorned with a bump most politicians might have had smoothed away. “You've got my attention, Casey,” she says. “Why so dead set on getting me behind the space program that you're willing to turn on your handlers?”

  I'm propped up in a chair with my leg out stiff before me. Docs keep coming in every half an hour to peer under the gauze and shake their heads in awe; I wish the damned
nanites would do something about the itch and the burning sensation running from my knee to my hip, but if I'll be walking again by Monday I'm not going to call up Charlie Forster and lodge a complaint. “I haven't got any handlers, Prime Minister.”

  “Call me Constance.” Riel straightens and takes a step back to lean her shoulders against the wall. Two or three Mounties move around in the hallway, visible through the tall, narrow window in the door. “Dr. Holmes,” she continues, letting the phrase that bitch hang unspoken between us.

  “She's Valens's boss.” I catch myself picking the edge of my bandages with my steel hand and force myself to stop. I can't feel it. Valens peeled the damaged contact poly off, and when I turn it over I can spot the brighter scrape gouged by Indigo's bullet.

  “And Valens is your boss.”

  “I'm my own boss.” Which is a stupid thing for somebody who's in the service to say, but it's not like what I'm doing has a damn thing to do with the army anymore. “I–Constance, I have reasons for what I did.”

  “I know who Indigo Xu is. Did you know her?” Another hanging silence. A trick of hers.

  “I didn't even know she existed.” Honest truth, and her enhanced green eyes narrow. “No. Look. We have to do this. The Chinese have found a planet that might possibly be colonized — colonizable? Whatever. They have ships under way, and…” Richard, why does this all sound so stupid when I try to explain it out loud?

  “Because politics usually is?” He rubs one well-worn hand across his left eye, face downturned in thought. “Keep talking.” But Riel interrupts.

  “We have some pretty big problems at home, Master Warrant Officer,” she says. “I don't know how much information Unitek has made available to you.”

  “As little as they can get away with. But they know, and they didn't tell me, but I know. And I know something you — and they — don't.” I pour myself ice water and drink it quickly. The IV isn't keeping up with my body's fluid demands.

  A sculptured eyebrow rises. “Do tell.”

  “Have you heard about the sabotage yet?”

  “Sabo — no. Is that what happened to Le Québec?”