“Come in, Kangaroo,” D.Int says.
I pull myself over the threshold, aiming for one of the two chairs in front of her desk. I catch the one closer to the door, pull myself down and close the seat belt around my waist, then wait for her to finish what she’s doing.
Admiral Morris has no fewer than six different screens extruded from the clear plexi surface of her desk, displaying a dizzying array of multicolored animated datagrams. Her fingers dance from one screen to another, manipulating controls I can barely see to combine and partition and recombine the data. It reminds me a little of Jessica, my uncannily detail-oriented Surgical officer, reading the raw logs from my implanted body sensors, but this is even a step beyond that—D.Int has already applied some processing to whatever data she’s looking at, and now she’s doing further transforms on it.
I’m a little surprised that someone at her level would be working directly with intel data like this. Most directors are more managers than individual contributors; Paul doesn’t go out into the field, and fleet admirals don’t helm their own ships. But all those people must still itch to do the work that got them to where they are now. I guess it’s easier for Morris to actually do this analysis herself once in a while, since her job is all about data, and she can study that just as easily from her secure office location.
“Do we know of anyone actively trying to kill you this month?” she asks. Her eyes are still tilted down at the desk screens. Her dark, curly hair bobs in zero-gee as she works.
“It’s nice to meet you, too, Admiral.”
“Let’s skip the small talk.”
“If you don’t know who our enemies are, we’re probably in a whole lot of trouble.”
Morris dismisses her desk screens with a swipe of her hand across its surface. The infinitely malleable piezoelectric material melts back into her flat desktop. She looks up at me. “Touché. Science Division is analyzing your scans of the shuttle. I need you to deliver a message to your boss.”
This is getting more and more confusing. “Is there something wrong with our communications?”
“Lasher isn’t taking my calls,” Morris says. “I need you to tell him to knock it off.”
I knew Paul was a bit sour on Intel, ever since that side of the agency completely imploded last summer, but I didn’t realize he hadn’t been talking to our new D.Int. Ops and Intel are still working together, and I don’t need to know what goes on with my superiors. That’s not my job, and this is not my problem—or at least it wasn’t until now.
“Okay,” I say. “Would you like to write that down on something, or—”
“D.Ops and D.Int are two halves of the same whole,” Morris says, staring at me. I’m not sure she’s actually blinked since I came in here. It’s mildly unsettling. “Intel and Ops need to work together. That doesn’t just mean our people. That means him and me personally. Do you know we haven’t even been in the same room since I took this job?”
“Well,” I say, “he has been a bit busy.”
“He’s been busy?” Morris scoffs. “I had to rebuild this division from literally nothing. I am doing my best to—oh, forget it. Just turn on your eye.”
“Um.” I’m not sure what’s happening now. “What?”
“Your scanners. In your left eye.” She points at my head. “Turn them on, start your mission recorder, and look around my office. Hell, look around this whole damn station. Tell Renwick to give you the grand tour.” That must be the name of the officer who escorted me here.
“I’m not sure Lasher is interested in—”
“You scan every centimeter of the Eyrie for eavesdropping devices or unauthorized transmissions or whatever else Lasher thinks might be a security risk up here,” Morris snaps. “He needs to trust me. He can’t run Ops without Intel. It’s not feasible, it’s not legal, it’s not possible. Whatever he needs to put his mind at ease and make this partnership work, I’m open to discussing. But he needs to talk to me.”
I nod slowly until she finishes. “I will let him know.”
“Thank you.”
“Is there anything else?” I really hope there isn’t.
Morris stares at me for a moment, then swivels her chair around to face the back wall. She puts one hand against the wall and leans forward. I see the telltale glow of biometric sensors around her face and palm, and then the wall irises open to reveal a small vault. She reaches inside and pulls out something very small. The safe disappears back into the wall as she turns around to face me again.
“You used to work Intel,” she says. “You know what this is.”
Before I can correct her—I did work as an analyst, before the agency allowed me to do fieldwork, but I was on the Ops side of the fence—she shows me the thing she took from the safe, holding it between her thumb and index finger. It’s a holographic data card, made of translucent red memory crystal. It might be mistaken for a ruby, except for its flat shape and the symbols etched into the surface.
“That’s a red key,” I say. “Why are you showing me—”
“Take it,” Morris says. “It’s yours.”
I don’t move. “Admiral—”
“Take it,” she repeats. “That’s an order.”
I don’t think she technically outranks me, since we’re not in the same chain of command, but I already have enough crazy stuff to explain after I get home. I don’t want to also start an argument with D.Int. I take the red key.
A red key is what the President of the United States would use to activate her nuclear football. It’s the ultimate security item within the federal government: a personal decryption device used to unlock highly sensitive computer equipment. The red key won’t work unless it can verify the user through biometrics, a subdermal agency transponder, and probably a whole laundry list of other heuristic signals I’m not authorized to know about. Basically, it’s a magic opener that grants you access to an incredible secret, as long as you can prove you’re you.
Paul’s never given me a red key. I’ve never even asked about it. Why is D.Int giving me this one? What does it unlock?
I’m almost afraid to ask.
Almost.
“So why do I have a red key?” I ask.
“Do you have a problem with me, Kangaroo?”
I would not want to play poker with this person. “No, Admiral.”
She smiles, finally, and it’s only slightly insincere. “Please, call me GRYPHON. I need to get used to my new code name.”
“Okay,” I say. “Gryphon. Ma’am.” It feels weird not to call her by some kind of title.
“You need Intel to back you up,” she says. “And I’m talking about you personally now, Kangaroo. We’re the ones who set ’em up so you can knock ’em down, metaphorically. Your ability is unique and invaluable, but to use it for maximum effect, you need a support team. Equipment, Surgical, Science, Intel. We’re all here to help you succeed.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I’m not sure where she’s going with this. “And I appreciate everything Intel does. But what does that have to do with the red key?”
Leaning forward on her desk doesn’t have quite the same effect in zero-gravity, but she makes it feel significant nonetheless. Probably had a lot of practice during the war and whatnot. “We’re here for you, Kangaroo. Lasher’s trust issues are problematic, but I don’t want his intransigence to affect you.” She spreads her hands wide, palms up. “If you ever need anything, Intel is at your disposal. Don’t hesitate to call. You now have a direct line to this office. That red key will open a secure channel to me from any agency-owned facility. Any time you need my help, I’m here for you.”
I stare at her for a moment. “You do realize I have to tell Lasher all about this when I get back to Earth, right?”
She folds her hands, and her expression hardens again. “You tell him whatever you want, Kangaroo. But that’s your red key. I am the only one who can revoke your authorization for that comms access. Is that clear?”
I really don’t like offic
e politics. “Absolutely.”
“Good.”
“Is there anything else you wanted to, uh, talk about?”
She stares at my hand. I’m still holding the red key, because I’m not quite sure what to do with it. “Don’t you want to put that away?” she asks.
Of course. You want the show. “Yes, ma’am.”
I turn so she’ll be able to see the portal, think of a bright red bird with bushy black eyebrows, and open the pocket.
CHAPTER FOUR
Earth—United States—Washington, D.C.
12 hours after this red key started burning a hole in my pocket
Paul doesn’t react visibly when I walk into his office and set the red key down on his desk. I watch his profile and reflect on how easily he could dress up like a British monarch. All he’d need would be the ceremonial sash. Maybe some white gloves.
After a few seconds, he glances over at the device and says, “That’s from D.Int, I presume.”
I grab the red key and put it back in the pocket. “You take the fun out of everything.”
Our department’s headquarters, where Paul spends most of his time, are deep underground. Surface-level office space in Washington, D.C., is at a premium these days, and Paul claims he gets more work down here anyway—fewer distractions. This facility used to be some kind of mid-twentieth-century bomb shelter, back when atomic weapons were the new hotness and people were afraid of being attacked with little or no warning by evildoers from overseas. Humanity has expanded our horizons a bit since then. Now we’re more worried about Earth getting bombarded by unscrupulous residents of other planets in the Solar System.
“There is a very limited number of people who have the authorization to encode and distribute red keys,” Paul says, still working on his desktop. “And I’m almost certain you didn’t stop at the White House or the Pentagon on your way back from the Eyrie.”
I’m surprised and happy that he said “almost.” Let’s see how long this conversation goes before he uses the word “idiot.”
“I haven’t tried using it yet,” I say. “Do you think I should—”
“Do what you like,” he said. “That’s between you and Gryphon.”
Of course he doesn’t care. Paul can talk to D.Int whenever he wants. He just doesn’t want to.
“So how long are you going to keep giving Intel the cold shoulder?” I ask. “I think they’re starting to get a little annoyed. And, you know, it would probably relieve our workload if—”
“I’ll trust them when I know I can trust them,” Paul snaps.
“Pretty sure that’s not how trust works.”
He stops working and glares at me. “Has my cautious attitude with respect to the new head of our Intelligence division adversely affected your work conditions?”
I stare back at him. “Not until today.”
“I hardly think one extra meeting presents an unreasonable burden on your schedule. At any rate, Gryphon is the one who chose to inconvenience you.”
“Because she couldn’t get to you,” I say. “She’s going to start looking for more backchannels.”
“And that will be very interesting to observe.” He returns to his work. “Don’t leave yet.”
Paul can be infuriating at times. Not because he’s so stubborn, but because he always knows exactly what he’s doing. He just doesn’t choose to share a lot. Or sometimes at all.
That’s the real problem here: I don’t want him to continue juggling however many schemes he’s got spinning right now. He may be the agency’s director of operations, but he’s only human, and it’s not pretty when he crashes.
“You’re working too hard,” I say.
“Have you been talking to Surgical?”
“Does she agree with me?”
“You’re not a doctor,” Paul grumbles. He turns to the other side of his desk, where a rectangle of plexi is rising from the surface. The programmable material is connected to the office’s computer network by secure wireless link, and can be remotely commanded to change its appearance to show information or alter its shape to form appropriate display surfaces.
Once the rectangle has coalesced into the size and shape of a standard reader tablet, the transparent material becomes opaque, and Paul snaps it off the desk and hands it to me.
“You’re a field operative,” he says. “That’s your next assignment.”
I take the tablet and look at the screen. It shows an agency personnel record for a white-haired woman named Gladys Löwenthal, code name CLEMENTINE.
“Friend of yours?” I ask.
“Asset.” That’s the agency’s catch-all term for a person we can exploit in some way.
“She knows something about the attack on my shuttle?”
“That’s the hope.” Paul taps at his desktop, and the tablet display changes to a still image from my eye scan of the damaged shuttle, now with additional readouts overlaid on the picture. “Equipment analyzed your sensor data and identified the remains of an asminder.”
“An ass-minder?”
“Asminder.” He changes the display again, to an animated schematic of an industrial robot. “Asteroid mining spider. Standard model built by ShanKongRobo. Usually operated by remote control, but they can also be used as autonomous units.”
I can see why they’re called spiders. Eight multisegmented legs extend out from a bulbous, three-lobed body. The cycling animation shows the legs bending every which way, two sharp triangular leg-tips chipping and drilling away at a rock wall, then manipulator claws attached to the outermost joints collecting rock fragments and depositing them in a cargo hold in the middle of the spider’s body.
“Is there some reason EQ isn’t telling me this himself?” I ask. Oliver usually loves to make me listen to his highly technical lectures. Especially when they’re about robots.
“Equipment’s busy,” Paul says. “I’m telling you.” He taps his desk, and my tablet shows me a grid of what appear to be telescope photos of the same shuttle. “We were able to backtrack your shuttle’s trajectory from the Moon. The spider was riding with you the whole way.”
“All the way from the Moon?” I say. “But that means—”
“We’ve already interviewed the maintenance crews on the farside space elevator. They’re clean. But any number of people could have reprogrammed the spider to stow away on your shuttle and stab one of its mining implements into the engine when the pilot started your braking maneuver.”
My mouth feels dry. “So somebody was trying to kill me.”
“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” Paul says. “Nobody outside of Operations knew you were on that shuttle.”
“Are we sure about that?”
“I know what you’re thinking, and it’s extremely unlikely—”
“It was also extremely unlikely that the agency’s director of intelligence would go rogue,” I say. “But that happened. I’d just like us to consider all the possibilities. Especially the ones that involve me being an assassination target!”
“If Sakraida were targeting you, Kangaroo,” Paul says, “he’d be trying to capture you, not kill you.”
“Not actually making me feel better here.”
“Whoever sent that robot knew they were targeting agency personnel,” Paul says. “That’s all we can be sure of at the moment.”
“So let’s figure out who sent the damn robot.”
“I’m glad you feel that way, because your next assignment will enable us to trace the robot back to its masters.”
I touch the tablet to return to Gladys’s file. “And how is Clementine going to help me with that?”
“She’s not going to help you,” Paul says. “She doesn’t know you. She’s only willing to deal with Jessica Chu.”
“That’s funny,” I say. “We have another asset with the same name as Surgical?”
Paul frowns at me. “No.”
I blink at him for a moment. Then I look down at the tablet and search through Gladys’s file for kn
own associates. I find JESSICA CHU, M.D., Ph.D. in the list and tap on the name, and it expands into an image of Jessica’s face beside a summary of her military service record. One section of that record is highlighted.
“Surgical knows Clementine from the asteroid belt?” I say, skimming the file.
“Clementine is a retired asteroid miner and roboticist,” Paul says. “She holds three patents for remote programming features. She’s also a former passive source for the agency.”
“This nice old lady?”
“As you know, we’ve never had great HUMINT coverage in the belt,” Paul says. Human intelligence assets are still the best way to get reliable information about a foreign land, but the physical isolation of asteroid outposts means it’s difficult to keep tabs on their residents. “Clementine enjoyed being a social butterfly. She also enjoyed passing information about her associates back to the agency. For a price, of course.”
I continue reading the file while he talks. “And she retired to the Moon.”
“Her options were limited after living in low gravity for so long. Bone density loss, muscle atrophy, et cetera. Even on the Moon she’s confined to a wheelchair.”
According to the file, Jessica was assigned to the hospital ship Virginia Apgar and deployed in the belt for several years. I’m starting to get the picture. Then I notice the category flag next to her name. “Wait. This is a surveillance list.”
“Yes.”
My brain starts to hurt. “The agency had Clementine watching Surgical? Why?”
“Clementine was a passive source,” Paul says. “We didn’t assign her to monitor anything or anyone in particular. She reported activity she thought might be significant, and maintained a wide variety of contacts for possible future exploitation.”
“Like Surgical.” Something else occurs to me. “Hold on. You’re sending Surge to meet with Clementine? You’re putting her in the field?”
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