Fallen Angels

by Stephen Kenson

  Kellan stepped onto the path that would allow her to access the system. Once she stepped across the threshold of the gateway, the way she came faded into the background of greenery. Though Kellan was sure she could find her way "back," the effect was disconcerting. It was like stepping into another world, somewhat like what she felt in the forest along the border when the wyvern flew overhead. She was in unfamiliar territory, but she had ways of navigating it.

  With a thought, Kellan activated a search program on her deck. Instantly, a glowing form shimmered into existence in the air in front of her—a tiny sprite with silvery, shimmering wings. They buzzed, blurring in the air as she hovered close to Kellan’s face.

  "Find Morningstar," she ordered the search program, and the sprite bobbed for a moment before zipping off into the shadows of the forest. Everything was silent once more, and Kellan waited.

  The moments seemed to crawl past, and Kellan was sure she could hear things moving out in the darkness of the woods. Security programs, she thought. They were sweeping the system, sniffing out the spoor of unauthorized users. She hoped her deck’s masking programs were enough to keep her hidden, but she knew that the longer she spent in the system, the greater the chance the sentinel programs would detect something amiss and—

  Suddenly her sprite reappeared, hovering and bobbing in the air in front of her. Kellan reached out and brushed her hand across the glowing sphere of light around the tiny figure, and the clearing shifted around her. One path became softly illuminated, and Kellan moved toward it, toward the part of the host system isolated by her search. The branches and leaves closed in overhead, creating a kind of natural tunnel layered in shadows, lit only by the glow of her sprite.

  The clearing she stepped out into appeared small, surrounded on all sides by the towering trees, and Kellan suddenly noticed it was night, despite the fact that sunlight had been filtering through the trees when she’d entered the system. Now the circle of sky in the midst of the trees was black, spangled with stars and lit by the glow of a crescent moon. From what she’d learned about Telestrian Matrix iconography, the nighttime setting suggested a higher-security node within the system.

  Lush grass covered the surface of the clearing, along with a scattering of fallen leaves. In the middle of the clearing stood a low pillar supporting a carved stone bowl about a meter across. The pillar rested in the intersection of four large flagstones set into the ground. At the corner of each stone sat a statue of a wolfhound, pale gray stone gleaming almost silver in the moonlight.

  With a thought and a flick of her wrist, Kellan dismissed the glowing sprite. From a pocket, she withdrew a filmy length of black cloth, like a shadow you could hold in your hand. She flung the shadow cloak around her shoulders, activating the stealth program to conceal her from any guardians of the forbidden glade. Then she approached the stone bowl.

  When Kellan set foot on the flagstones, the eyes of the statues flared with greenish light. Her breath caught in her throat and she paused in midstep, ready to flee or to fight if she had to, but the stone hounds did not move. The light died as quickly as it had appeared, fading until it was gone. Kellan allowed herself to breathe once more. She said a quiet and fervent thanks to Jackie Ozone for setting her up with custom software.

  She stepped up to the pillar and looked into the bowl. It was nearly filled with clear, shimmering water. The inside surface of the bowl was intricately carved with a design that reminded Kellan of a complex printed electronic circuit. She bent her head close to the surface of the water, observing the reflected glimmer of the stars and the moon, and for a moment marveling at the programming skill that went into creating it. Hidden inside her shadow cloak, she herself cast no reflection.

  "Morningstar," she breathed, setting up faint ripples across the surface of the water. The system responded to her invocation of the file name, and the ripples set the reflections of the stars swirling in the depths of the water. The reflections coalesced, becoming a bright point of light concentrated in the center that sent out ripples of its own as it broke the surface, floating as light as a cork. Kellan reached out to take it.

  Her fingers stopped scant centimeters away and she pulled back her hand. This was too easy. There had to be more security protecting the file. Even if the file was encrypted, it should be harder to take in the first place. Kellan looked around the glade, but saw nothing. She looked down into the water, and there still was nothing there but the glimmering light of the Morningstar file she’d called up. There was no sign that anything had detected her presence or alerted the system. She reached out once again, and saw the reflection of her hand, reaching from below to take the file as her real hand reached from above.

  Kellan stopped again and drew back her hand. She looked at the hound statues, standing silent and still. She could feel something, a sensation of being watched. Even though their hardware and software did much of the work, deckers like Jackie Ozone claimed they developed a sixth sense for what was happening in the virtual world. For the first time, Kellan really understood what they meant. She knew that the system suspected her; she didn’t have much time.

  Wrapping her hand inside her shadow cloak, Kellan reached out a third time. This time, there was no reflection in the now-still waters, no sign she was there at all. She gently plucked the glowing light from the surface of the pool, sending out the slightest of ripples. Quickly, she tucked the file away in a pocket, and her cyberdeck downloaded it to its storage memory. The file was fairly small, and was hidden away in a moment. Kellan turned and slipped away from the glade and past the hounds as quickly as she dared.

  Through the darkened woods, this time without the light of her sprite to guide her, she found her way back to where she’d entered the system. Her persona waved a hand as Kellan commanded the cyberdeck to log off. A doorway, framed in ancient carved stone and covered with clinging ivy, appeared out of the shadows. Kellan breathed a sigh of relief and stepped through the doorway to complete the log-off function. She was on her way back to the real world and safety.

  Leafy tendrils shot out across the exit, and Kellan ran into them. They flexed like steel wire and she felt them grab at her arms and legs, wrapping tighter and tighter and as she struggled. Kellan heard a sound behind her. She whipped her head around toward the dark woods and saw the two hounds emerge from the shadows of the trees, their eyes burning with a greenish light.

  Chapter 14

  Kellan struggled against the grip of the tightening vines as the stone hounds stalked closer. She knew that what was happening wasn’t real, just simsense piped into her brain to interpret the actions of the software in the system, but it felt real. If the hounds got their teeth around her throat, it would be as real as it needed to be.

  She had to get loose, to get out of the system before the guardian ice programs reached her. They had to be scanning her now, double-checking her credentials. She fought, her cyberdeck translating her struggles to be free into commands to the system to unlock the log-off protocols. But the vines held fast, the system didn’t respond: it was suspicious, it wanted confirmation first, and if it didn’t like what it found . . .

  The hounds crept closer. Kellan thought she could hear them panting, but could no longer distinguish between her imagination and what was really happening to her. She managed to pull one arm free of the vines: the system was having trouble penetrating her deck’s masking routines. It didn’t quite know what to do with her. Kellan braced her free arm against the stone framework of the doorway, leveraging the systern’s momentary weakness in the hope of breaking loose. The vines held tight as she pulled, then a couple of them tore free of the doorway. She wasn’t sure what to do; she wasn’t sure that any of the software Jackie had loaded onto her deck could help her with this. Kellan probably had an option at this point—she just didn’t know what it might be.

  One of the stone hounds growled, and she turned to see it standing close, eyes still burning. It bared sharp fangs, lips curling impossibly back. Her strug
gles were making it clear that Kellan didn’t belong here, and the system was responding. She struggled harder, but still couldn’t pull free, still mired in the security of the log-off protocols. The hound barked, a sharp sound, then it gathered itself and leapt at her.

  Suddenly the world dissolved into a chaos of gray static and noise. Kellan thrashed, hands flailing to ward off the leaping hound, senses reeling, her arms still held in a tight grip.

  "Kellan, Kellan!" a voice said. "Shhh, it’s okay, it’s okay, you’re out."

  "Orion?" she mumbled. Her vision began to clear, dark blurs resolving themselves into recognizable shapes.

  "It’s okay," came the reply again, "you’re all right."

  "You’ve just got a little dumpshock," Midnight said. "It’ll pass in a minute, but we need to get out of here. Can you stand?"

  Kellan could see her two companions crouching next to where she sat. Orion loosened his grip on her wrists and Kellan massaged them, trying to get her bearings.

  "I think so," she said. Carefully, she pushed up from the chair, wobbling a bit as she stood. Her own body felt foreign to her, but the sensation was passing quickly.

  Midnight gathered up the discarded electrode net and Kellan’s cyberdeck, slipping them into the bag resting beside the chair.

  "Did you get it?" she asked, and Kellan gave her a blank look.

  "The file," Midnight said, more insistently. "Did you get it?"

  "Give her a minute to get her bearings," Orion said hotly, but Midnight kept Kellan pinned with her gaze.

  "Yeah, yeah, I got it," Kellan muttered, nodding her head, which was starting to ache. "What happened?"

  "You were thrashing around," Orion replied, "like something was attacking you. We decided to get you out of there and pulled the plug." Midnight’s expression told Kellan it had been Orion who made the decision.

  "Thanks," she said. "There was some ice. . . ."

  "Just forget it for now," Midnight said crisply. "The ice probably triggered a security alert. We need to clear out."

  "But if the system is on alert—" Orion began, but Midnight silenced him with a look.

  "I’ve got it covered," she said. "Now let’s go. Kellan?"

  "Yeah, I’m ready," she said, steadying herself against the desk.

  Midnight took a palm-sized device from her shoulder bag and tapped a control. Putting it away, she moved toward the door.

  "All right. Walk away like we finished the job and are going home," she instructed them. "You’ll recognize the signal when it comes; then clear out as quickly as possible." She led them out of the office back toward the guard station. There was no one at the desk when they got there.

  "Where’s—?" Kellan began, but before she could finish her question a dull boom echoed in the distance, and a vibration shook the building.

  "What the frag?" Orion exclaimed as a high, whining alarm sounded in the hallway.

  "That’s the signal," Midnight said. "Let’s go."

  In the main corridors of the complex, uniformed guards were quick-timing it toward the exit doors, and Telestrian employees were scrambling to get out of their way. To Kellan’s surprise, rather than trying to get out of the way, Midnight grabbed a passing guard by the arm.

  "What’s happening?" she asked with a note of real concern in her voice. "Was it a bomb?"

  "Miss, you must clear the area immediately!" the hard-faced elf replied curtly. "Clear the area for your own safety." Then he turned and hurried to catch up with his unit.

  "You heard the man," Midnight told Kellan and Orion with a sly smile. "We should clear the area, right now."

  No one stopped them from leaving the building in a group with a number of other visitors and employees, joining the milling crowd outside. Telestrian guards kept people back from the building and Kellan heard sirens as Tir Peace Force vehicles closed in on the habitat. On the far side of the complex, a dark column of smoke rose into the sky.

  "Keep walking," Midnight told Kellan when she looked back, and they headed away from the habitat at a brisk pace. It seemed to take them no time at all to reach their car, parked several blocks away, and Midnight pulled out onto the street, cruising away from the habitat back toward their safe house.

  "What was that all about?" Orion asked, once they were in the car and on their way.

  "A fail-safe," Midnight replied. "A small remote explosive and a prerecorded threat call to Telestrian. The company has had occasional trouble from the Rinelle, after all, so they have to take every threat seriously."

  "They’ll assume there’s a second bomb," Orion said, and Midnight nodded.

  "Or several more. They’ll continue to evacuate the facility as they search, and no one is going to be paying attention to a low-level alert from the computer system. If we’re lucky, the high alert will override the lower-priority alert we set off, and it’ll be at least a couple of hours before they even notice it."

  "Nice," he said with a satisfied nod. "Looks like we’re in the clear."

  "Kellan, once we get back to the safe house, I want to check the file and make sure it’s all there before we set up the meeting with our principal to conclude our business," Midnight said. Kellan nodded.

  "No problem. So . . . that’s it?"

  "Just about. We just need to close the deal and turn over the goods," Midnight said. "Why, looking to spend some more time enjoying the sights of Tir Tairngire?"

  Kellan shook her head. "Not so much," she said. "I’m just wondering if things have cooled off back home."

  "I’m sure you have nothing to worry about," Midnight replied.

  * * *

  Business was business, Jackie Ozone believed. She didn’t double-cross a client who didn’t cross her first. She had no ties to Toshiro Akimura, and didn’t care one way or another about the relationship between him and Cross Applied Technologies. Whatever beef Cross had with Akimura, or vice versa, Jackie’s only concern was how she could profit from it. And at the moment, it looked like she stood a good chance to make a very handsome profit off the information she passed along to Cross. So why did she have a bad feeling about the whole thing?

  Because Akimura’s not the only one involved, she told herself, drumming her fingers nervously on her desk. Whatever was going on, whatever the fixer wanted, it involved Kellan, and now it involved Lothan, too. It was one thing if Cross decided to have it out with Akimura, but the chances were now increasing that someone else—someone else she knew— would get caught in the cross fire.

  What if this turns out to be another Zhade? Jackie wondered. She had provided information to Eve on a previous job that had brought Kellan into conflict with a toxic shaman who wanted to poison the whole Seattle Metroplex. Given the dangerousness of the circumstances and the difficulty of regaining control over the situation, Jackie would have cut her losses. But not Kellan. She chose to go after a shaman who was armed with a deadly toxin in an attempt to correct her own mistake.

  Jackie chewed her lower lip nervously as she thought. Her dealings with Eve had always been fair, but she knew the Cross company woman had ambitions. Everyone in the corporate world did, especially in positions like hers, or they didn't get into jobs like hers. Eve definitely saw the information about Akimura as an opportunity—but an opportunity for what?

  Akimura appeared to have it in for Kellan, so Kellan would probably be glad if Cross decided to take him out; theoretically, problem solved. But from what Lothan had told her, there was more going on here. Akimura claimed he wasn’t after Kellan, but that someone else was. Akimura could be lying, but what if he wasn’t? What if a third party, like Cross, upset a delicate situation? It shouldn’t matter, Jackie told herself. It was only business, but . . .

  "Oh, fraggit," Jackie muttered. She flopped down into the padded swivel chair and picked up her cyberdeck, settling it on her lap. There was only one way to figure this out. Taking the optical cable from the deck’s spool, she plugged it into the jack at her temple and powered up the deck.

  Rea
dy or not, here I come, she thought, and hit the go button.

  * * *

  By the time they got back to the safe house, Kellan had shaken off the worst of the dumpshock, but a mild headache and a lingering feeling of unease still nagged at her. Despite her frightening brush with the security software, the whole run just seemed too easy. She supposed she could credit Midnight’s skill for preplanning, and the help of her contacts inside Telestrian for the low level of challenge, but Kellan’s gut instinct told her something was off. Unfortunately, she had no access to additional information to help pinpoint the source of her worries, and so she had no choice but to push her concerns to the back burner.

  She turned her thoughts to the file she had saved to her cyberdeck. She’d been told it was important in a power struggle within Telestrian Industries. What could be so valuable about it? If it was the key to someone’s downfall, why wasn’t it better protected, instead of being tucked away in an obscure part of the system?

  Kellan slumped gratefully onto a cot once they got inside their room. Orion grabbed a bottle of water for himself and one for Kellan, and Midnight began changing out of her corporate clothes and into her working gear.

  "Burn that data onto a chip," she said briskly to Kellan. "I’m going to let the client know that we’re ready to meet and hand over the goods."

  "Hey," Orion said, "give her a minute to rest, will ya?"

  Midnight shot him a hard look. "Every minute we delay is another minute closer to Telestrian taking action. Whatever they do will almost certainly knock down the value of what we’ve got. The sooner we hand off the goods and get paid, the sooner we can drop out of sight. We can rest when we’ve got the cred, but the job isn’t over until then."