by Jaine Fenn
Good job I had no plans to return to the day-job.
Fortunately, the money from this job would buy a new face and a watertight identity, and thanks to Mr P, I already had a means of getting off-planet. Assuming I could trust Mr P. And assuming I could get myself and the Eye of Heaven out of Everlight’s territory.
What was that?
I was still in exec country, and didn’t expect anyone to be behind the door the odd sound had come from. Given it was labelled with a masculine name – and no job title, which always signified high status, because if you had to ask, you were too lowly to know – the nature of the sound was also a surprise. A girlish giggle. And there it was again: more of a moan this time. Interesting. Whilst I could imagine our self-important exec getting himself some off-the-record female company for the New Year, I’d have expected them to get a room rather than use his office. It wasn’t as though Mars didn’t have nice hotels ideal for enjoying sex with all the trimmings.
I listened a little longer, and heard more faint sounds of pleasure. Then I pressed the pad. The door opened; I’d half expected there to be security on this door to an important man’s office, but if there was it’d been disabled. I paused out of sight, though from the sound of it no one had noticed me. Poking my head round the open door I saw a familiar layout: a small office/antechamber with some hardcopy storage, an uncomfortable waiting area and a desk for the office administrator, then a doorway through to the main, larger, office. The noises came from the main office. I crept up to the open doorway, staying out of line-of-sight, although from the sound of it, whoever was inside was unlikely to notice me. Definitely a young woman enjoying herself. Even so, I drew my gun.
Peering round the door from a low vantage-point, I found myself looking across plush carpet to a desk whose size and pretentious build rivalled Mr Lau’s. A young Chinese woman perched on the front of the desk. Her head was thrown back and she was panting in delight, no doubt thanks to the attentions of the young man in a brown uniform kneeling on the ground in front of her, his head buried deep her crotch.
I suspected neither of them was the owner of this office.
Looking around I spotted a couple of anomalous items on the otherwise immaculate plum-coloured carpet. That small dark scrap of fabric had to be underwear but there was also a smart jacket with, if my eyes didn’t deceive me, the corner of an ID badge peeking out of a fold.
I had no desire to interrupt the kind of fun I hoped to be having myself in the none-too-distant future so I kept low and crept forward, heading for the discarded jacket.
I’d almost reached it when the woman’s cries ramped up a notch. I looked up to see her hands deep in the boy’s hair, her gaze fixed forward and her mouth open in a wide O set to become a squeal of pure animal pleasure at any moment.
At which point she spotted me.
Her gaze sharpened, and she gave a wholly different type of squeal. Her hands pushed away and, tangled as they were in the boys’ hair, shoved him backwards. I acted on instinct. My dart hit him in the back and he fell to one side.
The woman stared at me. I waited for her to make another noise but she looked too terrified to even breathe. Which made sense: in my camo’d suit I was a disembodied head with wraparound shades and, if she looked closely, a floating gun.
‘I’m not going to hurt you,’ I said in Mandarin. With my free hand I pulled my hudglasses up into my forehead. Maintaining a disguise was pointless now, thanks to having left Ms McIntyre alive and able to identify me, and showing this young woman I was an ordinary woman, albeit in a skinsuit, might stop her suffering a heart attack on the spot.
In a tiny, terrified voice she croaked, ‘You shot Bao.’
‘Yes, with tranq.’ I looked over at the unconscious boy sprawled at her feet. Now I could see the uniform I confirmed my initial impression that he worked in Everlight’s mailroom. ‘He’ll be fine.’
‘Oh. Right. Of course.’ I suspected she would agree with anything I said. She’d probably never been so frightened in her life.
I should shoot her too, then take her pass and be done with it, but I didn’t feel good about this. ‘Listen, I’m sorry I… sorry I interrupted you. And Bao.’
‘That’s all right.’ She sounded incredulous, like she couldn’t imagine the scary creature I appeared to be ever being sorry about anything.
‘I need your pass now. That’s why I came in.’
‘My pass? I… Why?’
‘Do you really want to know?’
She looked stricken and shook her head. ‘No. You’re right. I don’t want to know.’
‘Listen, can I ask you something?’
She nodded, confused.
‘Is this your boss’ office?’ I recognised that dress sense. She wore clothes I might have chosen myself, right down to the black lace panties under the conservative skirt and blouse.
She nodded again, and bit her lip.
‘And is he a smug and smiling bastard who wants you at his beck-and-call twenty-four seven, expects you to deal with his cock-ups and is happy to take credit for your hard work?’
For a moment a different type of shock flitted across her face. Then she grimaced, and nodded.
‘Reminds me of someone I know. You know what?’ I gestured at the unconscious boy, ‘I really wish I’d done something like this in his office.’
She smiled, and blushed. Which was rather charming.
‘I am going to have to take your pass now.’
‘I understand.’ As I reached for her jacket she said, ‘Wait. If you’re trying to leave, it won’t be enough.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘They’ve upped security for the New Year. Because of the public coming in. You need a scan as well as a pass to get anywhere.’
‘Scan as in palm or iris?’
‘Depends where you’re trying to go. Oh. I shouldn’t have told you that, should I?’ Was that a smile?
‘You didn’t. I threatened you with torture when your pass didn’t get me out.’
‘You… Oh, I see. Where do you need to get to?’
‘Garage level.’
‘I’ll show you. Just let me get my…’she gestured at the discarded panties.
I let her lead the way. Worst case, she tried to run or set off an alarm, in which case she’d get tranqed and dragged to the door. I didn’t really expect that to happen, and it didn’t. At the elevator she gave me her pass and pointed to the palm-print reader beside it. ‘I suppose you have to shoot me once I’ve opened the door for you.’
‘Afraid so.’
‘Will it hurt?’
‘You’ll hardly feel it.’
The elevator ride down was interminable. I’d opened a comm channel and pinged Nico and Gregori, but only got a reply as the doors opened onto the garage level. Gregori was striding towards the lift, while Nico stood a few paces back, next to a battered tunnelbug.
‘I was getting worried,’ said Gregori, arms open.
‘You got what we came for?’ Nico called out a moment later.
‘I did.’ I evaded Gregori’s attempt at a bear-hug.
Gregori frowned at me. ‘And what is it we have stolen, exactly?’
I jerked a thumb over my shoulder to indicate my backpack. ‘The Eye of Heaven.’
Nico laughed. ‘That’s fifty you owe me, dost!’
‘Huh!’ Gregori huffed. ‘So where is Ms McIntyre?’
‘I have some bad news regarding Ms McIntyre. Turns out we were right to be suspicious of her.’
‘But the job’s not blown?’ Nico’s smiled faltered.
A siren began to wail.
‘Oh,’ said Gregori, grinning, ‘it is it New Year already?’
‘No Gregori,’ I shouted above the alarm, ‘it is trouble already.’
‘What, I cannot make joke to defuse the tension?’
‘Yes, you can, but let’s get a move on, huh?’
Nico had the three near-identical tunnelbugs parked next to each other, hotwired and goo
d to go. As Gregori turned to get in the middle of the three I grabbed his arm and pointed to his head. ‘Hood.’
‘What?’
‘Pull your skinsuit hood up. No time for wardrobe adjustments at the other end.’
‘Da. Of course.’ He did so.
‘But save the rebreather.’
‘I do know how to survive on Mars!’
He looked cute when peeved. I leaned across to give him a peck on the cheek. ‘Impress me, stud-muffin,’ I whispered. Then, over the comm to both of them, ‘See you on the other side!’
Nico raised a hand before climbing into his vehicle.
I pulled myself up into my tunnelbug, threw myself into the seat, slapped the panel to shut the door, and grabbed the wheel.
It wasn’t exactly a racing start.
First off, we had to queue to leave the garage – currently dark, unmonitored and with an open door, thanks to Nico’s earlier efforts. Nico first, then me, then Gregori.
As soon as we were in the main tunnel outside, we split up. Nico and I went left, nominally the ‘out’ direction, though I peeled off into a smaller service tunnel after a hundred metres. Gregori broke right, heading back towards Olympus City.
One of the oldest scams in the book is the shell game. Some guy in a cave probably came up with it: three shells and a pea, guess which shell the pea’s under. In that form, the point is to fool the mark using sleight of hand. In this version, the Eye was with me for the duration, and the solid rock of the tunnels meant we couldn’t even communicate between vehicles, let alone swap cargo, but having three targets still meant a two-in-three chance any pursuers would pick the wrong one. We were upping the odds of getting the loot, and at least one of us, out.
I’d have preferred the odds with zero pursuers, but from the sound of that parting alarm, our luck had run out. Whether it had been the open door to the Colonnades, the unconscious secretary or someone coming across one of Nico’s hacks, we were blown.
I felt oddly calm. Must have been adrenalin comedown. Plus, I’d driven this route half a dozen times during our practice runs, although I wasn’t going to assume I knew which turns to take. I kept an eye on the inertial nav readout in the corner of my hud.
Thanks to the load on my back, I had to hunch forward in the seat, but I wasn’t going to be parted from the prize. From now on everything had to go like clockwork.
The view through the tunnelbug’s front screen showed rock: rock below, rock to each side, rock above. The others would have a similar view, though Nico and Gregori were sticking to larger tunnels, because they were the diversion, roles they weren’t delighted with. But they were the best drivers, and I was the one with the Eye. They’d draw attention while I sneaked out under the radar. Nico’s path would take him straight towards the surface, before jinking off along a lateral tunnel; anyone trying to predict his course should be thrown by this change of direction. Should be. Gregori was doing the really fancy driving, heading directly towards the domes as though about to burst into Olympus Central itself, then doubling back. Which left me to creep upwards through the oldest, narrowest tunnels.
I slowed as my nav readout showed a bottleneck ahead; now the rock above was barely higher than the ’bug’s roof, and its treads weren’t getting much purchase on the tunnel’s narrow bore. But I knew I’d make it, because we’d practiced this, several times.
I was just ramping up the speed again – insofar as tunnelbugs have speed to ramp up – when the vehicle’s comm crackled. I didn’t think I was near enough to any inhabited area to get random signal bleed through the rock, but I could hope.
‘…unauthorised … please identify ….’
Some hope.
I resisted the urge to speed up. I knew how fast it was safe to take these tunnels, and that’s how fast I was going. And I was over halfway now.
At the next fork, I went left. Fifty-fifty chance they’d go right, I told myself. But this was a long straight tunnel, and before the next turn, lights bobbed into view behind me. The transmission came clear. ‘Kindly stop your vehicle, and prepare to present your credentials.’ I turned the radio off. It wasn’t going to tell me anything I didn’t already know.
Only two turns to go now. As the tunnel arced round, I ramped the tunnelbug’s speed up. This tunnel had the steepest slope so far, and between that and the excessive speed, the ’bug began to yaw, until I wasn’t on the tunnel bottom any more, but creeping up the leftmost wall. Scary, but it seemed stable enough. Except the next turn was to the right. I eased off, and for a moment the ’bug lost grip, and slid. I grabbed the dashboard, braced to spin or flip, but the very narrowness of the tunnel saved me. The ’bug fishtailed, then stabilised. I took the right turn.
Another turn, in only fifty metres, and then I was on the home straight to, if not safety, then at least a way to lose the current pursuer. I took the turn. Lights flashed round the corner only a few seconds behind me. Much as my instinct was to floor the ’bug, I needed to slow down, even as those headlights grew in my monitor. Easing off had my nerves screaming but, I reminded myself, they’d have to slow down too. We were about to hit the end of the line. I tried not to think about how exposed I’d be when that happened. In tunnels this old, and this far from the city, we were out of the realms of automation; making my escape required some good old manual intervention.
Up ahead, the tunnel ended in a metal box.
I drove into the airlock too fast, and slammed on the brakes. My ’bug bumped the outer door, throwing me half out my seat, then stalled. I switched my hud to lo-light as I jumped out. The oncoming headlights became a blinding sun. Looked as if I’d be doing this by touch, not sight. I dialled my vision back down. I knew what I was looking for; I’d done this before, I’d be fine.
My first slap hit blank metal. I coughed; the air was full of the rock-dust I’d kicked up. The oncoming lights were about to run me over. On my second attempt, I hit the button. The inner door slammed down a handbreadth from my face.
The airlock was windowless. I was in near darkness, the only light coming from the tunnelbug’s cab. I dialled my vision up and stumbled round the ’bug. The air was frigid but I felt a glow on my exposed cheek as I passed the wheeled tracks. I’d run this tunnelbug hard.
Over at the outer door, I hit the command to start the lock cycling. Then I remembered what I’d forgotten in the panic of the oncoming lights. I pulled myself up onto the treads and leaned in through the door to grab a flat cylinder the size of my palm from the ’bug’s dash. And paused. After the incident at the practice airlock Nico had reduced the amount in his charges to what he called ‘just enough bang to do the job’. Which meant the charge had to be stuck in exactly the right place: centre bottom of the outer airlock door, ready to activate as the airlock opened and do enough damage to disable the airlock without trashing the tunnelbug or broaching the inner door. Good plan, except that the middle bottom of this airlock door was, thanks to my irresponsible parking, no longer accessible. I had to back the ’bug up. Heart beating in my ears I threw myself into the driver’s seat and hit the start button.
Nothing happened.
Of course: Nico’d had to hotwire the tunnelbugs to get them working.
In the grim silence, something clanged behind me. My pursuers were knocking on the back door. Great.
And my head hurt. Why did my head hurt…?
I looked up through the ’bug’s screen to see the status readout on the airlock control panel click down to three out of five bars. And the ’bug door was still open.
I pulled on the lose flap of skinsuit under my chin, rolling the fabric up to cover my nose and mouth. This made a seal with my hudglasses, activating the suit’s rebreather function. Some of the fog cleared from my brain.
Nico had hotwired the tunnelbugs because he didn’t have valid Everlight ID. But I did. The downtrodden administrator’s pass was still around my neck. I fumbled it onto the ID scanner and pressed ‘start’.
A gentle hum filled the cab.
I slammed the ’bug into reverse, doing an abrupt start-stop, then grabbed the limpet-charge and half-fell out the ’bug door.
The airlock readout hit one bar.
I bent down and slapped the charge onto the lower lip of the airlock, then leapt back into the tunnelbug. As I hit the control to close the cab door the airlock slid up, flooding my vision with watery sunlight.
The charge went off.
The world vibrated and small bits of debris began to rain down. A feeble puff of dust fanned in through the cab door before it sealed.
I gunned the throttle. The tunnelbug lurched forward through a fall of dust and small rocks, bursting out into the Martian dawn.
I made myself breathe slowly and set my hud display to daylight acuity, with overlaid map. During my recent acrobatics my pack, with its heavy, precious cargo, had acted as an impromptu and brutal massage stone. I’d have some great bruises.
I turned the tunnelbug slowly; though rated for the Martian (lack of) atmosphere, ’bugs are designed for use on the flat and there was little of that to be had now I was out on Olympus itself. After getting this far it would be embarrassing to flip my vehicle.
I spared a look at Nico’s handiwork as I drove back past the airlock. A gaping hole with dust still billowing out of it. Result. No one would be following me out that way.
Our routes through the tunnels all wended upwards, but now I needed to head directly upslope. If we did have anyone on our tails out here, they’d be coming from the lower levels, which gave us a head start. Plus, they wouldn’t expect us to head up, towards the distant crater rim. After all, there was no escape route that way, was there?
Well, there’d better be. I took the chance to look around, and up. Another lovely clear Martian day. Bright now; brighter later. Hopefully. And somewhere up there was the Rainfall comet, in its corporate shroud.