They ate in silence for a few minutes.
“Where is your friend?” asked Krause.
A wisp of steam curled up from her bowl, resembling a question mark. The din of the street market seemed to fade into the background as she concentrated on the shape of the rolling fog. The little girl zoomed by with someone else’s food, chattering away in happy-sounding Mandarin with the cook. Risa gazed into her soup. I’d give anything to trade places with that kid.
“I said he had another commitment.” She glanced to her right, at him. “Do you want me to say I don’t know, or should I make up some believable bullshit?”
“A commitment with the MDF, yes?” Krause inhaled a large wad of noodles and meat.
“Yes.” She risked a bite, finding it still too warm to enjoy. She hurried chewing the mouthful and swallowed.
“Denmark has concerns.” Krause slurped up a huge mouthful.
Risa jabbed at her soup. “He’s no risk.”
“Ahh, yes. Because your angel said so?” Krause tilted his bowl back, draining the last of the broth. “Something about a little society.”
She wrapped noodles around a shrimp and stuck the bundle into her mouth. For a moment after swallowing, she kept quiet, eyes downcast. “Your people care only about money. I don’t expect you to understand the kind of code they have.”
“Empires rise and fall.” Krause sat back and folded his arms, pausing while the child collected his empty dish. “No matter whose ass warms the throne, everyone needs money.”
Risa drew in a breath, spinning toward him.
“Relax, Miss Black. Your enemies are governments. They do not need us as a source for toys. We are not playing both sides.” He removed a package from under his coat and set it on the counter by her. She eyed the bundle of dingy blue cloth wrapped around what looked like a brick.
“What’s that?”
Krause leaned the side of his head on a fist. “Your gift.”
“That small? The last one―”
“Was not NE8.” He patted it. “This will do the job your bosses desire, and you don’t need someone to carry it for you. That little termite is almost as potent as the last one.” He gripped her hand as she reached for the cloth. “Not here. Too many eyes.”
“I need to know what I’m carrying.”
“Standard M-18 fuse. The timer can be set for up to two hours. Pressure and vibration sensors as well. It will remember your strength, touch, and body mass. If anyone else lays a finger on it, it will solve all their problems.” Krause grinned.
The girl came back for Risa’s empty bowl and bounded into the back where she put it into a machine. Working so hard, so young. At least she’s happy. Her grandfather patted her on the head, one of many moments of affection. Risa turned away, no less envious despite her shame for feeling that way. She swiveled on the stool to face the street.
“Girl.” Krause shook his empty drink. “When you can.”
“Am I to hand you credits without looking?”
Once the kid was out of earshot, he stooped over, whispering. “Denmark may be Denmark, but even he fears you.”
She stared at the ground. I am not some for-hire corporate tí-zhèn. I fight for higher truths. She put her hand on the brick, squeezing it, exploring the contours of the object beneath the cloth. “Fine.”
Two fingers slipped a small credstick from her belt and passed it to Krause. He peeked at it, raised an eyebrow, and dropped it into his jacket pocket. The girl set a new drink in front of him and gave Risa an expectant look.
The kid’s too good at that pleading stare. “Yeah, sure.”
Grinning, the girl darted off to grab her a fresh drink.
Krause slugged his tea in a single pull, putting the empty down about the same moment Risa’s refill arrived.
He offered a shallow bow. “A pleasure doing business with you again.”
Krause drifted away from the noodle bar and joined the endless flow of humanity in the street. A peculiar mix of satisfaction and shame came over her at such a huge man being afraid of her. She picked up the bomb and held it in her lap, flicking her thumbs at the greasy cloth. Memories of the flames returned, joined by the last sound she had ever heard her father make―a scream. If Garrison’s intel was right, at least one of the people responsible for her shattered life would receive the little gift in her hands. One tear squeezed free of her closed eyes.
Killing solves nothing.
She held on to the anger that had driven her for so many years, and opened her eyes.
It will make me feel better.
Risa sat in silence for the better part of an hour, sipping her tea and watching the young girl work. The ‘package’ remained in her lap, and she kept one hand on it. These are the people I’m doing this for. She drained the last of her drink, bowed at the family, and wandered away into the crowd. Bodies swarmed in around her. Hundreds of people, each with their own reason for being out on this particular street at that particular time. I bet none of them will wind up killing people within the next two hours.
Her headware connected via wireless uplink to the MarsNet. Virtual screens appeared, floating over the heads of the people in front of her. She browsed public archives, searching for the original design plans of the city. Few ‘real’ hackers bothered with the OWI, or ‘outside world interface,’ their term for stone-age tech like screens as opposed to plugging in to VR. It could be surprisingly easy to get into places the average person wasn’t supposed to get into, with help of the old terminals. Since so few people tried it, few bothered to set up meaningful defenses. Or maybe I just keep getting lucky. Granted, three-dimensional blueprints of disused air ventilation ducts weren’t worth much in terms of credits. Two kinds of people would want that information: terrorists looking to plant bombs, and people looking to move around unnoticed.
Funny how the two go hand in hand.
Neither scenario appeared to have been worth the financial resources to secure it. She tagged three files, different revisions of the schematics over sixty years, and the tiny computer in her skull merged them into a composite three-dimensional map. With an exact map of where she wanted to be, it took less than twenty minutes to pick an entrance point. She made her way to a shopping district, entering a seventy square meter concourse where at least two-thirds of the storefronts appeared abandoned.
People clustered about in groups, selling drugs, sex, and weapons. One man in the far-right corner, with luminous blue spiked hair, had the telltale look of a soft dealer―illegal programs for the not-so-discerning hacker. A large pack of teens lined the third-tier catwalk where every store looked blown out and dark. They shouted, laughed, and drank, throwing their empties into the crowd below. A chubby man with curly pink hair took a synthbeer can to the side of the head and went down in a warbling heap.
“Sixty points!” screamed the teen girl who’d thrown it.
Risa put on her best ‘don’t mess with me’ face and stormed through the crowd. She ignored a handful of men who tried to hit on her, a pair of twin women who wanted to sell her gadgets, and a short, fat, bald guy in a white doctor’s coat who, after waving a small wand at her, informed her he could cure her ‘condition’ for only a thousand credits.
A dark and narrow passageway connected the courtyard to another shopping area, which appeared to be more of a food court. She drifted to the left, lingering in the shadows along the rough-cut stone wall and a ventilation intake large enough to climb into. The entire city stank of metal and grease, a bad portent for the condition of the vents.
Once certain no one paid attention to her, she lifted the four-foot-square slatted cover and climbed up and into the comforting claustrophobia of lightless ventilation ducts. She sat for a few minutes, plotting her route on the virtual map hovering before her eyes. As soon as she thought to set the waypoint, the map disappeared and a thin wisp-trail formed in her vision. Risa secured the small bomb to her harness and crawled.
Minutes passed into an hour, and then t
wo. She navigated tunnel after tunnel, twice enduring an arduous vertical climb through shafts too tight to allow her arms past her chest. As she neared the edge of the city’s ‘official’ footprint, the confining walls pressed in on her, trapping her body heat and making her breaths echo as if all of Mars could hear her. Soon she could no longer crawl, and had to pull herself along on her stomach, one arm length at a time.
The too-narrow passage lasted for seventy meters, after which it connected to a larger vertical channel with a stiff upward breeze. Her hair flew out in front of her face as she poked forward to stare down into the dark. A steady side-to-side sway of her head, a habit so the Wraith could ‘see’ the walls, only illuminated twenty feet down. According to the map, this shaft would take her down to the level of the tunnel she needed. She rolled onto her back, popped her claws, and sank them into the metal above the opening, finding stone underneath. Her fingers absorbed all her weight as she slipped out and dangled by her hands. Boots braced on either side, she retracted her claws and descended in a laborious process of short, controlled falls.
When she reached the bottom of the shaft, a hundred and two feet below the surface of Mars, she sat for a moment. Without light, without sound, Risa listened to her heart beating. Trails of sweat moved between her skin and the clingy armor, random tickles she could not reach. Her breathing slowed after a few minutes. She hugged her knees and tried not to let her mind pull her into the past. These vents felt a lot bigger then. Risa gazed down at where the floor should be. Too soft. Enough sediment had built up on the metal to make it feel like a cushion. I’m glad I can’t see what I’m sitting on.
Shiro’s face drifted out of the darkness and smiled at her. The outside world seemed more than ever like an alien landscape full of clueless people who did not know or care they were enslaved. She had been right out in the open, wearing normal clothes, meeting at a place where normal people go, having dinner like normal people do.
Why did it feel so wrong? She grumbled, noting the clock, a glimmering blue firefly in the lower-left corner of her view: 13:02. I don’t have a lot of time. The bastard is going to leave the base.
Bumps and bangs reverberated into the distance as she went from sitting to kneeling. She crawled forward, hands scratching over grainy patches of sand. Every so often, her shoulder or butt rubbed along the top.
The businessman from Earth had not been subtle with his roaming eyes. Maris had all but dangled her as bait, hoping he would bite. Shiro had proven to be more reserved than she anticipated. His interest was obvious, but it seemed her outward coldness kept him at arm’s length.
Her progress slowed as her beloved tunnels morphed from shelter to cage. Can I get away from the killing? She halted, staring at the ghostly grey shapes of her hands against the dark surface. The people of Mars deserved to set their own course. Am I too far gone? Her life had taken a turn she could not unwind. It seems backwards to kill people to set others free. But who better than someone who’s already broken?
Some of them even deserved it.
She crawled for a mile with only her doubt, guilt, and anger to keep her company. Non-functional rat-killer bots littered the passage, dust-covered and forgotten where their power cells had died. Up ahead, angular stripes of light pierced a shifting cloud of dust. Risa peered through the vent slats into a dim section of rock-walled tunnel with plastisteel plates for a floor. Once intended as a street, it now played home to an array of junk. Girders, unused pipes, and trash boxes provided plenty of cover from the still-active city in the distance. She put her hand on the grating, touching the bars separating her from society.
She had arrived at the lowest level of Secundus, where the poorest of the poor lived.
Why am I getting soft?
Frowning, Risa nudged the grating loose and slithered on her belly into the stagnant dark of a dead-end alley. Empty cans and plastic garbage rustled. Someone had pissed nearby. A caustic presence of ammonia in the air stung her artificial eyes. She covered her nose with one hand and propped the vent cover back in place. From behind a large trash compactor, she peeked around the corner. Forty yards away, the alley opened into a modest square thick with people on the teeter point between poor and desperate, sifting through merchant stalls and storefronts. A few dozen shops flooded it with light and music, and a mixture of food scents lingered in the air under a heavy blanket of garlic. An array of air filters, storefronts, and holographic signs sprouted out along a ceiling of bare crimson rock. This alcove sat at the ‘end’ of the city, where the touch of humanity gave way to the planet that had come before it.
Behind her, drab metal walls met rough-hewn stone. The alley had served as an emergency access point for excavation tunnels, which no longer operated. No mining, no drilling, no science expeditions. Had to be the military base above it. Why else would they abandon the dig? She backed away from the alley and jogged a few steps to the already-open blast door. From the amount of sediment packed into the track, it had been stuck for months. Guess they decided to focus on domes instead of digging. Normal people want to have sky over their heads.
Crimson sand spread out from the tunnel into the street, tracked with the imprints of small feet, many of them shoeless. She went down on one knee and traced her fingers over the smallest print. Kids shouldn’t be playing in the tunnels. Risa felt a tug in her gut, wondering if they were beggars that prowled the courtyard―or thieves. A life she might have led had she not been too afraid to leave the vents. For a moment, she listened at the tunnel. Amplified ears found nothing but the lament of wind. She stood and walked into the tunnel, switching her eyes to the monochrome green of night vision.
Beggars and thieves don’t kill people. The romantic thought of a kind stranger taking her by the hand to get something to eat lasted for a minute. It spiraled into the depravity of what really would have happened to a girl on the streets as she grew into her teens with no cyberware, no way to defend herself―nothing to do but be used.
Garrison and the Mars Liberation Front did not seem as bad.
A brief thought about her route brought up the virtual map. She grabbed at the display as if it were tangible, sliding it to the corner and turning it to orient ‘top’ with ‘forward.’ Her position appeared as a small dot creeping along the tunnel as she walked. For the first twenty meters, she studied the ground in search of more small footprints. Finding none, she got up to a jog. An incline brought the entry tunnel down to a large manmade cavern that still bore the scars of tracked excavators and giant drilling machines. Several offshoots led into the dark. Dozens of weak e-lanterns hung on improvised pegs set in the wall at the level of her chest.
Those lights don’t take much power. An e-mag would keep one working for ten years, and they look close to dead.
Jogging became walking, which degenerated to trudging under the weight of her thoughts. Never before had she doubted her resolve to free Mars. What was it about Shiro that scratched even a tiny glint of freedom into her psyche? No, Garrison is right. I can have a normal life, but not until this war is over. How can I feel sorry for myself when many thousands suffer?
Risa kept glancing at the floating map as she made her way deeper under the Martian surface. The tunnel led her outside the boundary of the city, confirming what their intelligence report claimed. Before long, the phantom outline of the military complex slid over the virtual display. This target did not have an enormous Cryomil tank to which she could affix the explosive. Thank Raziel. A mile-wide crater wasn’t necessary. All they wanted to do was destroy a small installation and disable a special unit devoted to murdering people she considered friends. A modest cave-in would do the trick. Mars would devour the political cancer upon its surface.
Risa came to a halt at another intersection chamber, which lined up beneath the circular silhouette of a large surface building. The overall shape of the chamber, a ring, suggested an old driller unit had hollowed it out as a place to turn around. Three tunnels led from it, one the way she came, two others
forming a Y at the other end. She eyed the ceiling as her cybernetic eyes displayed calculations from her acoustic resonance system. The Wraith’s sonic ‘vision’ analyzed the stone’s density. Kendrick’s team identified this tunnel section on an old schematic diagram as the best place to strike to guarantee a collapse. Her scan confirmed it. The fourteen-foot-thick column of stone at the middle seemed like the perfect mounting point for the charge.
The shockwave of an NE8 detonation down here would throw material a respectable distance into the air and swallow enough of the base to render it more financially viable to scrap the whole thing and start again from scratch elsewhere. You’re somewhere above me right now, aren’t you? Her hands trembled as she took the deadly package out and unwrapped it. The bomb looked like an unassuming metal ingot with black plastic on one face and two small buttons on the sides. She held it out in front of her body and squeezed the buttons. Tiny spikes snapped out of it at the four corners. Rage, anticipation, and a healthy dose of fear got her heart racing.
I’ve waited sixteen years for a taste of revenge.
She positioned the brick-sized charge over the column.
“This is for you, Dad.”
Whack. A thrust of her arm tamped it into place.
Her mind called out to cyberspace, linking to a private network the Front maintained. 「Garrison, are you there?」
A moment of silence passed before his faltering virtual image appeared. Color-shifts drifted in bands across his smile. 「Copy.
「I’m in bed. Are the birds in the nest?」
「Hang on, checking my eyes.」 Garrison’s image vanished to the right beyond the invisible border of a nonexistent screen. His muttering on other channels lingered for a moment before he returned. 「Birds are in the nest, give them a worm. Looks like they aren’t planning to stay for long. Ten minutes at most.」
「Copy.」
Risa swiped her fingers at the bomb, causing it to display a holographic terminal screen. It projected an image of her face and handprint as it recorded her biometric data. When it finally presented a keypad, she dialed in seven minutes. After a few brief stretches, she took a thin sheet of plasfilm from her belt and unrolled it. A white rubber dot the size of a thumbnail sat at its center with the words ‘Usagi-3’ printed on it. She pulled the sleeve of her ballistic suit away from the underside of her left wrist, peeled the derm from the backing, and pressed it into place.
Hand of Raziel (Daughter of Mars Book 1) Page 15