by M. D. Cooper
I ran for the corner Puff had pointed, and as I rounded it I crashed into half a dozen heavily armoured soldiers on patrol.
We went down in a tangle of arms, legs, powered gauntlets, and pulse rifles. It’s fair to say they weren’t amused.
“Where the jolly old fuck do you think you’re going, sunshine?” one of the soldiers asked, picking me up by the hood of my cassock. “And what the bloody hell are you wearing? Sandpaper dressing gown? You escape from the world’s shittiest spa resort or what?”
“Reckon he’s one of them actors, Garrent,” said a colleague, checking his rifle over for damage.
I thought fast. I hadn’t actually done anything wrong or possibly even suspicious yet. “Yes, that’s it. Actor. And a fearful poof to boot, really quite harmless. Popping out for a ciggy and a breath of fresh air.”
Garrent’s brow furrowed. With his huge shaven head, there was plenty of brow room to get some really impressive furrows going. It was almost fractal in its complexity, and I stared at it, until I realised that he’d asked me something and I’d been too busy watching his scalp contort to listen.
“I said, we was all pretty hacked off not to get tickets to that. How’s about you do a bit?”
I didn’t bother asking what the alternative was, they were pretty big lads.
But I was buggered if I was going to do Friar sodding Lawrence. “Here’s much to do with hate, but so much more with love,” I began, declaiming heroically.
Garrent’s gauntlet shot out and covered my face.
“Fucking quietly, you knobber! We’re only a few dozen yards from the Impy lines!”
One of the other soldiers nudged Garrent’s arm as he lowered his fist from my mouth. “Here, it’s not all that iambic pentameter wank, is it?”
“A lot of the servants’ stuff is in prose,” I tried to chip in.
“I knew it!” the heckler cackled. “Perpetuating the class system via textual form. The entertainments sub-committee remain woefully ill-equipped to select an ideologically progressive schedule.”
“Aw, stop your whinging Drazon, and let him get on with it. I like a bit of blank verse, does a soul good to hear the poets sing,” said one of the soldiers at the back of the squad, sounding unaccountably Welsh.
Drazon turned swiftly, a haze of blue energy dancing round his gauntlet as he raised and clenched his fist. “Who said that?”
All in all, it was a relief, when the Imperial artillery shell exploded eight feet away.
The crunch of the explosion seemed to knock every bone in my body together, and the whole group of us were bowled over like skittles. The gyroscopic stabilisers kicked in and I found myself in a balletic-style planking pose sprawled full-length over the path and balancing on the toes of one foot, my nose less than an inch from the drifting sands.
I lowered myself down to the ground as I found myself staring into Drazon’s accusing glare. Then I relaxed as I realised his accusing glare had more to do with the fact half his skull had been sliced off by shrapnel. Then I threw up. That at least seemed to be in character.
The surviving soldiers scrambled to their feet quickly and scattered behind litter bins and lamp posts, snarling impenetrable codes at each other. Occasionally one of them would snap off a potshot at the roofs of the nearby buildings, though they seemed pretty aimless.
I finally stood, my head ringing, and in my confused state, I was slightly put out that they were ignoring me so completely.
“Keep your flaming head down, you stupid arse,” hissed a Welsh voice behind me, which was probably fair advice. I scuttled up the street, flinging myself headlong again when another shell exploded right where I’d been standing.
This time the squad seemed to have nailed the enemy’s position, and the night sky lit up with green laser blasts as the soldiers returned fire. Even I could see that they were pinpointing their position even more effectively than a concussed actor wandering around the middle of the street, and sure enough the crump of more artillery began thudding across the rooftops moments later. I ran for it.
Five minutes later, I was thoroughly lost, but at least the tinnitus had stopped, and I was no longer seeing double.
I’d reached the old town, which in most Earth cities means nice pubs, green spaces, property prices that looked like telephone numbers, and guided tours of every single building on your path. On colony worlds, however, they weren’t mincing their words. The old town was quite literally where the first primitive shelters had been erected when the colonists arrived a century ago, and where their generation ship had dumped its supplies before limping back into the sky for the journey home. They were mostly corrugated shacks covered loosely by tarpaulins to keep out sandstorms.
It was an interesting contrast to the futuristic cityscape of the area around the parliament building, but from the maps I’d seen, it was also an interesting contrast to where I was supposed to be.
In the distance, the firefight seemed to be dying down, so I skipped down a few blocks and then tried to retrace my route along a parallel street.
Even through my increasingly abused synthskin, the desert’s freezing night air was beginning to blow unwelcome draughts up my robes, and I wished I’d thought to pinch a gun or a gauntlet from that dead soldier. Or his armoured trousers, at least
Finally, I turned a corner on to a street filled with grey concrete buildings that reeked of functionary officialdom. At the other end of it I was rewarded with the sight of a fenced-off compound of single storey huts, blazing with lights and speckled with the shapes of soldiers running this way and that. The razor wire-topped chain-link fences were punctuated by huge tapering metallic tower structures at each corner. I was back on track.
My only concern was: how to get in? I’d been told the place would be almost dormant, with a good chunk of the troops at the theatre and most of the rest asleep or bribed. Probably thanks to the skirmish in the streets, there were soldiers marching around everywhere in their glossy black uniforms.
I was vaguely aware that standing staring at the razor wire fence of a military installation while wearing fancy dress was probably not a great strategy. But how to get in?
Time was ticking on, they’d surely be on Act 2 by now. And I was stuck staring at the target base like the proverbial dog in front of a butcher’s window.
My dilemma was rendered irrelevant when a heavy hand descended on my shoulder from behind, accompanied by a flat electronic voice. “And what are you looking at, sunshine?”
I was turned, roughly, to stare at the matte black visor of a heavy blast helmet, sitting on top of sleek glossy black armour. The faintest flicker of light behind the visor suggested the soldier was scanning my face, and suddenly I realised why Puff was so keen on sourcing his actors from the deep past. They’d have no record of me, I was a ghost in this age!
“James Fanning, Earth, actor, 21st Century,” the soldier intoned. “You’re a long way from home, Jim.”
Oh, bugger. “Ah, yeah...” I floundered. “I’ve been resting. Um, bit of voiceover work, though.”
The soldier barked a laugh, which echoed with weird feedback when filtered through his suit’s microphone. “That’s one hell of a skullsculpt to fool military-grade facial recognition software. Galsec got you infiltrating those shifty STI fruits? Always knew they were up to something.”
I always worried when I thought I could understand what these future people were saying. I was pretty sure I shouldn’t be able to understand space stuff, and it seemed to end up with my being stuffed into torpedoes and so on. “Ach, well, you know how it is...” I equivocated.
“About time too,” the soldier barked. “Don’t mind me, need to know and all that. I’ll take you straight to the chief and you can submit your report. A famous 21st Century actor conveniently found in cryosleep right by the Orion Belt Fringe Festival. Old man Puff’s gotten so arrogant he doesn’t even think to question his luck any more, right?”
“You’re not wrong there,” I agreed cau
tiously, as we set off towards the gates.
“I was wondering how I was going to get in without getting shot,” I said to him quite naturally and honestly.
“Covert ops are a bugger like that,” the hulking trooper agreed with an expansive shrug that rattled the missiles in his shoulder-mounted bazookas. “Of course, all that synthskin you’re packing would have kept you alive long enough to put the boys straight. Probably.”
Invisible to scanners, eh? Cheers, Puff. As we reached the gate, the soldier called inside. “Open up lads, theatrical secret agent coming through!”
A ragged cheer rose up from the troops, the steel gates were duly opened, and we marched across the dusty courtyard, me doing my best to look wily, knowing, and only slightly furtive, despite the dreadful itchy armpits the hessian cassock was now giving me.
We headed straight to the nearest hut, and as soon as we were inside, I realised we must be in a converted primary school or something, as the lockers that lined the entrance hallway seemed far too small and flimsy to hold the kind of bulky armour these guys all seemed to favour.
My escort took me into the first classroom on the left, which helpfully had a sign on the door reading ‘Intelligence’. Thick stacks of paper bulged out of straining manila folders, piled up on bright plastic chairs that would struggle to seat a seven year old.
At a bit of a loss in the empty classroom, the man waved me over to the teacher’s desk, behind which was the only adult-sized chair in the room. “No one home. Not to worry, I’ll find out where everyone’s got to. Fancy a brew?”
As I sat at the desk, I read the title of a document upside-down. Counter-intelligence operatives on assignment it read, heading a column of mug shot photos and names. Bingo!
“Um, yeah, two sugars would be lovely, cheers,” I said, hardly daring to breathe.
The soldier even saluted, before sauntering from the room. I reached for the paper with shaking fingers.
“Wait a minute...” the grunt said ominously, turning in the doorway. I dropped the sheet as though it had burst into flame.
“Hmm?” I squeaked.
“Would you like a biscuit?” his electronically modulated voice croaked.
I tried to slow my breathing enough to get words out. “Too wet without, dear,” I said with a manic rictus attempt at a winning smile.
“You even sound like Fanning,” he said, shaking his head as he turned back to the corridor.
I shook my head in the sudden silence, waited a moment, and then grabbed the document again. I ran my left palm over the surface, where Grizabella had implanted the scanner in a slit between synthskin layers, and waited until my thumbnail flashed green to indicate a complete data capture.
I moved to replace the document, but beneath the list of field agents, there was a full-size folding map of the city, covered in squiggles and arrows, in blue and red, with a big squiggly line down the middle which I guessed was the front line, such as it was.
That took a bit of scanning, as I waved my palm around the sheet, trying desperately to find the one elusive patch that I’d missed until my thumb flashed again.
The papers rearranged to what I hope were their original positions, I stood up from the desk. I ought to be getting out of here. Whatever miraculous misunderstanding had smuggled me into the heart of the military operation would evaporate the moment I ran into someone with any actual authority. Not only that, but I must already have missed my first entrance. I was pretty sure someone would cover for me, but a gig was a gig, even if it was Friar sodding Lawrence.
I wandered towards the door, idly looking at the inept but colourful drawings children had made long ago, all triangular figures living in squares with triangles on top and twin moons in the sky shining purple laser beams of light. Then I noticed that among the pinned-up pictures, there was a list of grid references and what looked like security codes. I had no idea what they might be for, but I doubted it was to open the poster paints cupboard, so I scanned that as well.
Five minutes later, I’d scanned just about every sheet of paper in the classroom that wasn’t covered in wax crayon and glitter. Then as I prepared to leave, I heard a noise from the corridor, and froze.
“We know exactly what the STI do, you idiot, why on Earth would we infiltrate them? They send out calls for bloody actors among the officers wherever they tour! He’s probably just lost, but we’ll have to -”
I shut the door, breathing hard. I had seconds left, I was unarmed, and the most cursory scan would demonstrate that my hand scanner was stuffed full of enough military intelligence to win the next two wars on this planet.
I backed away from the door, figuring my best chance was to just charge at whoever opened it and make a break for freedom and the gate. That’s when I spotted the belt of plasma grenades hanging from the back of the classroom door.
I’d never even held one of the devices before, but the thing about grenades is they’re not exactly burdened with complex controls. I grabbed one, twisted the dial a fraction, pushed the button on the top and dropped it out of the ground floor window.
I barely had time to shelter behind the desk before the resulting explosion took out the whole wall.
“Incoming artillery!” shouted a voice from outside. “They’ve shelled the command post!”
“I don’t think-” started another voice, but I was already moving.
The classroom door flew open as I lobbed another grenade towards it, prompting a string of cursing as the soldiers on the other side fell back in panic.
I had maybe two seconds before they realised I’d not had time to prime the grenade, and I used them. I charged straight through the smoking, rubble-strewn gap in the wall, relying on my gyroscopic implants to keep me on my feet as my Friar Lawrence sandals tripped and slipped over masonry and twisted metal.
The first laser pulses blasted over my shoulder as I cleared the building and took my first breath of fresh air. By pure luck, the wall had been facing the fence in a sheltered corner of the compound, so I didn’t run out into a fresh hail of laser bolts.
Orienting myself quickly, I realised turning left would take me straight out towards the front gate, which I was fairly sure would now be swarming with soldiers mobilising to investigate what I hoped they still thought was an external attack. I needed an alternate exit strategy. I reached into my cassock, and squeezed the object I’d spent the dress rehearsal pretending was Friar Lawrence’s crucifix. Then I darted right, rounded the corner, and shinned up a drainpipe. The stabilisers helped on the way up, but I was still knackered by the time I reached the top and flopped on to the flat roof, flapping, twitching, and gasping for breath like a fish out of water.
“He can’t have got far,” I heard my guardian angel grumbling below.
“He can,” his unseen companion rasped. “He’ll have swiped my spare uniform from under my desk and be halfway back home by now. No matter. We know just where he’s going.”
A spare uniform! I struck my forehead, as I tugged at the scratchy sackcloth that was still my only defence against the increasingly icy night air. The vacuum and near absolute zero temperature of open space had been excruciating, but I’d only had to endure it for a matter of seconds in the middle of the biggest adrenaline spike of my life, compared to several hours in this old sack. And my precious synthskin was clearly sloughing off at an alarming rate, not helped by this bloody costume.
Rolling over on to my stomach, I risked a peek down at the compound. Hovertrucks full of troops were activating and sweeping out of the front gate on to the streets, off to kick some arse. I really had to hope I could get my intel to Puff before the war was over and there was no one left to sell it to.
I pulled my fake crucifix out from inside my hellish costume to check on my exit strategy.
I needn’t have bothered. Sirens began whooping and blaring across the compound. “Orbital strike incoming!” bellowed a sergeant, his amplified voice rolling across the whole base. “Look lively, lads! Brace!”
At each corner of the base, huge pulses of plasma blasted into the night sky from the tapering towers, streaking away towards an enemy no one could yet see. Anti-aircraft defences, should have seen that one coming, really. The tarmac was rapidly clearing of the few remaining personnel, who were swarming into one of the smaller sheds, which I could only assume housed a subterranean area or two, given the number of people squashing into it.
The plasma cannons kept blasting into the sky as I clung to the roof, alone in the night with an orbital strike bearing down on my position and a synthetic fist full of classified information.
I grinned as the ILO drone screamed from the sky and skidded to a halt three feet in front of my face with a single directed burst of retro-thruster fire. The plasma cannons continued to blast skywards, and small fireballs began to appear in the upper atmosphere.
The drone had jettisoned most of its cannons, both to control its descent from the ionosphere and to throw off the tracking sensors. Now the discarded components were being picked off, keeping the cannons occupied, and keeping the troops in the bunker while they still thought they were under bombardment. I nodded approvingly; clever girl.
I slipped Go Compare’s goggles over my head. The drone had done well to get through to me, I’d just hoped it would distract the soldiers for long enough for me to make a break for the streets. Now, however, it was my turn to get us out with the prize.
“Come on, Blinky,” I muttered, naming my new favourite gadget, and I crawled over to it, watching my own careful approach through the remote cameras. I reached out gingerly, expecting to smell burning synthskin but somehow it had already cooled from re-entry. “Clever girl.”
I blinked at an icon, and Blinky puffed up three feet in the air, its remaining cannon dangling in invitation.