Killswitch: A Cassandra Kresnov Novel (v1.1)

by Joel Shepherd

  "Let alone control of the Fleet."

  "Exactly. Try that. "

  Sandy grasped the handle on the security gate, and multiple locks clicked open. She ducked through quickly, closed it behind her, and walked along the footway and across the crossbridge. Below, the band were playing something hyper-techno, with lots of electronic harmonics and a skirting, unpredictable rhythm. Damn, this really was Ari's kind of place. No one seemed to notice the dark shape upon the overhead walkways, and she ducked through the end doorway ... and into what appeared to be a maintenance room for the automated window cleaners. Several of the insectoid, sucker-footed robots awaited in maintenance cradles.

  Sandy flitted from shadow to shadow, pressing herself to one corner wall and listening hard ... heard the faint, electronic manipulation of controls further along the passage beneath the sloping glass, and the weight of a body shifting in a control chair.

  "Ladder ten metres to your front," said Ari. A maintenance worker emerged from a doorway, turning unawares to resume work on one of the glass cleaners. Sandy darted silently across to the ladder, and rapidly climbed several levels. From there it was a relatively simple matter for Ari to override the controls for the maintenance elevator, into which she climbed. The maintenance elevator rode up the side of the pyramid at a forty-five-degree angle, suspended by overhead rails and passing through maintenance levels along the way. Sandy sat upon the lowest row of seats provided, the elevator floor sloping before her at that same forty-five degrees, and saw through the porthole the face of one worker who was waiting for the elevator, and was evidently surprised when it didn't stop.

  At level forty-nine, at the top of its rails, the elevator did stop. The doors unfolded outward, and Sandy jumped lightly from her seat to the ground, and headed along the short, dimly lit passage toward where the pyramid's central elevator shaft would be. Part way along, the end security door opened with Sandy not five metres away.

  "Oh, shit," said Ari. "Hide. " The corridor here was straight, and the nearest doorway was five metres behind her. Even with her speed, Sandy knew it was impossible.

  "Can't," she said. The maintenance worker-a round-faced man of Chinese appearance with a thin beard-stopped and frowned at her.

  "Damn," said Ari. "Do something."

  "Like what?"

  "Who are you?" the worker demanded, suspiciously. Sandy supposed it wouldn't help much to put her hands in her pockets and whistle nonchalantly. "What are you doing in here?"

  "I dunno!" Ari retorted. "Punch his lights out!"

  "Ari," Sandy formulated, somewhat testily, "I'm not about to go around putting civilians in hospital. Jam his uplinks, if he's got them. "

  And the maintenance worker's suspicion turned to frowning puzzlement, indeed as if he'd just attempted to raise the alarm, and found his uplinks strangely nonfunctional. On a flash of inspiration, Sandy whipped off her sunglasses, and strode forward. The worker took a pose that suggested he did know how to fight (fight-tape was a popular expense among many blue-collar Tanushan workers), and Sandy ran a purposeful hand through her hair, brushing back the wet fringe to give him a good look at her face. He froze, eyes widening.

  "C-Com-Commander Kresnov?" Incredulously.

  "That's right," she told him. "You surprised me. I'm here on a mission. It's very important that no one knows I'm here."

  "You ... you ..." The man seemed to be having difficulty getting his head around it, for which she supposed she could hardly blame him. "You broke in?"

  "Yes. I need to speak to someone here privately."

  "Sandy," Ari said plaintively in her ear, "this is not a good idea ... he ... he could freak out, he could tell everyone and then they'll sweep their systems and find me, and then ... "

  "You're here to see Takawashi?" the maintenance worker exclaimed as it occurred to him, his eyes widening. "Or, no ... hold on, you don't like Takawashi, do you? You ran away from people like him in the League?"

  "That's right." How much he knew would determine how she ended up playing this, she reckoned. Let him keep talking.

  "My ... my buddies and me were talking about it ... you know, having Takawashi here and all that, we wondered if you'd met him yet. I reckoned you'd hate his guts." Gazing at her, with wondering excitement.

  "Pay attention, Ari," she formulated silently, "see here the knowledge and wisdom of the ordinary Tanushans you're always disparaging. " And to the maintenance worker, quite bluntly, she said, "I'm not here to talk to him. I'm here to steal something from him." And she could all but hear Ari's exasperated sigh from the other end of his uplink. The worker blinked, rapidly. Then thrust a hand into his jumpsuit pocket, and withdrew a small, round security insert-key.

  "I'll probably lose my job for this, but ..." and he thrust the key into her hand. "Take it. I'll say I lost it. He's got his own security systems rigged through the penthouse, this'll get you access past the initial barriers, you can disable whatever you like from there."

  Sandy smiled at him. "Thank you," she said, and meant it.

  The worker shrugged. "We're practically at war, and you're the boss. As far as I'm concerned, you were never here."

  Sandy clasped his arm. "If you do lose your job, contact me through the CSA. I have a few friends who could find you another one."

  She slipped past him toward the security door. "Gee, I wonder who's going to be doing the job hunting for your new friend?"

  "Stop complaining. Sometimes it takes a bit of feminine subtlety, Ari. "

  "Let me make a note of that. "

  The lift door opened a silent fraction. Sandy hung within the elevator shaft, suspended by the steely fingers of her right hand from a structural beam just below the doors. No light came through the narrow gap. Behind, in the shaft, the elevator cables began whirring once more. The car itself remained a good forty storeys below, shuttling mostly between the ground floor, and the bottom twenty storeys that held the majority of the hotel's guest rooms-logically, within a pyramidal structure. But surely even the soft whistle of high-tension cables would penetrate the room within, as perhaps would some breeze.

  "Clear," murmured Ari's voice in her ear. Not that he needed to murmur, really. But the lower his voice, the more hearing she'd have to devote to her surroundings. "Sorry for the delay ... he's got it rigged like a maze, mostly League-codings, too. But it looks okay now. "

  Sandy gave a couple of experimental pulls with her right arm, testing the grip and the leverage. Then she tensed, and gave a sharp yank. Flew briefly upward, thrust her casted arm between the doors with her left leg, and slid quickly through, her right hand retrieving the pistol from inside her jacket even before she'd cleared the doors. Then, in a low crouch with pistol ready, she surveyed the room.

  As expected for something named the "Presidential Suite," it was enormous. A broad, dark polished floor was softened by an expensive rug, before descending several steps to a sunken lounge in front of the angled windows that formed one corner of the square floorplan. The four-sided, glass pyramid met its apex directly overhead, structural supports ending in an overhead square frame, leaving the actual tip entirely transparent. Laser lights blazed skywards from their overhead mounts, sweeping the rainswept heavens with choreographed patterns. The elevator shaft, before which Sandy now crouched, was located in one corner of the suite, leaving the rest of the floor bare, but for the luxuriant, modern furnishings. In another corner was a grand, wide bed, surrounded on all sides by the soaring, electric view of nighttime Tanusha, spectacular even dimmed behind the steady fall of rain.

  "Not bad for a studio apartment," Ari couldn't help commenting. "Where's the bathroom?"

  `Just beside me, there's a curtain adjoining this elevator," Sandy formulated a reply. `just as well it's one-way glass, though-not much privacy, otherwise. "

  "No. Considering all the depraved things Mr. Takawashi is reputed to do in his lofty towers. "

  Sandy moved silently across the floor, careful to skirt the carpet in case of hidden pressu
re sensors. She certainly didn't feel very hidden, considering the three-sixty degree views of cityscape. Lightning flashed in the middle-distance, throwing her shadow dancingly across the sofa and vid-screen arrangement to one side of the floor centre. A large fish tank, used cleverly to divide the open space, added gliding, bubbling colour to the darkened space.

  Sandy paused beside the vid-screen, unspooling a cord from her pocket, inserting one end into the back of her skull, and the other into the socket provided beneath the screen. It was a familiar data-rush, a sudden graphical illustration of so many old patterns. League patterns, and a whole different philosophy of base code and interweaving textual design ...

  "There's the private database," she said as she found it, "I knew he'd need a booster to access ... are you reading this?"

  "Yeah, I'm getting flashes ... damn it, Sandy, slow down a bit, that's too fucking fast for anyone's mental health. "

  "No time," she said. "He's not going to store much here in the apartment, but if we could just find an itinerary, or some proof of business dealings, we might get some idea of why he's here in Tanusha at all ... "

  The flow of data stopped, as if a cord had been snipped by a pair of scissors. Light flickered to life through the apartment, a dim, atmospheric glow of soft insets about the floor and angled ceiling structure. Damn it. Sandy knew better than to go fully into combat mode, or scan furiously about with her weapon levelled. The only GI-trap that could have worked in these surroundings, with so little cover, was the entire floor rigged to blow. Which would not have been preceded by the lights turning on.

  "Okay, where are you?" she announced resignedly, disconnecting her cord and standing up. Ari registered no surprise or protest in her ear, having established very conclusively that Mr. Takawashi and entourage were presently at a large function on the other side of Tanusha. Ari, in fact, said nothing at all. No doubt the security systems had cut off their communication channel when activated.

  There came a faint, rustling motion from the bed in the far corner. Then a slim, long-fingered hand grasped the covers, and pulled the man himself upright in a slow, unfolding movement. He was thin, elegantly dressed in a silver kimono with pink petals. He held a slim black cane in one hand, and seemed uncertain of his balance without it. And his shoulders were shaking, faintly, as if he were ... laughing. A soft, hissing chuckle, with evident, unexpected merriment.

  "Cassandra Kresnov," announced a soft, faintly wheezing voice. He moved forward, steady enough with the aid of his cane, in a slow glide of silver robes across the polished floor. The smooth yet gaunt face remained in shadow, the suite's illumination being little more than mood lighting, on their present setting. "The great strategist, outwitted by an old man. I am amazed, truly amazed."

  "If I'd come here to kill you, pal, I wouldn't have bothered with all this sneaking around." Adjusting her vision to penetrate the gloom. Takawashi's dark, half-oriental eyes were fixed upon her with unerring fascination. Something about them made her uncomfortable. Cold, even. He seemed so ... sure of himself. Few people did, upon first meeting her.

  "But you, Cassandra Kresnov, would never have come here to kill me," said Takawashi, the faintest traces of a smile curling at his thin, taut lips. The cane tapped upon the hard floor as he glided closer, then stopped, just five metres away, beyond the furthest of the leather chairs that surrounded the vid-screen.

  "You don't know me," Sandy said coldly. "I'm far more than the sum total of all your psych-simulation experiments."

  "Oh, Ms. Kresnov," Takawashi sighed, shaking his head with tired humour. "If only it were true." And the smile grew a little broader, with genuine, devilish amusement. "But here's the little secret," he said, leaning forward on his cane, conspiratorially. "None of us are."

  He beamed at her for a moment. And for one brief, startling moment, Sandy found herself reminded of her old friend, the Callayan senator, Swami Ananda Ghosh. Another old man, leaning upon his cane, face lined with age and beady eyes brimming with wisdom. One derived his wisdom through science, the other through faith. Was one wiser than the other? Was science wiser, for always providing answers where faith so frequently failed? Or was faith the wiser, for always asking the questions that science could not answer? And she blinked herself back to the moment, but Takawashi was already gliding away, down the steps of the sunken lounge, headed for the small drinks bar.

  "The maintenance worker in the corridor," Sandy said, watching his descent, curiously. "He's one of yours?"

  "Maintenance worker?" Takawashi paused upon the lower step, swivelling part way to regard her. "I have made no use of any maintenance worker." And he smiled, knowingly, like a kindly uncle teasing his niece about a new boyfriend. "I do understand, Cassandra, that you have numerous admirers, here on Callay. Unsurprising. Your social skills were always amongst your most surprising developments."

  "How did you know I was coming?" Sandy pressed, determined not to be swayed by Takawashi's tantalising bait, so artfully dangled before her.

  "Ever the pragmatist, even so," Takawashi sighed. He sipped at his drink. From the involuntary pursing of his lips, she guessed the clear substance was not water. "A man in my position has the luxury of keeping the audience waiting. Tonight's engagement has been temporarily postponed. Even a master of bio-science suffers the odd cold every now and then. Particularly at my age."

  Another sip. Sandy merely watched, and waited for him to answer the question. Takawashi smiled, indulgently. "Dear girl, I knew you were coming. Of course, you have the pretext of wanting to find out about this rogue GI running about the city, killing senior Fleet admirals on a whim. But mostly, you could not pass up an opportunity to meet with me."

  "Don't flatter yourself. If I knew you were here, I wouldn't have broken in."

  Takawashi laughed, the smooth, drawn face abruptly stretching into deep, aged creases, that vanished as his expression regained his previous, calm amusement. "Come, Cassandra, you have not touched your drink. I assure you I have not spiked it with GI-specific chemicals, you know full well that there are none that could harm you from just a small taste."

  Sandy took a small, almost negligible sip, her eyes not leaving his. A cocktail, with an alcoholic base and ... makani fruit juice. Her favourite. Something must have registered in her eyes, for Takawashi smiled.

  "Wonderful, is it not?" he said. "Taste. Smell." Lightning flashed nearby, briefly obliterating the suite's broad shadows. "Sight, and ..." he waited, and then came the booming rumble of thunder, ". . . sound. Wonderful that we should take such pleasure in such simple things. Some people most admire the human species for intelligence. Others for courage, or spirit, or imagination. I most admire the human species for pleasure. Imagine the selfless wonder of a species whose neurological reaction to the universe's stimuli is ... pleasure." He beamed at her. "I understand that you yourself are well versed in the art of pleasure. I wonder if your present environment continues to provide you with such avenues as you had become accustomed, when you were a soldier."

  "I'm still a soldier," Sandy said flatly. "And quite frankly, Mr. Takawashi, that's not a question for polite company, in this city."

  "Old men become coarse and mannerless with age." With a gleaming smile. "There was a time, I understand, when you seemed to accumulate bed partners like an entomologist accumulates beetles. Perhaps the Federation has civilised you? Transformed you into a model of `polite company'?"

  There was knowledge behind his question. A depth of insight that turned her stomach cold, and raised the hairs on the back of her neck. Surely he couldn't know her personal details from direct sources. He must be guessing. But they did not feel like guesses. They felt like ... probing. Seeking long-suspected answers to questions he'd long wanted to ask. Oh, so much he must have known about her, in those early years of her life. How he must have watched. Her instinct was to shove his curiosity back in his face. But that would only demonstrate the power he held over her, with that knowledge. If he wanted to know, fine. Give him a
taste. Make him want more. Give her power over him.

  "In truth, Mr. Takawashi, I find my sexual urges have become more controllable." Meeting his gaze calmly. There was no doubting the intrigue in his eyes. "Not receded, as such, not in intensity." Ari could attest to that, she thought ... but kept to herself. "But they do not distract my thoughts as they once did, during idle periods." And once begun, now she could stop. Once, that had been a problem. "I think now that they were a way for my brain to seek an outlet. An escape of pentup energy, if you like. Now, here in Tanusha, I have so many other things to occupy my attention. Whole parts of my consciousness and my personality have been unlocked that previously lay dormant. I believe I have found an equilibrium that I did not possess in the League ... and in fact that the League was incapable of delivering me. I owe the Federation. In many ways, I feel I owe them my life ... for my life without the things I have found here, I now find impossible to imagine."

  Takawashi's expression unsettled her. There was more than fascination, and more than excitement. It was a look of deep, deep affection. "I had suspected, I had suspected!" He clicked his fingers repeatedly, as if in some kind of triumph. "And tell me, which aspects of mundane, civilian life do you most enjoy? Surely you haven't lost your taste for reading and music ... but tell me, have you attempted an instrument yourself? Do you cook?" And paused as something most especially fascinating occurred to him. "Or have you found yourself taking particular interest in a religion?"

  Sandy smiled, sipping at her makani and spirits once more. "In time, Mr. Takawashi, in time. First, tell me about this GI."

  Takawashi laughed, with a rasping rattle in his throat not present when he spoke. "Very well, Ms. Kresnov. Very well played. Come, sit with me." He waved a silver-robed arm down the stairs, at the sunken lounge. Sandy nodded, and Takawashi began a slow descent. Sandy detoured to the fish tank at the top of the stairs, wanting Takawashi to take a chair first, and give her the choice of seats. "This is a painful business for me, Cassandra. My fascination in the field was not intended to produce soldiers."