by C. G. Hatton
He put the gun down. “Anyway, that answers your question about who the assault forces were. What their interest in all this is, is anyone’s guess. The other question, about the people who gave you the tab, is more complicated. The implant you retrieved has ID codes on it that we’re still trying to crack. We managed to get past protections that were pretty sophisticated but we’re still a way off learning anything useful. You were lucky not to blow yourself up getting it.”
“I was blown up getting it,” Hil said, “or at least she was.”
Pen smiled grimly and looked at his watch. “We know it’s a corporation – which ties in with your description of their set-up. Which one, we don’t know yet but I have people working on it.”
Pen paused and looked straight at him, unnerving intensity that he wasn’t used to from Pen. “You realise, don’t you, that Anya is probably dead.”
It wasn’t good to be confronted outright with that, but it had been playing on his mind. He’d spent three weeks in an iso-pod at Pen’s place, days running before that, an indeterminate time at the guild and at least a week someplace after the crash so yes, he was aware that the time was probably long gone for a serious attempt at a rescue. He just didn’t want to face it.
“I know they killed Mendhel,” he said. “I hate to say it but yeah, I know, I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d killed Anya too. We should have called for help. I can’t remember why we didn’t.”
Pen looked at his watch again. “We don’t have much time. Ele?”
Elenor opened the bag and picked out a handful of vials. “Antidote, in case you run into that strain of electrobes again. Stabilisers for the fractures, you could do with another week’s worth. And these…” She held up the two vials he’d taken from Martha. “Don’t use them.”
It sucked to need to take meds and it was disturbing how relieved he felt to see the last two again, but he took the vials, putting those two in a separate pocket.
“What now?” he said.
Pen stood up. “It won’t be long before the hooligans who raided the town house get around to checking the rest of my properties. We need to get you out of here. First though,” he took a package out of his pocket, “LC asked me to give you this.”
“You’re kidding me,” Hil said, almost snatching the package. It was small and heavy, neutral seals intact on its edges. “Is this it?”
“You know what LC’s like. He wouldn’t say. He did say though that you had to open it.”
Hil stared at the package. He couldn’t place it, couldn’t dredge up any recollection of seeing it before. He tried to place it back in the mess of memories he had of fleeing the lab, helping LC out and desperately trying to make it to Skye before the building exploded behind them. There was nothing.
He tore open the seals and shook out the contents. A module not much bigger than his palm tumbled out. It was an AI memory back up module, which explained the weight. He tried again to place it, but if this was what they’d taken from the lab, that chunk of his memory was still missing, goosed from the accident.
He looked up at Pen. “I’ve never seen it before.”
“There’s an ASM over there. You can hook up on remote. We’re shielded so don’t worry about taking off the patch. If you want to be alone, I’m not going to argue. You’ve got five minutes then we’re gonna have to go.”
Pen picked up the pistol and walked out, followed by Elenor, who went up close and put an arm around the big man’s waist as they walked.
The thought of hooking up with a module of uncertain origin gave him the creeps but why would LC say to open the package if he wasn’t supposed to tie into the thing? It could fry the implant but that wasn’t anything new these days. But worst case, it could kill him. A few weeks ago, he wouldn’t have dreamed of doing what he was about to do. He peeled the dampening patch away from his neck. The skin beneath was smooth and cool. He could feel the outline of the implant embedded below the surface. The module was inactive. All he needed to do was drop it into the access machine and it would fire up. He had nothing to lose. If it screwed him, it screwed him. He was screwed anyway.
He watched the ASM accept the module and power up then settled on the sofa, head resting on a cushion at one end and feet up at the other. When he searched out and allowed the connection, it sparked into life with a jolt and a buzz that made him wince. There were a few seconds of static that rose in pitch to a point that was almost unbearable then a sudden quiet before the data stream kicked in.
The information that flooded into his mind was overwhelming at first. Star charts, calcs, lists of numbers and images flashed in front of his eyes at dizzying speed. He gasped and clenched his fists, the urge to disengage overcome by the need to know what it was. He couldn’t comprehend it all straight away but the data would be there in his memory to be accessed.
Eventually, the flow of data slowed and the connection became passive. He began to probe gently, searching through the stream, looking for any sign of identification or source code, anything that would explain any of this mess. He reversed the direction of momentum the way Skye had shown him and started to query the module itself. It was tricky and dangerous and she’d always warned him away from trying it with an unknown in case of tripwires that would send a spark back at you that could kill, but in the circumstances he didn’t care and took as much care as he could manage while working as fast as he could. There were barriers but he eased through and, with a jolt, realised the identity of the AI. She gave him access to a stream of images, himself and LC seen through the eyes of security cameras mounted outside the ship, running. It skipped to a scene inside the airlock, an argument, images of LC that matched the flashes of memory he’d had. He’d won the argument and, as if his brain had been cleaned out with detergent, he knew what was coming, knew why and watched with fascination as the scene played out from the AI’s memory as clear as his own.
The stored data stopped abruptly and Hil lay quietly, keeping the connection neutral and open, letting it all absorb. A tug on his ankle brought him back to the moment and he disconnected, feeling the emptiness like a loss.
“We have to go,” Pen said gently.
Hil opened his eyes and sat up. He retrieved the module and dropped it back into the packet.
“It’s Skye,” he said. “It’s all on here. What happened, why. She erased it so the guild wouldn’t find any of it. LC must have had this the whole time. Did he talk to you about any of it?”
Pen shook his head. “No, but c’mon we really have to go.”
“I can’t let anyone get hold of this,” Hil said, holding up the package. “It’s got everything on it, coordinates for the drop, everything.”
“Well, give it here and I’ll find out who the bastards are,” Pen said.
“No, you don’t understand. I can give you the coordinates but this…”
“What else is on it, Hil?”
There was no way he could say. But an idea of what he had to do was beginning to form. He’d risked everything to give LC a chance to get away and now he knew why. It was time to finish this.
“Pen, I need you to help me,” he said.
“Ye gods, Hil, what do you think I’m doing? Come on, we can talk on the way.”
The all-terrain jeep parked outside had its engine running. Two of Pen’s guys covered their exit from the building and Pen pushed him inside.
It seemed to take forever to get out of the city. The sprawl of low buildings stretching out from the edge of the city boundary gradually thinned until they were driving through mostly deserted scrubland. They drove along the coast for a while then took a sharp turn inland.
No one said a word, the hum of the air conditioning in the jeep almost hypnotising him into sleep. Elenor had slapped the patch back onto his neck before they left and he had the feeling that everyone else was shielded too.
They switched vehicles twice, one time in an underground garage in a small mining settlement just outside the city – a quick exchange wi
th little ceremony. The second switch was outside on a desert road. Another jeep overtook them in a cloud of dust, swerving in front of them so that both vehicles careered off the track. Pen swore and yelled at them to stay inside. He jumped out and ran to the other jeep.
Hil watched, using every ounce of restraint he had not to push open the door and rush over there. Elenor put her hand on his leg, calming. Pen looked pissed, leaning on the open window and talking heatedly with the driver. The guy gave him an envelope. Pen opened it and pulled out a data board, glaring at it angrily, turning to glare at Hil and turning back to speak to the driver again. Finally, Pen waved to them and Elenor gave him a shove.
The heat out on the road was stifling. And the glare of sunlight from the pale rocky surface made his eyes sting. They ran to the other vehicle and Pen held open the door without a word. Hil tried to stop and stand there, wanting to know what was going on. Now his head wasn’t pounding, his temper was finding its feet again.
“Pen,” he said, wanting to argue and make a stand.
“Get in.”
“At least tell me what’s going on.”
Pen pulled the data board out of the envelope again and held it up. “Recognise these two?”
Oh crap. It was a still image taken from a security camera, not a great picture but obviously Pen’s pad at the market place, two people captured on visuals entering the den. Two people who shouldn’t have been there. His world took another tilt.
“I take it you do. Hil, get in the jeep.”
It was hard to argue with Pen at any time, when the big man was angry it was impossible. And Hil felt like he’d been punched in the chest. He bit his lip and climbed into the jeep. Pen jumped in beside him and slammed the door, yelling at the driver to go.
“Who are they,” he demanded as they skidded off the verge and took off.
Hil looked at the picture again, resting it on his knee. “That’s Kase Wibowski,” he said. “And that is Martha J Hetherington. They’re guild extraction agents.”
Chapter 21
They sat in silence for long minutes. NG felt a trickle of sweat run down his ribs. It was hot anyway but to sit there under the gaze of the Man sent his internal temperature soaring.
“The guild,” the Man said, “has never before in its entire history been betrayed.” He let that well known fact settle like thick fog between them before continuing. “Guild agents working for a Wintran corporation against Earth...”
NG sat quietly. There was no need to emphasise the damage that had been done. Media had been working overtime to mitigate. And he would swear Legal were enjoying it. Sometimes the best results come out of the worst situations.
“Explain to me how you missed it, NG.”
The Man was playing games with him. He knew fine well exactly when NG had found out and how but he was pushing him to admit it out loud.
“And your decision to tip off Jameson,” the Man said, “giving information to him about the request to send Hilyer to Abacus.”
NG nodded but kept quiet.
The Man poured more wine, filling the two goblets to the brim. “Do you defend that decision?”
“I do. Under the circumstances I considered that I had no other choice. They contacted me as soon as they realised their facility had been infiltrated. Jameson was furious. It didn’t take much to work out that it must have been our people. There’s no one else capable of it.” He paused, then reluctantly added, “I didn’t anticipate the strength of the force they would send to Abacus.”
“This is a dangerous game you’ve been playing, NG,” the Man said, throwing his own thoughts back at him.
“Isn’t it always?”
•
They were wearing full assault gear. And Kase looked very much alive and well.
“You’re shitting me,” Pen said and grabbed the board. “That’s Martha? Man, LC said you were nuts to let her go.”
“I was nuts to have ever gotten involved with her. It was Kase and Martha that extracted me after the crash.”
“Yeah, well it looks like they’ve got ulterior motives.”
“How did they find me? I didn’t tell anyone where I was going.”
“Your ship,” Pen said and took another document from the envelope. It was a tatty piece of plastic sheet, the type they printed out invoices on when someone wanted more proof than an electronic record. “You said you didn’t know who to trust at your guild, well you were right to be paranoid for once. Your ship’s up there for repairs, right?”
“Not my ship,” he protested.
Pen glared him to shut up. “You said she was in for repairs? Major repairs, you said. Life support, shields, jump drive. You said she’d taken direct hits when she got you off that planet? She lied to you.”
Hil looked at the invoice. It was a dockyard inventory, the type of anonymous ID guild ships used when they were out on a tab but it was definitely Genoa. And it was for a simple refuel and restock, minor repairs to the landing gear.
“I don’t understand.”
“Damn right you do understand, bud. You told me all along. You don’t know who to trust at the guild. Well, I’m telling you, you can’t trust your ship and you can’t trust those two extraction agents.”
“Genoa’s not my ship,” he said again, holding onto the window ledge as they swerved to take a side track off the main road.
“Whatever she told you, she was lying,” Pen said. “Did you contact her from my house? The house at the market?”
He had that vague memory of half-waking and telling her that LC was there. He nodded, feeling stupid and ticked off that he’d been so stupid and was still being stupid. He’d thought he was calling out to Skye and he’d trust her with his life, but even so, even knowing the guild had been compromised, he would never have thought to suspect a ship.
Pen handed him the board. “Look at the rest of the footage,” he said.
Hil flicked it on. The film started out hazy from the smoke and tear gas they’d thrown in but the image cleared up as it dissipated. He looked at the faces of the people scouring Pen’s place, a meticulous, fast-paced search, coordinated with precision. He watched, detached, watched himself and Elenor run for the basement a fraction ahead of the intruders who went efficiently from room to room, guns up. Kase and Martha weren’t leading the mission. They followed in last, at a distance, almost casually.
The jeep was picking up pace, Pen leaning over to speak to the driver.
Hil ignored them and looked back at the board. He tracked back to the beginning and watched, freezing at each face as they passed the different camera angles. Something was niggling and it wasn’t just that Martha was there. He didn’t recognise any of the other faces. If it was a guild operation, he should have known some of the other agents. He didn’t know all of them but he would have thought he’d see some he knew. Kase and Martha were the only two who were obviously guild. So who the hell were they working with? It clicked into place as soon as he thought of it. He back tracked again and let it play, freezing on a face with piercing grey eyes.
Elenor was watching. “Who’s that?” she asked softly.
Hil stared at the still, chill settling in his stomach despite the heat. “He was one of the guys that picked me up on Abacus. He said he killed Mendhel.”
Pen snapped his head back towards them. “It’s him? You’re sure?”
The sense of betrayal formed like a physical lump in Hil’s throat, anger seeping through every cell. His voice was strained. “Martha’s been working with them the whole time. She rescued me from them after I crashed.”
“And Genoa,” Elenor said, “the ship? She’s been feeding them information?”
Pen took the board. “Okay, this changes things.”
Hil stared at the board. He’d been warned not to trust the guild and he’d known. Deep down he’d known. That it was Martha hurt but his grief over Mendhel was still tied firmly in anger so he wrapped Martha up in with that and controlled his breathing carefully. �
�It doesn’t change anything.”
“Yes, it does.” Pen tapped his knee with the board. “Now we know who they are and where they are, we can find out what they are.”
By the time they pulled up at the gates to the encampment, the sun was setting on the desert horizon. Pen had spent the rest of the journey giving urgent, succinct orders to their driver. Hil had let the time drift by, playing games with his breathing and heart rate, and working on his plan. Coming up with the plan took about two minutes. Refining it took about thirty seconds. He told Pen and said he’d need the big pistol back, and Pen said he was mad. He slept the rest of the way.
It was late when they stopped outside tall metal gates which opened for them without much of a delay and they drove into the shantytown. He’d heard about these places but had never been out here before. Pen gave directions and the jeep navigated a winding route through narrow, crowded streets, bumping over potholes and swerving to avoid desert mongrels that ran out in front of them.
“Here,” Pen said abruptly, tapping on the back of the driver’s seat. “You guys get inside. I’ll be right there.”
From the look on Elenor’s face, Hil guessed she hadn’t been out here either. The jeep pulled up and they climbed out. Yan was there holding open a door. He nodded at them and muttered, “Straight down the stairs.”
They pushed past a dusty brown curtain and Hil followed Elenor down the steep steps and into an almost exact replica of Pen’s den in the city. An array of monitors flickered around the perimeter of the small room, casting white light onto instrument panels and benches piled with tools and unfamiliar equipment. The centre of the den was filled with Pen’s favourite type of chairs and sofas, low tables and candles. Elenor slumped into a chair and covered her face with her hand. He was hit by another pang of guilt that he’d brought this to them and lurked by the doorway feeling awkward and intrusive.
It didn’t take long for Pen to come crashing down the stairs.
“Okay, we’re covered,” he said. He brushed past Hil and tossed the heavy pistol at him. “There you go, bud. I still think you’re mad. Sit down, you’re making the place look a mess.”