by C. G. Hatton
The guard who ushered her in said, “Five minutes,” and took up watch at the door.
She didn’t stay long. Just long enough to joke that I looked like shit. I felt like shit and didn’t argue. I’d just meant to play act, not trigger an outright reaction to the chest infection that obviously hadn’t totally cleared up.
She waved a board at me and placed it on the bedside table. “They didn’t want you to miss study time,” she said. “It’s politics, your favourite.”
She gave me a hug, made sure her back was to the door and slipped something from beneath her shirt. I felt the cold edge of a pass as she tucked it under the blanket.
She kissed me on the cheek, breathed, “I need to put it back by morning or they’ll notice. Be careful,” and left.
The reading material on the board was beyond tedious. I read through it, ending up sliding down on the bunk to curl up with it, no real difficulty to act tired. Then I made a play for the test scores. It was hard but not impossible. The rogue code stood out a mile. I cleaned it out, eradicated any trace it had ever been there, and went to work on the real stuff.
As I got deeper, the AI protections got tough. Hardest I’d ever seen. But as soon as I saw the pattern, I had it. I edged in, fooled it and stopped. The psych guy had told me they’d seen what I was doing. I had no reason to mistrust the stolen pass and I was leaving my usual crumbs of vague curiosity in case they were watching me. But going deeper, it felt different, like I’d passed a threshold. I froze with my fingers hovering over the board. It felt like I’d stepped on a pressure pad. Move, you set off the trap. Stay there, you set off the trap.
Except NG had shown me some ridiculous tricks. I worked slowly, gently, setting up an array of distractors, sophisticated queries that made it look like I was just skating over the surface of the cool stuff, nudging beyond where I was but not enough to get through. Like I’d reached my limit and was just fooling around.
Then I duped the pass, reassigned it through a tangled string of permissions to another member of staff I could see working there, and started over, using the new pass. If they caught me now, they’d throw me in a box and throw away the key.
But that was part of the fun. Once I was in the system, I could see where every guard was, where every member of the medical staff, the teaching staff were, where each kid was. No one was looking my way out in the real world.
I went deeper, got past the initial layers and started to look through its real databases, not the ones it had thrown up as a cover. I got drawn in. It was tantalising, hypnotic. It felt like I was being lured across a minefield, having to keep half an ear out for anyone approaching and half an eye on my phony distractors, and wanting nothing other than full access to everything.
Then I stumbled across a live feed. An isolation cell just like the one I’d been thrown in except this one had a chair in the centre and there was a figure slumped there, restrained, arms pulled behind his back, head down but I could still see the blood. I wanted to manipulate the cameras to close in but it was being monitored. If I touched it, they’d see.
I squinted at the screen.
The chill realisation of what I was looking at crawled across my skin and wormed its way into my stomach with sickening clarity.
Markus.
Chapter 18
I needed to find him. I’d only been on the Alsatia for four weeks but NG had shown me some really cool stuff. And pitching up against an AI that could close me down and get me killed was the ultimate red rag anyone could wave at me. I kept the feed open and started tracking back the connections, meticulously following every line and tracer, picking my way through that minefield and nudging just enough to get what I needed. It was weird but that deep in the system, and still keeping one ear out in the real world, I’d never felt so calm. Hyperfocused, NG explained to me later, like I had total control over the entire universe and every atom of existence that was spinning in slow motion around me. There’s a trick to it. I’ll show you how once we’re out of here. Because, seriously, it’s almost like you can control time… gravity… do whatever you want.
Pinpointing the cell he was in was easy. He was right here. Figuring out what to do then was more tricky. He looked in a bad way. Even if I managed to get to him, I had no idea what I could do. But if I could get him loose, I could get him free. And he could tell me what to do. Problem was, they were monitoring him and they were monitoring me.
But no one messes with the Thieves’ Guild. It wasn’t just Sienna that had said it to me. NG had. The Chief had. Mendhel had. It’s our mantra and it’s kept me going more times than I can count. I worked out a way to loop the live feed, negate the energy field and physically get to the cell. There was a vent. It wouldn’t be easy but it wasn’t impossible. I had it sussed. I reckoned I could risk being out of bed for thirty minutes but that would have to do. Only problem then was the collar.
It didn’t take much to figure out where it was feeding its constant flow of information. Every kid, monitored every second, life signs, biometrics, even mood parametrics. It was freaky. I checked out Hilyer. He was sleeping but from his stats he was dreaming. Not peacefully. I vaguely wondered what he had nightmares about.
The zap function was controlled by the AI. It had an override that could be initiated by the guards but that wasn’t necessary. If the damn AI decided it wanted to zap us, it could. I couldn’t take the collar off without alerting it. The only way to neutralise it was to fool it and how to do that was staring me right in the face. When we were in the infirmary, the monitoring equipment we were hooked up to monitored our life signs, but crucially, because all the data fed into the same AI watching over everything, to avoid possible duplication or false data echoes, it overrode the collar as the priority data feed. The collars were designed to stop prisoners escaping. They were to all intents and purposes unhackable but the med-equipment was pretty standard.
In the infirmary, the collars were disabled by a signal from the monitoring system as long as a prisoner was hooked up to it. It didn’t take long to find a back door and set up a data loop. Gaps. Always find the gaps.
As long as it thought it was monitoring my life signs, the collar was effectively disabled. Inert. Or at least I hoped so, otherwise this was going to be a very short trip.
After that it was just timing. I was good at avoiding people. That was the real key. I’d grown up playing the games I did in the garrison on Kheris and every tab I ran drew on that. I set everything into motion, pulled out the IV line, slipped out of the bunk with the board under my arm and climbed up into the ventilation system.
Once I was in there, it was too easy. The whole place relied on the prisoners being confined within certain areas, a flexible cordon of guards and watch posts, and then on top, as their elevated security, the collars. Being outside it all meant I could move around between those watched and scanned zones along virtual corridors where no prisoner could possibly be. They just didn’t think it necessary to watch within their own boundaries. Plus I had a maintenance pass which made life much easier.
The maximum security wing with the isolation units was next to and connected to the infirmary. Presumably because they generated enough hospital cases in there to make it convenient. I slipped from one to the other, crawling through gaps and ducking past pipes and conduits. Some of the units were Earth standard, stuff I’d lived within for years. Even the manufacturers’ names and codes stamped into the metal surfaces or on data plates were the same. And just being in amongst that kit again, I could tell how much I’d grown, even in a few weeks. I bumped my head and scraped my elbows and squeezed my way through, refusing to be drawn back to Kheris and thinking of nothing but the time and the route and the diversions I needed to keep updating as I went.
I did it with time to spare. I left the board in the vent, pushed open the panel and dropped down into the cell.
Markus lifted his head. He’d had the crap beaten out of him, eyes swollen, lip split, gashes and abrasions across his temple
and cheeks, what looked like burn marks on his chest and arms. He blinked at me like he thought he was hallucinating.
I had two minutes before I needed to head back.
He opened his mouth to speak, paused, then gave a little half smile like he’d recognised me or worked it out.
“Tell me,” he said quietly, words slurring slightly, “that you’ve neutralised the live feed.”
I nodded.
“Good. Now listen… they’re shipping out in four days. We have to stop it. Is Hilyer following the brief?”
I nodded.
He sucked in a breath. “Tell him he has to abort. It’s an assassination. Suicide mission. I want you to trigger the release. You know how?”
“Case review.”
“Good. Do it. Do it right now. Get back. Get them to come in hot, close this place down.”
“We have a Thundercloud,” I said. It seemed important.
“Christ,” he muttered. “Good. Get them to deploy her.” He closed his eyes. “I need you to tell them it’s the AI running the operation.”
“We know,” I said. “We got your message. That’s why they sent me. To hack the prison AI.”
He opened one eye, squinting at me. “What? No, not the prison AI. Spearhead. There’s…”
There was a clang at the door. He cut off what he was saying and hissed, “Go.”
I went, heart racing, the clicks and bangs of the door locks releasing loud in my ears, climbing back up into the vent and placing the mesh cover back into place with hands that wouldn’t stop shaking as the door opened. I fumbled for the board and stroked a trembling finger across its surface, releasing all my surveillance diversions, and looking up from my hiding place to see a woman walk into the cell. The door closed behind her with a clang. I couldn’t move away without risking making a sound but I drew back slightly from the vent cover in case she looked up. I could still see Markus. She stopped before him. She was wearing black fatigues. She had her back to me but I watched as she pulled a gun from a holster at her hip and stood in front of him, holding it at her side.
He looked up, shook his head with a smile that looked beyond weary and said quietly but clearly, “I’m not going to tell you anything.”
“I don’t need you to,” I heard her say. Her voice was hypnotic, gentle, an accent to it that reminded me of Charlie. “I know exactly who you are, Markus, and who you’re working for.”
I hardly dared breathe. That was his real name, not the name he was using here.
“End of the line,” she said softly and raised the gun.
The muzzle was silenced, the shot like a pop but it felt like I’d been punched in the chest. Markus slumped forward. She turned and for a second, before she walked back to the door, I could see her face.
That hollow, echoing chill twisted like a fist was squeezing my heart.
I don’t ever forget a face.
I knew her.
And she was supposed to be dead.
Chapter 19
I sat there, curled up in that tiny space, frozen in place, until the cell door banged closed again and I was left in silence.
Markus was dead and it was Arianne, Mendhel’s wife, who’d killed him.
I blinked. I had to get back before they realised I was missing.
It didn’t feel real. I crawled back on automatic, moving faster than was probably safe, dropped back into my room and heard footsteps approaching. The panel was still open in the ceiling. I had the board in my hand. No time to do anything other than dive back onto the bunk and pull the blanket up. My chest was heaving. I wiped the board clear, resetting everything I’d done with one stroke.
Someone came in. The IV line was dangling from the stand. Shit. I reached a hand out, grabbed it, pulled it under the covers and tried to stick it back into the thing in my arm without looking, keeping movement to a minimum and closing my eyes as I lay there. I could tell it was Brennan as she approached. I let the line drop and relaxed, totally, sinking into the pillows. I could feel that my cheeks were flushed, a sheen of sweat on my face.
I felt her press a hand against my temple, the touch warm and gentle.
The board was still in my hand under the blanket.
I opened my eyes.
“Nightmare?” she asked softly.
I sucked in a breath that caught in my throat.
She had the plastic tube in her hand. “Must have been a bad one. Your IV has pulled out. Here, let me see your arm.”
I switched the board to my other hand and untangled my arm from the sheet. She took hold of my elbow, pushed the tube back into place and tapped the line. “That’s better. Now, let’s see how your stats are doing.”
My stats were going to be shit. I couldn’t slow down my heart rate and I was close to hyperventilating. If she checked the data feed, it would show what I’d looped it to show. It sure as hell wouldn’t match the numbers that would indicate a violent nightmare. I did the only thing I could think of. I threw both arms around her and hugged tightly, drawing so deeply on that memory of Charlie, the one I’d worked so hard to bury, that it made me blub for real.
She froze, stunned. Then very gently and awkwardly put her arms loosely around me, patting my back.
Stupid thing was, once I started, it was hard to stop. All I could see was the poisonous dust swirling as he ran towards the door, as it slammed shut, as the AI shut him out and wouldn’t open up no matter what we screamed at it.
I couldn’t stop the trembling.
Brennan kept hold of my shoulders but pulled back to look at me with an expression of such empathy on her face, it made me feel worse.
I was still shaking.
“It’s okay,” she said softly, and wiped a tear from my cheek like I was five.
I knew I was close to the edge, I hadn’t realised how close.
“Missing your family?”
I nodded, miserable, about as pathetic as I could get.
She looked at me, then nodded knowingly. “It’s okay. I understand,” she said. “It must be awful being sent to a place like this when you’re so young.” She smiled and stroked my head. “C’mon, lie down, let’s get you rested up. I’m on duty tonight so if you need me just press the call button.”
She smiled again as I lay down and pulled up the blanket, then she patted my shoulder, turned and left. I felt like a fraud, like I’d just betrayed the one person in this place that had actually shown me any decency. I turned over, lying there, wide awake, hearing that muffled shot over and over in my head, dreading the nightmare that was waiting and fighting sleep until it finally embraced me.
It was the following afternoon before they let me go. I missed lunch and was taken straight out into the courtyard where everyone was lined up by block, parade style. I lined up next to Hilyer, a chill fog descending, the moorland beyond disappearing into a haze of grey. I thought it was going to be a run, dreading the thought of those thirteen miles, but it wasn’t, it was orienteering, timed check-ins at twenty way stations, no map just a weird gizmo that pointed the way if you knew how to use it right. It was similar to a compass but apparently this dirtball planet had four poles.
I waited until they were done briefing us then I glanced sideways at Hilyer, head down, and said loud enough for the kids around us to hear, “I know you’re dealing with the guards. I want in.”
He didn’t look at me. “You can’t afford it.”
Raine laughed somewhere behind us.
Hilyer smiled, still not looking at me.
“I know a way to increase your supply,” I said. I knew Raine was listening.
The lines started moving. Raine shoved me from behind. “Don’t trust the little shit.”
Hilyer had no reason not to trust me. It was all an act.
At least I hoped it was still an act. After our last chat in the rain, I really wasn’t sure exactly what Hil’s intentions were.
Hilyer laughed and took off running, Raine shoving me again and going with him at a blistering pace.
<
br /> I just walked. Kat came up alongside me, looking at me like she didn’t dare ask.
“It’s fine,” I said. “It’s done.” I palmed the pass out of my pocket and reached for her hand.
She squeezed, taking the pass off me and making it disappear. “Thank you.” She peered at me. “What’s wrong?”
I shook my head. I didn’t want to talk.
“You feel too hot. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Really.” I waved the gizmo. “Do you know how to use this?”
She showed me how as we walked out past the first waypoint.
We hadn’t gone far when she stopped suddenly, and turned to me. I thought she was going to say something but instead she kissed me.
My heart sank. Seriously, I felt cold inside. It was almost like now that she’d crossed that line I’d lost her already.
She pulled back. “Sorry,” she said, “I didn’t mean…”
I looked at her. I couldn’t get attached to anyone. Not there. Not anywhere. You get close, you get hurt. I wasn’t prepared to do that again.
“I really appreciate that you did this for me,” she said eventually.
She took both my hands in hers. I thought she was going to kiss me again and I panicked, backing off and shaking lose.
“I can’t,” I muttered like an idiot.
“Can’t what?” She looked at me like I’d torn her heart in two. She shook her head. “I thought you were different.”
I started walking, glancing back at her. “Don’t.”
She put her chin up. “I appreciate what you’ve done for me. Thank you. Don’t get caught up in it.”