Cassandra Kresnov 04: 23 Years on Fire

by Joel Shepherd

  More floating down corridors, and dodging station hands who spared them not a second glance, brought them to an elevator bank at the top of a station arm. Small elevators for small groups of people, larger ones for cargo or larger groups . . . further along would be a big one for shuttle and other heavy cargo, mostly an automated system.

  The GI keyed in a code and they slid into a waiting elevator car. With a whine and shudder of magnetic rails it accelerated, creating faint gravity for a moment, then nothing.

  “Talk,” said Vanessa to the GI. “Not ISO you say, not League, not Federation. Are you just non-aligned? Gone AWOL?”

  “Can’t say,” said the GI.

  “Can’t, or won’t?”

  “My name’s Cai. I’m here to help you. I’m aware of ISO’s operations on this station, and on Pantala. So of course I’m aware of the FSA, too. I knew you were coming because I was monitoring ISO networks. That’s how I knew they were going to spring a trap.”

  “Any idea why?” asked Vanessa.

  “Yes. Cassandra Kresnov’s mission was betrayed. I think most of her team were neutralised, but she is missing. Given her reputation, I suppose that means she’s still alive and operating. The ISO certainly think so.”

  “ISO betrayed her?” Vanessa’s heart was thumping. Ari and Rhian looked worried. Not shocked, but definitely a little scared, in that way that only concern for a good friend could do. “Why?”

  “I do not know,” said Cai. There was a certain calm intensity to his eyes. Rather like Sandy’s, Vanessa thought. An unblinking, intelligent penetration. “I was hoping perhaps you would know more from your end. This is an unorthodox move of you, to come. Why do it?”

  Vanessa glanced at Ari. She was technically in charge, but Ari outranked her on intelligence matters. Telling a high-des GI anything was dangerous, because they couldn’t be guaranteed of shutting him up if they required it.

  “He’s not ISO,” Ari told her. “His attack barriers just now aren’t like anything the ISO use. Or anything anyone uses.” Watching Cai with intense curiosity. “He’s not League, either; all their loyal GIs are dumb.”

  “Not all,” Cai corrected with a faint smile. “But most. And no, not League. All that you need to know is that I’m on your side. Or more correctly, on Cassandra Kresnov’s. What Chancelry does to their GIs on Pantala is evil. I want it stopped.”

  “I’ll decide if that’s all I need to know,” Vanessa warned him. And took a deep breath. “League pulled an intel operation in Tanusha that we fear may have compromised Cassandra. But now you’re telling me the ISO betrayed her . . .”

  “It may be connected,” said Cai. “ISO and League gov have only been estranged, not divorced. Perhaps the intel operation you describe uncovered something that brought them back together.”

  “What designation are you?” Rhian asked, as gravity began to increase, and sunlight from outside strobed the elevator car through the porthole.

  “What designation do you think I am?” Cai asked her.

  Rhian struck at him. Cai’s hand flashed immediately to intercept. Rhian smiled, sent drifting despite the low gravity.

  “High,” she said. “You’re as fast as Sandy.”

  “I wish you’d give some warning before you do that,” said Vanessa, heart restarting.

  “You didn’t answer her question,” said Ari.

  Cai smiled. “I’m sorry. You’ll find it’s occupational.”

  The answer reminded Vanessa of Mustafa. And the next time she met Mustafa, she was going to kill him. These days, with her upgrades, she reckoned she might even survive the attempt.

  Sandy woke. Again, she’d slept in. Danya and Svetlana were busy with some device on their bed, while Gunter made breakfast in the kitchen. She blinked her eyes and head clear. Normally she didn’t need much more than four hours, though it varied. It had been a long time since she’d slept this long.

  Svetlana’s device was a teacher. Its goggles were fastened over her eyes in a headset, earpieces firmly fixed. Her mouth moved silently, repeating what she was seeing and hearing.

  “How did you get a teacher?” Sandy asked Danya, impressed. Even as she asked it, she realised it might not be the right question.

  “A friend said we could have it if she died,” said Danya, reading off a small portable.

  “Oh.”

  Danya smiled a little. “It’s not so sad, she was old. Well, I mean it was sad, but . . .”

  “Natural causes.”

  “Yeah. She left a will and everything. Someone made sure the teacher came to us. We’d do errands and stuff for her sometimes, and talk to her. She didn’t have anyone to talk to, usually.”

  Sandy hadn’t thought of that. Most old people in Tanusha were socially hyperactive, uplinks and VR meaning that even physical immobility couldn’t stop them. Though there was the phenomenon of many old folks liking VR too much, and spending nearly all their final years there. Some VR techs swore that the years of uplink time imprinted virtual personalities into the matrix, which continued to live as ghosts after their passing, sending whispers to visiting friends.

  “What’s Svetlana learning?” she asked.

  “English. Those are the only cards we’ve got, that and maths. She hates maths.”

  “Are the drugs expensive?” Non-uplinked teachers like this used just a light sedative, to suppress the brain’s natural processing. The unit itself would also learn individual users’ brainwaves, and compress and order information specifically to the individual.

  “Yeah.” Danya shrugged. “It’s worth it, even if we have to go hungry a few times. We’d never have survived this long if we didn’t get smarter from the teacher. How are you feeling?”

  “Better, I think.”

  Svetlana removed the headset. “Danya, could you adjust the input? It’s getting fuzzy again.” She noticed Sandy. “Hi! Feeling better?”

  “Let’s see.” She sat up, and found that someone had laid some clean underwear on the bed. Female underwear. And pants, to replace her borrowed ones.

  “A friend’s,” said Gunter from the kitchen, seeing her looking. “Don’t ask.”

  Sandy smiled, and changed, her back to the kids.

  “Danya!” she heard Svetlana accuse him with a playful whack. Well, she could hardly blame a thirteen-year-old boy for looking. She supposed that she could have gone to get changed behind the shower curtain, but it was her old military reflex again, to do things the simple and straightforward way in the company of people she respected. Vanessa had once accused her of being too straightforward, and for a time she’d been self-conscious about it, but these days not so much. She was what she was, and if it caused others trouble, well, she wasn’t above finding that entertaining.

  Then she lay on the floor and stretched. One thing with being a GI—if you wanted to stretch, most of the time the only thing you had to hang onto that wouldn’t break was yourself. She tried several positions, and got her muscles up to what she reckoned was sixty percent of maximum. They’d do better if she pushed, but she didn’t want to risk it.

  Gunter put breakfast on the table—scrambled eggs and bacon. The kids were so impressed. Gunter went to Sandy, his hands together in imitation of Svetlana’s game last night. Sandy smiled and did the same, fingertips touching his. He tried ten times, and couldn’t lay a finger on her. She tried ten times, and slapped his hands on every one.

  “You really are a 50 series,” he observed, sitting down to eat. “Are you one hundred percent?”

  “Not yet,” Sandy admitted, joining the table. “Maybe tomorrow.”

  “I don’t get it,” said Danya around a big mouthful of eggs and toast. “GI designations are mostly about brains, right? I mean, physically there’s not much difference between you and Gunter?”

  “I have a better figure,” said Sandy, with mischief.

  Danya blushed. Svetlana giggled. “But, I mean,” said Danya, recovering well, “if it’s all about brains, why does it make you faster as well
?”

  “Because brains are what control how fast we are,” Sandy replied. “That’s what nervous systems do in most animals. It’s all about movement. Intelligence came later, but it’s only a small part of what brains actually do.”

  “But lots of really smart people aren’t coordinated.”

  Sandy shrugged. “And lots of them are. Think of it this way—not every smart person is physically gifted, but nearly every physically gifted person is smart. And by physically gifted I mean with coordination and reflexes, like a gymnast or a tennis player. People who are just fast or strong, okay, they don’t have to be so smart . . . but I’ve met quite a few people good at really technical sports in Tanusha—my SWAT guys have lots of friends in pro sports. The best ones are all really smart, no exceptions. Technical skill is another form of intelligence. Look at great musicians. That’s not just an intellectual gift, it’s a physical one, too. You can’t separate them.”

  “So they made you really smart, and that made you faster as well?”

  Sandy paused to drink juice. “My nervous system processes information faster than most, and in bigger volumes. Physical information is no different from other information, so yeah, I’m faster.”

  “So why don’t they make all GIs like you?” Svetlana asked. “If you’re so much better?”

  Sandy smiled. That old question again. It was a settled, stale issue in Tanusha, but she couldn’t blame Svetlana for asking—she didn’t know. “Because the only reason the League spends all that money on us is so they can get an asset in return. In my case, and Gunter’s, a military asset. They want us to fight, and do what we’re told, or they’ve wasted their money. Or worse, created a dangerous enemy.”

  “And you left,” said Danya, gazing as the answer occurred to him. “They’re scared of you. They don’t want GIs thinking for themselves, but GIs have to think or they can’t fight.”

  “Exactly.” Danya never failed to impress her. “So they want GIs just smart enough to fight, but not so smart that they’ll really think for themselves. I’ve got lots of high-designation friends who’ve defected. A huge percentage of those who survived long enough to think about it ended up defecting, and it hasn’t stopped yet. Not all of them did, but a lot. Why would any arms industry invest all that money in a weapon that one day was a fifty-fifty chance of turning around and shooting back at its creators?”

  Something was bothering her, a low frequency pulse in one of her receptors. A radio signal?

  “You hear that?” she asked Gunter.

  Gunter frowned. “Hear what?”

  “Maybe a radio frequency. Something old and nasty.”

  “Only people who use radios that openly in Droze are Home Guard,” said Gunter.

  “And they know where you live, right?” asked Sandy, rising to her feet.

  Gunter waved for her to sit back down. “Finish your breakfast first. They’re not stupid enough to pick a fight with me.”

  After breakfast, Gunter went out his front door and down the steps. Around a corner, he found several heavily armed but nervous Home Guard, debating what to do next. Gunter invited them in for coffee.

  They entered nervously, four of them, in the rough, heavy clothes of most Droze residents, ideal for protection from cold and dust, and for concealing weapons. Their leader was a black man with a pointy beard, and a big floppy beret on his head.

  “Duage,” said Danya from by the kitchen. Hands where the men could see them, Sandy noted. “Modeg. Hi.”

  “Hello Danya,” said Duage, but his eyes were on Sandy, sitting on the dining table, her new rifle in her lap. “Is this a friend of yours?”

  “Her name’s Cassandra,” said Danya. “Would you like some coffee? Gunter, let Svetlana make the coffee. She’s really good at it.”

  “Gee, thanks,” said Svetlana, pretending to be upset at being told to work, but actually pleased to be complimented.

  “Thank you,” said Duage. “Two white, two black, no sugars.” His eyes didn’t leave Sandy as Svetlana set to work. Gunter had a real coffee machine like Treska’s kitchen had, and she was indeed good at it. “The Tings are after you,” he said to Sandy. “A blonde female GI, attacked their men. You’d best be careful.”

  “Tell the Tings they have that the wrong way around,” said Sandy.

  “The Tings have a lot of people,” said Duage. “They’re one of the biggest employers in Steel Town. They could muster a hundred guns if they wanted, easily.”

  “After I ‘attacked’ the Tings’ people,” said Sandy. “Were any of them killed? Badly injured?” Duage shook his head. “That can change real fast.”

  “She’s right,” said Gunter, offering the men some fruit. Fresh fruit was basic hospitality on Droze, precious enough that its gift counted for generosity. They took some. “The Tings were after Danya and Svetlana for stealing. But they only stole to help Cassandra; she was injured and needed drugs. Cassandra protected them from the Tings. There’s no real injury here to anyone.”

  “The Tings’ pride is injured,” said Duage. “You know that pride is power in Droze.”

  “No,” said Sandy. She indicated the rifle. “This is power. Tell them to let it go.”

  “You make a lot of threats,” said a younger black man. Modeg, Danya had called him. There was a family resemblance to the older man. His son, Sandy guessed. “For someone who got her backside kicked by Chancelry the other night.”

  Sandy gazed at him, unblinking.

  “It was you, wasn’t it?” asked Duage. “The GI raid in MidEast? You were the target.”

  “What did you see?” Sandy asked quietly.

  “They did an airdrop. GIs, no armour. Very quiet.” Terminal velocity wasn’t a very big impact for a GI; they could jump out of aircraft and land unassisted without injury, if lightly equipped. Heavier equipment tended to break, however, requiring parachutes or other landing assistance to protect the gear. “We watch all the flyers that go overhead, day or night. This one hovered, about five thousand meters.”

  “You’re sure it was a Chancelry flyer?”

  “No,” said Duage. “But who else uses so many GIs like that?”

  “What else did you see?”

  “Nothing. We got over there fast, but by the time we arrived they were leaving. We could have had a shot at the evac flyer, but we have a policy not to shoot at them when they’re leaving, only when they’re coming in. We don’t know who they’re carrying when they leave.”

  Sandy’s eyes flicked to Danya. He looked skeptical. She knew a lot of Droze residents said the Home Guard liked to talk a lot about how they could have done this or that, but never actually did anything. Given what she knew of corporation firepower, she couldn’t say she blamed them.

  “But we took some footage,” Duage continued. “I’ll show you, but you have to promise you’ll tell me what it shows.”

  “I might,” said Sandy. Duage considered her. They had to know roughly what she was by now. There were only so many people that Chancelry Corporation would make such an effort to take out, and only so many offworld GIs who’d be on Droze making enemies of the corporations in the first place. But he had nothing to lose by showing her. The Home Guard were enemies with the corporations no matter what, and no matter how little he trusted her, the prospect of a bit of information was better than none.

  Her Tanushan reflex was to expect Duage to offer her an uplink cord to view the images internally, but instead he pulled a slate from his coat and activated the screen. He handed it to her, then sat alongside to watch as she scrolled.

  The footage was shaky; a handheld, not some uplink vision monitor. There was running on a rooftop, then hiding behind cover. The user’s hard breathing. Then a steadying of the camera, and the first calm shot of a black, military issue flyer hovering over a rooftop, sans running lights. Sandy recognised the building where Aristide’s apartments were. Stairs opened to the roof, black clad figures emerging. They’d booby-trapped and wired those stairs five times over, but t
he attack had come through windows and from lower floors, and the traps stopped people from entering, not leaving.

  The black figures moved with military precision and inhuman speed. Several were carrying bodies. Sandy recognised Weller, slung over a shoulder. Khan. Han. No restraints, clearly dead—hostile GIs had to be restrained if captured, even drugged. It was procedure. Unless they were dead, obviously.

  Then a new figure, upright but not walking. Dragged by the armpits, his wrists locked behind him, head lolling. Sandy froze the image and zoomed. The zoom was awful, and she rewound the footage. Ran it forward at standard speed.

  It was Poole. She’d bet her arm on it.

  “That one’s still alive,” Duage remarked alongside. “Who is he?”

  “Friend,” said Sandy. Her voice was tight. “They all are.”

  “How’d they take you?”

  “Gas. Through the ventilation. Something GI specific; they’re pretty rare, hard to use. We were half gone before we realised we were under attack. Someone on the inside.”

  “Well, then,” said Duage. “You’ll find this next bit interesting.”

  A new figure emerged from the stairway, without the light assault gear of the attackers. A black man, broad shouldered, walking uninjured and unassisted to the waiting flyer on the rooftop, in the company of the attackers. He turned just once to survey the horizon, and the screen caught his face perfectly.

  It was Mustafa.

  A creaking from the portable warned Sandy that her fingers were about to break the screen. She relaxed her hands with difficulty.

  “One of yours, yeah?” Duage asked, watching her face. “Who is he?”

  “A dead man,” said Sandy. And meant it. There was silence in the room. One of Duage’s men shifted his weight, and a weapon clicked against a jacket zipper. Sandy’s eyes shot to him, and he froze. She was in combat reflex, and everything looked like a target. Small movements leaped at her, begging retaliation. Small noises crashed upon her eardrums. No one dared move.

  Save the small figure who advanced upon her from the kitchen, slim body a glow of warm and mellow shades to Sandy’s vision, but for the mug in her hands that glowed soft red with heat. She walked up to Sandy and offered her the mug.