The implication makes me sicker than I already am: Burns has his own dedicated communication gear, separate from MAI. Which means he doesn’t want to risk anyone in this base monitoring his messages. Or his orders.
Confirming this, I use MAI to track his ID tag. He didn’t go to Ops. He went straight to his quarters, and shut down the in-room sentries so no one could hear or see what he was doing.
28 March, 2117:
Burns gives Halley permission to release me from my sterile plastic cage after twenty-four hours of “observation”, only to confine me to quarters.
My “Deluxe” officer’s accommodations are just as I left them, only the air is stale after months shut up. There’s also just enough disruption of the blanket on my rack to say someone came in, sat here for awhile, maybe took a careful look through my things. As the place isn’t ransacked, it probably wasn’t Burns or one of his cronies searching for something else to damn me with. Given how few people would have access through MAI, I’m guessing it was Lisa, come to sit and mourn my likely death, but not willing to commit to that likelihood enough to pack my belongings. (But then, I didn’t pack Matthew’s stuff for weeks, and I saw him dead, saw what was left of him, buried him up on the ridge.)
The tiny metal cell is lonely. I’d gotten used to having Sakina here, always close, sleeping on her roll on the narrow strip of floor, then finally in my almost-as-narrow bed. She had no possessions except what she carried with her. There is nothing of her here now, not even the smell of her.
I make a show for the in-room sentry cameras of checking my desktop interface. As expected, I’ve been locked out of MAI, isolated. Using my own discreet access, I read tag tracking and find troopers stationed on the corridor junctions around this section, and guarding Ops. I can’t imagine that this is for any other reason than fear of me.
I take the next few hours sitting alone to look bored and tired. What I am doing is reviewing the files I’d found—or didn’t find—while I was pretending to sleep last night. Burns has made his regular “official” communications to Earthside since he got here a few weeks ago, “bravely” choosing to isolate himself down here with us in Quarantine, a move justified by questioning Lisa’s qualifications to serve as acting Planetary Commander. (And what qualifications do Burns or Richards have?) It’s clear they used my “death” as an excuse to get their own officers running things. I expect they would have found any of a number of excuses to do so even if I wasn’t MIA.
Burns’ official communications are suspiciously sparse. They don’t mention the Nomads or the Knights packing up and leaving, or even what spurred that, only that “outreach efforts” were being initiated. I wonder if Lisa or Kastl or Anton have noticed the bullshit he’s been sending where they can hear, and if they suspect he’s got a secret uplink.
I do get to watch the battle I missed. And it’s more than clear: We wouldn’t have beaten Chang back without the help of all of our allies (and sort-of allies)—the Nomads, the Knights, the ETE, even the Shinkyo (maybe especially the Shinkyo, for sacrificing their own to take out Chang’s railgun). Earthside has to recognize that. I expect the only thing they’ve learned is how much manpower and ordnance they’re going to need to get on planet to pull off another defense like that without help. (And they don’t have it now, I checked the inventories. Not even with the June shipments. Unless there’s more they’re keeping secret.)
Burns has been accessing MAI to study our records of our encounters with the various locals. He’s been especially obsessive about the ETE, as expected. And the Shinkyo. But in the last few days, he’s been running and rerunning what we have on Tranquility. I wonder if he’s looking for an on-planet food source, picking his next target for his “outreach efforts”, or if Earthside is afraid Tranquility’s verdant gardens are potentially infected with something terrifying enough to justify something horrible.
Lisa brings me lunch.
“You sure this is allowed?” I quip when she comes into my cozy little cell.
“I have Halley’s guarantee you don’t have any space-cooties.”
“I was thinking my seditiousness was considered contagious. Hanging out with me could get you in trouble.”
“It always does.” She steps through the hatch, shuts it behind her. “Besides, I missed you. And a girl has needs.” She sets the tray on my desk, moves close, strips off her jacket, then reaches to do the same with her shirt. Looks up at the sentry cameras.
“Privacy MAI. Command Override Ava.”
“Um… This is… unexpected.” But I don’t back up. But she stops stripping.
“Only way I could talk to you without unwanted ears,” she lets me know. But she doesn’t back up, either, like she wants to see what I’ll do.
“Assuming Burns doesn’t override your override.”
“I doubt he will. They’re all pretty prudish, with their new state morality. And they think we’re all cavemen, all free sex and meat eating and boozing. They don’t even curse—you should probably watch your language, though it’s almost fun watching them freak out. Given what Burns has of our files, he’s probably expecting us to be fucking like bunnies every chance we get, especially now that your little girlfriend is gone.” There was extra bite on that last bit.
“And if he’s pervy enough to want to watch?” I’m still not backing up.
“Then we may have to be convincing.” And she catches herself, as if she’s surprised she said that. Hesitates. Her body language is betraying her. And mine…
I realize my libido is through the roof, probably a benefit of my rejuvenation. And my senses… I can smell her. I’m starving for her. I need to make myself not move. And I’m sure she can see it.
“No meat, huh?” I keep the subject idle.
“Apparently the governments have gone all nanny with their mandates ‘for the good of us all’. Morality codes. Language standards. Dietary monitoring. Mandatory physical fitness and scheduled meditation. Heavy restrictions on drugs and alcohol.”
“I expect the rich and powerful still get to cheat.”
“I’ve heard Jackson’s pilots talking about big state incentives for everything from geriatric euthanasia to putting your kids in special government schools. Public service—including military tours—apparently earns extra ‘rights’.”
“We are so not going back.” Now I have anger to stuff down.
“You’d probably break the planet, just stepping foot on it,” she tries to lighten it.
Despite the dark turn of topic, neither of us has moved. We’re inches apart, not touching, just breathing. And she is responding.
“What are we doing?” she finally says.
“I thought we were putting on a show for Burns,” I discount poorly.
“No,” she gets serious, and I feel her old pain come through. “What are we doing? Us? All these years. We barely talk. We certainly don’t talk about anything important. You know I came to Mars for you—it wasn’t just wanting to play space-soldier. Even if we were just friends…”
A buzz at the hatch interrupts the moment (like throwing ice water on it). I immediately think Burns has come to break up our little sinful encounter.
It’s Anton.
“Colonel…” He looks back and forth down the corridor, like he’s nervous about coming. I’m sure he had to pass by the guards Burns has all around. I wonder if they’d report him, or if older loyalties still sway. “I don’t have a lot of time, but I thought you’d like to know: I think I’ve detected a hack. Inside MAI.”
“One of our neighbors getting curious?” I do a good job of covering. “PK? Shinkyo? Or are you thinking Chang?”
“I’m not sure yet. It’s pretty subtle. Nothing I’ve ever seen before. But it’s been in your medical records.”
“Someone else curious about what happened to me?” I realize I’m getting too good at lying to my own people. My friends. (Even if it’s for their own good.)
“Could be.”
“Does Burns know?”
“I was actually on my way to find him,” he verbalizes his excuse for stopping by, should he need one. “He spends a lot of time in his quarters.”
“Probably thinks we have space-cooties,” I steal Lisa’s line. “Unless you think he’s doing something he doesn’t want us to know about?” Now I’m using him, potentially getting him in trouble. (That I’m sure he’d want me to doesn’t absolve me.)
“Probably,” he admits covertly. Then he sees Lisa, looking uncomfortably disheveled. “Oh. I’m sorry, sir. I mean should get going.” I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen him blush before.
“Thanks, Anton,” I give him. And I’m afraid for him—for everyone here.
I shut the hatch.
“Where were we?”
Her face is a mix of conflicting emotions, many of them varying flavors of anger at me, cultured over the decades. She once said I was the first great love of her life (and in the same breath, said she couldn’t bear to be with me anymore). She was, I suppose, the second great love of mine, sometime after the first hurt me (I thought then) beyond healing. And what happened to us was my fault: I let myself get sucked into the ugliness of the job, the rage at the corrupt war we were fighting, and I put my need to make that right (or at least vent my rage into it) more important than her. She compared me to her father the addict (a significant life detail she’d never mentioned before), and I don’t feel it was an unfair comparison. I pulled away from her because I was addicted to my righteous rage. I left her because I would rather kill than love. Whatever mellowing (or healing) I’ve done with age is too little, far too late.
Yet she’s always stayed close, under the excuse of choice assignments. And her subsequent relationships (that I’ve been allowed to see) have been briefer than mine.
“I should hate you,” she mumbles. Her eyes are glassy with tears.
“You should.”
Despite her turmoil, I’m struck by how attractive she still is. More weathered, but only a frost of gray in her long dark hair. She’s fit, lean, like a gracefully aging dancer. The decades barely show. (I’d consider my perception distorted by my currently raging hormones, but I know I’ve really never stopped looking at her.)
“I thought you were dead,” she whispers, letting the tears go. I feel them like knives in my chest. She looks up at me like she’s daring me. “What am I to you?”
This is such a bad idea.
I don’t care.
I step into her, take her face in my hands and kiss her, incidentally pushing her back into the bulkhead, pinning her. She fights it for an instant, then melts into it, pushes back, kisses me like she’s trying to devour me. And then we’re pulling our clothes off like we did when we were in our twenties, back at the beginning.
I happily discover some things don’t change.
We lay together afterward, just holding each other, watching each other. She makes a few playful observations about my unexpected stamina and intensity. I blame it on her effect on me. (And I hope I didn’t accidentally injure her, but my enhancements seem to be very controllable.)
“What are we going to do?” she asks me heavily. (And I get that she’s speaking globally, not about us.)
“I don’t know yet,” I have to tell her. “We’ll figure something out.”
But I still can’t tell her what I really am, what I’ve become. I don’t dare.
Somewhere in there we both drifted off, holding each other. But I’m alone when I wake up. I still smell her in the sheets, on my fingers, but she’s gone. Her side of the narrow bed is still warm, so it hasn’t been long. I roll over, glance at my desk. We never did eat the lunch she brought—it’s still untouched.
And then my long hair falls obnoxiously in front of my face.
My…
Shit.
I bolt upright, look down: Lean, smooth skin with dancer’s muscles. No scars. Hair down around my shoulders.
I spring for the bathroom niche, check the mirror.
Fuck.
I’m immediately remembering a scene from The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde, where the protagonist starts transforming involuntarily when he dozes, sometimes at very inopportune moments.
“Shit.”
The sentry cameras have been reactivated.
I drag my outfit on as fast as I can. Thankfully, they even brought me my “scrap armor” after clearing it, maybe figuring I’d want the souvenir. It starts reshaping as soon as I put it on.
I hack MAI. There are a lot of tags on both ends of the corridor right outside.
“Colonel Ram—or whoever you are—step out of the room slowly, hands visible.”
Burns. Of course.
His tag is out there, standing behind a dozen armored troopers. Lisa is at the other end, surrounded by her own squad of armor. I see Rios as Horst are there, too.
Cat’s out of the bag, as it were. I show the cameras my empty (now gloved) hands, turn to try to convince I’m still not armed (of course, what they’re terrified of is me, not some gadget I may be carrying). Open the hatch. Step out slowly. Into over a dozen nervous guns.
“You’re in your own crossfire,” I tell them like they’d still listen to me. “If you open fire, you risk hitting each other.”
No one moves.
“I am Colonel Ram,” I try insisting. “I’ve been implanted with nanotechnology, but I am still Colonel Ram. No one is controlling me. I can help you. I’m here to help you.”
“Lieutenant Horst, neutralize him!” Burns demands.
“I’m really sorry, sir.” And he steps up with a bulky contraption of a gun, braces himself, fires.
The corridor around me sparks and arcs, the micro-lightning quickly gravitating to me. It burns, it shocks, it stuns, it numbs. But I’m still standing when it’s done (despite the reek of ozone and singed hair).
“That was unpleasant.”
“It didn’t work, Colonel!” Horst shouts the apparent.
“Let me guess… EM weapon. Something UNCORT whipped up to take down the evil ETE?” Who it may or may not work on. I seem to be resistant. I expect Chang is, too. Hopefully lesson learned and back to the drawing board.
Burns it paralyzed, completely unsure of what to do next. I let him have his meltdown, turn and look for Lisa. She’s indeed surrounded by armor, still partially undressed, and looking absolutely horrified.
“It’s me,” I keep protesting. “Our first real date: Sushi. I kissed you in the parking garage. It’s still me.”
I can almost feel Burns come to his next conclusion.
“Colonel Ava! Were you just… intimate… with…? Captain Rios! Take Colonel Ava into custody and escort her immediately to Isolation. If she resists, use deadly force!”
Rios hesitates. His troopers—my troopers—all hesitate. I can’t help but grin. But Lisa looks like she’s going to scream.
“Burns has a dedicated uplink in his quarters,” I decide to bust him in a public way. “He’s been communicating with Earthside Command in secret. That means he doesn’t want any of you to know what they’re planning.”
“Rios! Escort Colonel Ava out of here! That’s a direct order! MOVE!!”
The dickhead has his sidearm pointed at me, still hiding behind a wall of armor suits.
“That is not a good idea…” I try to warn him, still keeping my hands up.
He shoots me anyway. I swat the round into the bulkhead.
“He’s contaminated!!” he pretty much screams. “Open fire! OPEN FIRE!!!”
I risk scaring them further, hack their interfaces and shut down their ICWs, their targeting.
“Weapons are offline!” Rios confirms as his troopers try to get their guns to work.
“Manual!” Burns spits. “Switch to Manual! Free to fire!”
It takes them all barely a second to break the seals on their overrides. I realize I’ve just made this worse. They don’t have MAI’s fire control…
“You’ll hit each…!” I’m trying to warn, but Burns star
ts emptying his pistol, and a few of the troopers in front of him decide to play along and join him.
My armor shifts, hardens—the splints in my mail armguards flow together and expand into shields—and I’m holding off a storm of metal, protecting my face, miraculously managing to keep my feet. But on freefire and full auto, not all of the rounds hit me. Behind me, I feel troopers go down, hear Rios shouting for holdfire, pulling his men back. A few rounds smack me in the back before Rios controls them.
He’s still yelling for holdfire when Burns and his obedient guns expend their mags and have to pause for reload. The corridor is full of gunsmoke. I realize my armor is peppered with deformed shells. Then those shells melt into me, dissolved. Absorbed. Raw materials. Burns is ghost-pale and slick with sweat, his hands almost shaking too much to reload. (I can’t see the troopers’ faces through their heavy visors.)
“Colonel!” Rios shouts. I turn. He’s down over what I realize is Lisa. Her T-shirt is rapidly soaking with bright blood. “Get her to Medical!!”
I try to push through to her but they put guns in my face. Her eyes are open. She tries to look at me. They go blank. There’s much too big a puddle already under her.
I turn back on Burns. I feel how strong I am.
I am going to fucking put my fist through his chest and let him feel my hand on his heart. I…
“Colonel Ram!! Don’t!” It’s Rios.
Horst steps in front of me.
“Please, sir… We’ll do what we can…” It’s an empty promise. It’s already too late. Her body is limp as they drag it off. The son-of-a-bitch killed her. He killed her.
“Get out of my way.”
I’m sure he’s looking into eyes of black metal.
But someone’s taken Burn’s gun away. They’re keeping him from running, taking him into custody, however temporarily. I realize other troopers have been shot by his impulsive stupidity.
He needs to die. Right now.
The God Mars Book Three: The Devil You Are Page 5