The Gordian Protocol

by David Weber

  “Hm?”

  Ixchel held out her arm. His PIN interfaced with hers, and the engagement sigil appeared over the back of her hand: two rings intertwined, one of onyx, the other of ivory.

  “Oh, that’s lovely. It really suits the two of you.”

  “Have you set a date yet?” Jonas asked.

  “Not yet,” Ixchel said. “We both want to take a month or two off, maybe spend some time in an L4 resort. And Damian’s always wanted to see Mars.”

  Shigeki grunted.

  “The good parts, Dad. Only the good parts.”

  “I would certainly hope so.”

  “Anyway, it’s been tough lining up both our schedules.”

  “Well, you two will work it out,” Jackie said.

  “Yeah, I’m sure we will.” Ixchel pulled her arm back and smiled brightly.

  “Are you two going be gross together?” Thaddeus asked.

  “Oh, there’s going to be lots and lots of gross stuff!”

  The boy made a yucky face.

  Shigeki and the others laughed and he shook his head, the doubts in his mind fading away. He looked around the table at the faces of his wife and children, and his resolve strengthened. For what was nobler than defending one’s family?

  Even if it meant robbing an innocent man of his freedom.

  *

  “I should be going.” Ixchel rubbed her stomach. “I have had way too much kolache.”

  “There’s no such thing as too much kolache,” Shigeki said, taking another slice of the sweet nut pastries Jackie had cut up for dessert.

  “Well, I have an early start tomorrow, and any more of this is going to land me in a food coma.” She stood up. “I’m heading out. It was great seeing everyone. Dad, try not to work too hard.”

  “Mmhmm,” he mumbled around another mouthful.

  She kissed her parents goodbye and made a point of giving Thaddeus a hug he recoiled from before heading for the door.

  “Hey, Sis?” Jonas asked suddenly. “I think I’m done here, too. Mind if I ride home with you?”

  Ixchel stopped and looked back at her brother. He’d asked in a nonchalant tone, but his eyes told a different story. A sense of trepidation stole through her, but she pushed it aside.

  “Sure. Why not.”

  “Thanks.” He said his goodbyes as well, and the two of them climbed aboard the waiting shuttle. Her PIN interfaced with the shuttle’s infosystem, and the interior lighting and ambient music changed to her defaults.

  “Block B14, Warden?” the pilot asked over her virtual hearing.

  “Not today, Luci,” she said. “Take us to J22 first.”

  “Not a problem. But just so you know, it’d be faster if I dropped you off before the under-director.”

  “I know. That’s the point. We’re going to need some time to talk.”

  “Understood, and say no more. Would you like me to take it a little slow, then?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Consider it done. Just let me know if I need to speed up.”

  The pilot closed the virtual channel.

  “Nice music.” Jonas sat next to her in the shuttle’s spacious passenger cabin. “Who’s the composer?”

  “This is one of Vivaldi’s flute concertos.” Ixchel gestured around the cabin. “I have my relaxation playlist going. It’s been that sort of week.”

  “I’ll bet you needed it with all those audits, though it’s a good thing they’re over. A very good thing.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “This one’s quite soothing. I can tell why you like it. Would you mind sending me a copy?”

  “Oh, just get to the point.” Ixchel demanded as the shuttle took off. “You’re not here to talk about music. What is it you want this time?”

  “Come on, Sis. Don’t be like that. I could be here just because I enjoy your company.”

  “No, you’re not. You want something.”

  “Maybe,” Jonas admitted with a shrug.

  “Then just spit it out.”

  He held out a hand.

  “Oh, bloody hell.” Ixchel took it. Their PINs interfaced, and they entered into a closed-circuit chat.

  “All right. What is it?” she demanded.

  “I need one of your prisoners sent to one-way abstraction.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” she asked, glaring at him. “What did I tell you after the last one?”

  “That it would be a cold day in Yanluo’s burning realms before you did it again.”

  “You’ve got that right! The auditors almost found the code I used to frame him.”

  “But they didn’t.”

  “They got real close.”

  “But they didn’t find it,” he pressed.

  Ixchel sighed and shook her head. “No, they didn’t.”

  “And they’re moving on. You said so yourself. You’re in the clear, so now is the perfect time.”

  “No, Jonas. I told you that was a one-time deal, that I was never doing it again, and I meant it!” She tried to pull her hand away, but he held on.

  “I wouldn’t be asking if I didn’t need your help. Just listen to me, would you?”

  “If you wanted this person sent to the one-ways, why didn’t you have Kloss sweet talk a judge or something? Do your own dirty work for a change.”

  “Kloss is part of the problem on this one.”

  “What do you mean?” Ixchel asked, relaxing her arm. How could one of Dad’s most loyal subordinates be a problem?

  “I mean we got the exact sentence we asked for, but it’s not the sentence we need.”

  “I’m not following you.”

  “Oh, come on. You how squeamish Mom and Dad are about the one-ways. When it came time to make a sentencing recommendation to the judge, Dad wouldn’t go further than life without parole. And you know how it goes. When Dad asks for something, Kloss’s brain stops working and he does whatever he can to make it happen, even if it’s not in our best interests. We could have easily gotten a one-way conviction. No trumped up charges required.”

  “This isn’t my problem, Jonas.”

  “But that’s where you’re so very wrong.” He leaned closer, and the look in his eyes sent a chill running through her.

  “I’m listening.”

  “The prisoner’s name is Raibert Kaminski, and the knowledge in his head could bring the entire Admin down in ruins.”

  “You’re exaggerating,” she scoffed.

  “No, I’m not. He’s more dangerous than you could possibly imagine, and he needs to be buried in the deepest, darkest hole possible. Dad didn’t have the stomach to do what needed to be done, and so it’s up to us to protect him from his own weaknesses and make sure this man can’t share that knowledge with anyone ever again.” He leaned closer. “That’s why I didn’t fight harder for a tougher sentence. Instead I made sure this man got routed to your domain. And now here we are in the perfect position to fix the problem.”

  “This Kaminski fellow could really bring down the whole Admin if he got out?”

  “Yes,” Jonas said, then laughed sadly. “Trust me, you really have no concept of how dangerous he is. We need to do this, because if we don’t, he really can destroy everything. Trust me. I know it’s hard to believe, but he’s at least as dangerous as Yanluo ever was!”

  She looked at him in disbelief, but his expression never wavered and, after a long, still moment, she inhaled deeply.

  “All right, you have my attention. I don’t see how one man could be that dangerous, but you don’t usually go around hyperventilating over nothing.”

  “Then will you help me make sure this man can never hurt anyone again?”

  Ixchel leaned back and gazed out the window. The shuttle glided past the shining spires of the Yanluo Blight residential block, and the sky twinkled with the lights of other aircraft. She really did run a clean prison with minimal issues of abuse and a high reform rate. Not all of her fellow wardens thought the same way, and some of them pushed
to make the prison domains rougher experiences as a further deterrent to crime. She didn’t fall into that camp, and instead opted for throwing the real troublemakers into one-way abstractions and doing her best to encourage positive behavior in those that remained. The one time she’d helped Jonas out had been an exception to all of that, and she still felt sullied by the experience.

  But if this man was really that dangerous…

  “You said he should have gotten a tougher sentence?” she asked.

  “Damn straight he should have. Eleven biological and four technical violations of the Yanluo Restrictions. I can drop you the file if you want to check them for yourself.”

  “Oh, good grief! And Dad let him have life without parole?”

  “That was his decision, yes.”

  Ixchel shook her head. “All right. I’m in.”

  *

  Philo darted past the STAND orientation hall as he climbed the DOI server tower. The Department of Incarceration not only performed connectome extractions for their own prisons, but also provided STAND with the same services. The DOI seemed to be the leading experts on connectome handling in the Admin, which didn’t surprise Philo given how large the prison populations were, and he’d spotted several members of the Admin’s elite synthoid commandos in the building.

  Fortunately, those STANDs only wore general purpose synthoid bodies and not the combat frames they used on missions. They’d have superhuman strength and durability, but he could deal with that. Even a single STAND combat frame in the tower would have been a far larger problem, since their abilities came close to those of SysPol First Responders and perhaps even exceeded them in some regards. He flagged all known STAND positions on his map of the building and moved along the main infostructure trunk to the communication systems on the top floor.

  He had the scattered pieces of a plan to rescue Raibert, but too many unknowns remained, and unfortunately, he’d run out of time. The sun had crested over the horizon to kiss the clusters of Admin towers spread across the Yanluo Blight, and Under-Director Hinnerkopf was surely on her way to work, ready and eager to rip the TTV apart.

  Philo loaded himself into the communications buffer, and his world went dark as his connectome was broken down and transmitted from the DOI server tower to the DTI. Communication systems on the other side reassembled his mind, and he hurried over to the main trunk and down the tower.

  He shot through a branch to the executive landing pads and accessed the logs.

  “Damn! She’s already in the building. I need to hurry!”

  Philo darted back to the trunk, traversed down half the building, and opened the DTI’s central archive. He rummaged through the archive, but the sheer volume of files slowed him down.

  “Come on. Where is it? It’s got to be here somewhere? Wait. Aha!”

  He came across a folder labeled “Portcullis Suppression System” and opened it to find the locations of all suppression towers as well as their internal schematics. He grabbed the files and left.

  “Hold on, Raibert! Here I come!”

  Philo raced to the tower’s basement levels and transmitted himself back into the TTV.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Department of Temporal Investigation

  2979 CE

  The modified Raptor drone flew up to the TTV and pressed its plasma cutter against a seam at the base of the starboard weapons blister. The torch switched on, and the TTV’s burnished armor turned orange, then dribbled away. The Raptor slowly guided the torch along the blister’s underside, leaving hot metal in its wake.

  Hinnerkopf groaned.

  “What’s wrong?” Nox asked.

  “The cut is resealing. I’m going to need more drones or this will take forever.” She recalled the Raptor and entered a requisition for a dozen more. The TTV’s schematic filled the monitoring room, and she selected one of the surveillance drones she had inside. “Kleio, can you hear me?”

  “I can hear you, Doctor Hinnerkopf. How may I be of assistance?”

  “The outer hull of the TTV is healing itself.”

  “Correct. That is a normal function of the programmable-steel armor when damaged.”

  “Can you stop it from doing that?”

  “Is the professor available to come to the bridge?”

  “Never mind, then.” Hinnerkopf muted the line. “Forget I asked.”

  “I’m surprised you even tried that,” Nox chuckled.

  “It was worth a shot while I wait for the other Raptors to print out.” She rubbed her face. “Damn, there goes my whole morning.”

  “Maybe we should have stayed in bed.”

  “Oh, stop it!” Hinnerkopf’s cheeks burned, and she smacked him playfully in the arm.

  “How about trying a different approach?” Nox suggested. “The outer hull’s too tough for one Raptor, but what about the inside? Why not send a few Wolverines in and put them to work removing those swarm reservoirs?”

  “Yeah. You’re right, of course. I just wanted to get those weapons off.” She reached for the drone list, but stopped with her hand halfway to it. “What was that?”

  “What was what?” Nox asked.

  “One of the hangar transceivers just connected to the rest of the building and activated. Did you see that?”

  “No.” Nox furrowed his brow and stepped over to Hinnerkopf as she opened the transceiver’s log.

  “It did activate! See here? And it moved a huge number of files to…oh, no.”

  Nox saw it at the same time she did, and he triggered the building’s general alarm.

  “All drones, all STANDs, report to Hangar Four!” he snapped over the emergency network. “All drones and STANDs to Hangar Four! Full infosystem lockdown!”

  The TTV’s hatch sealed shut, and the drone feeds from inside switched off one by one.

  “What’s it doing?”

  “Get back!” Nox pulled her toward the wall furthest from the hangar.

  The TTV’s graviton thrusters engaged and strained against the four malmetal bands holding it against the cradle. The bands stretched, thinned, and then snapped, and the TTV lifted free of its cradle.

  “Even without restraints, there’s no way it can shoot through the hangar doors!” Hinnerkopf shouted over the alarms.

  “It’s not going to shoot its way out!” Nox shouted. “Hang on to me!”

  The TTV rose with a shocking burst of speed and smashed into the solid meter of reinforced malmetal separating the hangar from the surface. The barrier rang like a giant bell and bulged upward, and Hinnerkopf clung to Nox as the room quaked.

  The TTV dropped to the floor, crushing the cradle, then ascended once more to gong against the hangar door. Malmetal creaked. Upper supports between the hangar walls and roof deformed. The TTV descended once more, its upper hull barely dented.

  “Containment breach in progress!” Nox shouted. “Scramble Switchblades! Target hostile craft leaving Hangar Four!”

  The TTV slammed into the roof again, and a crack traced up the monitoring room’s far wall. Virtual displays vanished and lighting panels dropped from the ceiling. Nox pulled Hinnerkopf under him, and the panels rebounded harmlessly off his back.

  The TTV tilted back so that its impeller spike scraped against the floor, then it shot forward and smashed the hangar doors apart. Orange sunlight spilled through the narrow opening and caressed its gleaming hull. It backed up once more, tail screeching against the ground.

  A Switchblade in helicopter mode swung in front of the opening and fired its 115mm railgun. The discharge cracked the air like lightning, and Hinnerkopf covered her ears and screamed. A divot formed in the TTV’s nose, both its weapons blisters opened, and 12mm armor-piercing high-explosive rounds chattered against drone at a rate of 133 per second. The Switchblade’s rotor blew off and it tumbled out of sight.

  Shutters around the weapon blisters snapped shut. TTV backed up a little further, then surged forward and burst through the hangar doors.

  *

  Super
intendent Park Sung-Wook leaned back in his chair in Portcullis-Prime’s operations room and cycled through the catalog in his virtual vision. His Worlds Beyond Ours account was flush with loot from the triple-ultra world Jonas had shared with him, and he suddenly found himself with more in-game wealth than he knew what to do with.

  “Hey, Mikael?” Sung-Wook asked.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “What do you think? A Phoenix or an Intrepid?”

  The special agent looked over his shoulder. “Since when were you in the market for a new ship?”

  “I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”

  “You’re seriously going to leave me in the dark?”

  “Let’s just say I got a tip from a friend.”

  “Wish I had friends like that. Sounds like one hot tip.”

  “Positively scorching.”

  “Well, if you’re asking for my informed opinion,” Mikael placed a hand on his chest, “it’s hard to go wrong with an Intrepid. They’re just solid all-rounders.”

  “Yeah, but they do seem a bit boring.”

  “Very true. Which is why I recommend the Phoenix. Specifically the Phoenix Type-J.”

  “The one with the bigger engines?”

  “That’s the ticket. They might not have all the features of the Intrepids, but they’re an absolute pleasure to fly. My son has one that I joyride in when he’s grounded. So much fun.”

  “You repair it when you give it back to him?”

  “Naaaaaah. Part of the life lesson.”

  Sung-Wook chuckled. “All right, then. I’ll give it a look. Thanks.”

  “No problem, sir.” Mikael turned back around.

  Sung-Wook scrolled further down the catalog. A Phoenix-J was nice, but if he saved up for a while or maybe even spent some of his real world cash…

  An alarm sounded in his virtual hearing.

  Sung-Wook closed the catalog and stood up.

  “What have we got?”

  “Looks like a general alarm at DTI headquarters,” Mikael responded. “No details.”

  “Get in touch with them. Find out what’s going on.”

  “Sir, a large aircraft just left the DTI tower and appears to be heading our way. And it’s moving very quickly. According to this, it’s pulling five gees of sustained acceleration.”