“What if this isn’t a head game? You said it yourself: Why stage the Kilmurry’s return to draw us here? What if the message was bait?”
Pat turned suspicious eyes toward the other diners. Sam enjoyed having a cynical Chief who considered every awful possibility, but she turned cold at Pat’s dark tone.
“Bait for what?”
“I don’t know, Sam. I’m being paranoid. But … what if he wanted you here for another purpose?” Her eyes grew large. “Away from Earth. More vulnerable.”
“Are you saying I’m not safe here?”
“All the intelligence has suggested he has multiple system-capable ships. With the proper transit codes, they can follow the Fulcrum beacons to whatever system they please. They can traverse the local Nexus points, dock at colonial ports, and transfer their spies onto other ships bound for Earth. They couldn’t have caused so much chaos on the colonies and the shipping lanes without advance scouts.”
Sam’s limited appetite disappeared.
“We’ve all heard rumors about spies, Pat, but there’s been no evidence of him or his people here since he fled Earth.”
“Which might be the brilliance of his plan. Aside from the hybrids and his brother, we have no faces or gene stamps. If they’re here, how far have they infiltrated?”
Sam threw back more wine. “Then what’s our plan?”
“If had my druthers, we’d leave now, but Lancaster won’t allow it until we’ve finished our business. I’ll contact our captain, tell him to expedite his departure protocol. If we …”
“And those children?” Sam couldn’t get their desperate tears out of her mind. “Brayllen and Rosalyn think I’m saving their parents, but I’m sure James killed them. Do we just leave them with the Guard?”
“We have no authority to do anything else. As long as the UG considers them intelligence assets, those children go nowhere.”
“That’s nuts. They’ll be protected on Earth, and the GPM can send an inquisitor any time.”
Pat tossed her napkin atop an empty plate. “And how long before they realize we’re lying to them about their parents?”
“Dunno. I lied to Jamie for years and he never suspected a thing. I’m a good actor. Daddy taught me how.”
“Another distraction will cloud your focus. You can’t …”
Pat’s eyes darted away, down the promenade. “He’s here, Sam. Let’s get this done and leave Vasily.”
Maj. Cyril Lancaster, hands locked behind his back, struck a poker face when he reached the table. He wasted no time.
“Thank you for your assistance, Miss Pynn. The children answered all our questions to the extent they were capable. Which is to say, answers of limited value. If they are to be believed, they were kept away from all the terrorists except for Bouchet and his boarding party. Their sparse descriptions of his ship and their forced isolation, combined with the extensive data wipe of the Kilmurry’s log, would suggest this was a premeditated and surgical operation. We …”
Sam interrupted. “What do you mean, ‘If they are to be believed’?”
Lancaster shared a suspicious glance with Pat.
“These children could easily have been tortured. Their ship was missing for eleven days. They arrived with a scripted message. What else was scripted? To the point, what were they trained to exclude?”
“But why? For what purpose? They’re no threat.”
“By themselves, no. But if their purpose was to distract us while their partners sowed chaos …”
Sam’s stomach twisted. “Partners?”
“While you were interviewing the twins, we were conducting autopsies on the other children – Carmen and Freida. They did not die from neurological damage sustained when their stasis pods decompressed.” He unlocked his hands and lifted his right, holding a pea-sized crystal between thumb and forefinger. “They call it Narcissus. Experimental tech. Banned. Acts like a bleeder but survives for months, cloaked from neural scans. Records everything in proximity but worse, infiltrates admin stacks and stream coursing amps for a hundred meters. Invisible infiltration.”
Pat nodded. “Spies.”
“How did it kill them?” Sam asked.
“The tech failed prematurely. It releases a neurotoxin when the host is in danger of capture.”
“And the twins? Are they …?”
“No.”
Her fury tempered her relief that James would submit children to this horror.
“What happens to the twins now?”
“Run more tests, extract any memories they overlooked, assign them to a temporary caretaker. Before any of that, I need the two of you to return with me to headquarters. I cannot submit a mission report with such limited supposition.”
“In other words,” Sam said, “you need something firm about James. Something actionable hidden in his message.”
“Yes. Even if it’s your best guess, I can massage the details.”
Sam couldn’t believe the incompetence of the Guard she once dreamed of joining. But she also needed this to be over.
They followed him with urgency, Sam making note of other diners’ curious eyes. Was a spy sitting among them? Did they recognize her from the SkyTower inquest?
“One question,” as she walked abreast of the major. “Why are you speaking about these matters in public? Can you be sure …”
“I’m not an idiot, Miss Pynn,” he said. “I am wearing an audio baffle – a military distortion field. Anyone monitoring our conversation would see or hear gibberish.”
“That tech is the province of the Admiralty,” Pat said.
“And I am their emissary on this station. You will find …” He hesitated. “You will find …” He stopped. “Did you feel that?”
“Feel what?” The women spoke in unison.
“A tremor.” He looked around, as if needing confirmation. “I’ve been here three years. I know the rhythm of this station.”
Confirmation came when Sam and Pat reacted to a vague rumble far beneath them. Lancaster double-blinked and tapped his amp.
“Lancaster to Station Watch. Sit-rep.”
A holocube emerged, showing a three-dimensional schematic of the station’s rotating core.
“A striking bolt has dislodged?” He said to no one Sam could see. “Engage the redundant barrier. … What do you mean systemic? How long until catastrophic failure? … No. I don’t care about those numbers. Is this sabotage? … An educated guess will suffice.” He tossed his hand inside the cube and enlarged to focus on a flashing green vertical structure within the station’s core. “Strap in and execute Fullstop Protocol. … I don’t care. Do it.”
Sam looked around. Many diners were leaving their tables, becoming animated. Many pointed toward the stars. That’s when Sam recognized a change. The star field, which once moved with a steady pace against the station’s rotation, neared a stand-still.
She felt light as Pat grabbed her hand and told her to hold on. The major cursed.
Her feet left the floor. Pat and every other diner levitated inches off the surface, too, many grabbing hold of their tables.
“What’s happened?” Sam demanded.
“GravBelt,” Pat said. “The core generating artificial gravity has failed. It’s stopped rotating.”
“Cudfrucking …” Lancaster raged as he rose steadily with the rest. “It hasn’t failed. It’s been sabotaged.”
“What does this mean for us?” Sam said. “Can they restart it?”
No one answered her questions.
The next rumble was louder, shaking the facility. A brief splash of yellow glow rose from a docking quay far below.
Sam couldn’t see over the edge, but levitating diners adjacent to the panoramic portal could. They screamed.
That’s when Sam saw dozens of tiny contorted shapes floating in space. Human bodies gleamed as they rose to meet the sunlight.
6
Entilles Club
Boston Prefecture
M ICHAEL TOOK TWO H
ITS IN THE BACK while he shot dead the first attacker. The body armor built into his faux leather jacket absorbed most of the pulses, but he felt sharp jabs beneath his left clavicle and behind his right lung. As he swung about, Michael used the technique he practiced thousands of time during what he called “Rikard’s assassination training.” He aimed for the head.
“If their eyes aren’t hidden by a helmet, that’s your target,” Rikard taught him. “Assume everything neck down is shielded.”
The Ingmar Pulse Gun, Model 16, which Michael learned to love like a best friend, delivered a muted sizzle and a bullet-sized compression of super-heated plasma. He shot twice, frying a hole through a man’s right eye while gouging out his nasal cavity. The attacker crumpled to both knees and slumped into death.
Michael’s burns intensified, the pain radiating as if hot irons pressed into his back. He let loose a string of profanity, as much a response to the pain as to his own stupidity for not seeing the trap sooner. He’d been shot once before since joining the equity movement, but taking a blow from a thump gun at fifty meters was a paper cut by comparison.
Michael bent over and gathered his breath. When he no longer thought he’d vomit, Michael pushed through the pain and approached the second man he killed. He gathered the loose sidearm.
“Dumbass,” he said. “Didn’t they tell you? I don’t die when they shoot me in the back. Aim for the head next time. Dumbass.”
A voice inside his head returned.
“Michael? Michael, are you there? What happened?”
“What happened, Rikard, is you’re gonna buy me a new goddamn leather jacket. I’m telling you, it’s the sous chef. She’s gonna take out Moss.”
“We’re moving into position now, but Michael, if you’re wrong and we kill Alise, we will never come back from this.”
“If we don’t stop her and she blows away Moss, we got a shitload more to worry about. Don’t forget, it was your bright idea to set up this noose instead of warning Moss directly.”
Rikard didn’t respond. If this turned into a disaster, the blowback would fall on him.
“Look, dude. This shit is real. I’m gonna double-back to the kitchen. I doubt she’s still there, but it’s worth a try.”
“OK, Michael. But if you’re wrong and she’s still there, do not shoot her. Hold her until our asset arrives, but do not kill her.”
“Sure thing, dude. Alise the chef sends in her goons after me, but I’m going to talk sweet nothings to her. Got ya.”
He tucked his attackers’ weapons inside his jacket and kept his own partially hidden in a side pocket, ready to unveil. The kitchen continued to work as if nothing happened. They wouldn’t have heard the muzzled pops from this distance.
Michael didn’t see the sous chef. He kept his cool and straddled up alongside one of the line cooks.
“Who are you?” A grizzled old Asian man said as he stirred soup. “This is no place for …”
“Just looking for Alise. You ain’t seen her around?”
“She is making deliveries. You need her, you wait outside.”
“The sous chef does service, too?”
“We all serve. We rotate. Club policy. You smell foul. Get out of here before I call security.”
Only when he stepped outside the kitchen did Michael realize another missing element. He stuck his head back inside and asked:
“Where’s the head chef? What’s his deal?”
The cook dropped his soup spoon and threw up his hands.
“Chef is not here tonight, and neither are you. Get out.”
Michael’s mind stirred the possibilities, juiced the scenarios with a dose of paranoia, and realized he might have screwed up. He made a dash for the staff lift to the private landings.
“Rikard, I have a bad feeling we forgot about somebody else. OK. Shit. Maybe I did.”
He rounded a bend and saw Alise pushing a dinner cart into a lift. Their eyes caught; she rushed inside. He sprinted, determined to worry about his back later. He caught the door and aimed.
“Here’s how we play it,” he told her. “If I’m wrong, one of us is gonna be dead in a few seconds. If not, you need my sorry ass to stay alive. What’s it gonna be, Alise?”
He couldn’t see her hands, both hidden behind the cart. Silver domes covered what he assumed were meals.
“We cannot be seen together,” she said. “If anyone links me to the movement, I’ll be out of a job. Now go.”
He stepped inside and allowed the door to close. “No worries. You taking that to Finnegan Moss?”
“What?” She raised her hackles. “No. What are you …?”
“Where’s your boss? The head chef? Is he off tonight?”
“Yes. A family emergency.”
“Look, does he have full access to guest profiles, landing menu requests, secure loops, the whole shit and kaboodle?”
“The shit and what …? He’s our manager. Of course he …”
He double-blinked. “You getting all this, Rikard?”
“I am,” Rikard said. “Listen, I heard what you said. You were right. I caught up with Moss’s security chief. I’ve relayed the threat. They’re swarming around Moss’s landing. Our asset should be close. Stay with Alise and protect her.”
The lift opened to level five, the sous chef’s destination. Michael insisted they go back down, but Alise pushed the cart out.
“Moss is on Level Four. Whatever else is going on, I need to do my job. I cannot break my cover.”
Michael understood. He stepped out into a wide, ornately designed corridor which played the softer melodies of Sibelius, one of the Collectorate’s most popular composers.
“OK, so here’s the play,” he told her. “You serve, and I’ll keep a safe distance. Anybody asks, you don’t know me, and they ought to call security. Sound good?”
She nodded. “I knew this operation would be more trouble than it was worth.”
He watched Alise push the cart to the fourth landing. There, she pressed a greeter and waited for a response. The double-door pixelated and disappeared. She entered, offering Michael a grin as she vanished inside.
“She’s in,” he told Rickard.
He waited in the corridor, wondering how long before a gaggle of high-and-mighties arrived by lift to party and powwow. Yet the hall remained quiet save for Sibelius. The excitement dwindling, Michael focused again on his burning back. He was glad Sam was off-world; he wouldn’t be able to lie his way out of this.
“We’re good down here,” Rikard announced. “Moss’s team has secured him, and we have identities on the women. Regional Sanctum reps. He was going to negotiate tidewater variances for an offshore farming enterprise, if you can believe it. Probably some bribes involved, but nothing out of the ordinary. At this point, no one can get to him. They’re arranging a cordon now, and we’ve begun a search protocol for Head Chef Patroon.”
He sighed. “Good. I reckon. But wait … hold the phone.”
He looked at Landing 508, where Alise was working. Silence. How long does serving take? He felt like ten minutes had passed.
“Rikard, what’s the landing number for Moss?”
Rikard hesitated just long enough for Michael to worry.
“408,” the voice in Michael’s head rang out.
“Oh, fuck. She’s on top of you. Get everybody out of there pronto. Hear me, dude?”
Michael moved closer and heard a low rumble. The floor shook. Then a whistle, like fireworks launched from their berths.
The door pixelated. Michael raised his Ingmar in his right hand and a dead man’s gun in his left.
The dinner cart rolled across the corridor, slamming into the far wall. Michael recognized the distraction too late. Brilliant green flashes erupted from inside, and a moving dark shadow cut through the madness. Alise the sous chef came out firing.
Plasma blasts sliced past Michael, scarring the wall, as he returned fire. He hit her twice in the high chest, and she stumbled backward but fired agai
n, this time clipping Michael in the right shoulder. He lost his Ingmar but continued shooting with his borrowed gun. Alise fell on the fourth hit when he burned a hole through her neck.
He grabbed his Ingmar even as his shoulder suggested something inside was torn. Outside the double doors, Michael stopped his advance. A small metallic orb rolled to his feet, elevated a few inches off the floor, and rotated wildly.
The electromagnetic pulse disrupter – illegal on all forty worlds – killed his weapons and threw Michael back against the wall. The pain extended far beyond his back and shoulders. It would not be like he saw in the movies: He couldn’t push himself up and keep fighting. That’s when the lead assassin entered the doorway.
Head Chef Patroon, not on a family emergency, held the longest serrated knife Michael ever saw. The man did not seem deadly – bald, middle-aged, a slovenly beard. He did, however, shed a tear standing over his sous chef’s body. Michael watched the man’s features twist into full-on rage as he stepped over Alise. Michael tried to push himself up, but the pain and the steady flow of liquor double-teamed against him.
Not like this, he thought. I’m not going to die like this.
Neither one of them saw her coming.
A woman hurled herself, as if in flight, into Patroon and crashed upon him. She gathered herself in a single motion, took the knife now lying loose on the floor, and buried it in Patroon’s chest.
“You got to be kidding me,” Michael mumbled. He looked into the dead man’s glassy eyes and realized who his savior was: Rikard’s other “asset.”
“Hello again, Michael,” the opera singer said.
Michael had enough for one night and faded to black.
7
Vasily Intersystem Transfer Station
S AM COULDN’T THINK OVER THE KLAXONS blaring like a symphony of trumpets. She floated weightless, drifting hand-in-hand with Pat, while Maj. Lancaster continued to bark orders through his amp. The station’s automated security system declared an emergency.
“Attention, all residents and guests. The station has experienced a failure of its magnetic core, thus inhibiting artificial gravity. Be assured this error is temporary, and we will soon restore full station service. In the meantime, the zero-gravity environment poses no immediate danger to life. Please follow proper protocol. Find the nearest available handholds mounted on ceilings or interior walls. Utilize the closest objects or people to generate angular momentum toward these handholds. We advise against acrobatics or other reckless maneuvers which may increase the risk of injury. Secure yourself before the restoration of standard gravity. We at Vasily apologize for the inconvenience.”
The Impossible Future: Complete set Page 66