Eve of Destruction
Page 22
As they gathered around their leader, Cara studied the room where Osla would be attending his first luncheon since the attack. They were several levels below the main council chambers, in a banquet room adorned with similar red banners and plascrete columns as the room where Osla had been attacked. Rather than dividers, this room was filled with round tables, where servers were busy laying out silverware and centerpieces.
All the work was performed by humans. Men and women in standard grey worksuits hurried around the room. Where tables weren’t being prepared, other workers cleaned windows, polished metal surfaces, moved chairs. After watching for several minutes, Cara swore she watched a woman move a chair to one location, then move it back, only to perform the same task again a few minutes later.
Once she realized the busy work was happening, she saw it everywhere. Tables were set and emptied, only to be set again. Supervisors moved through the room barking at workers, while they in turn reported to a single man who frowned everywhere he looked.
This wasn’t the kind of detail Jentry and his people would care about, but Cara found herself wanting to report the situation just so she could share the ridiculousness with someone… or be reassured that she hadn’t entered a psychiatric ward.
For the first time, she found herself feeling lonely. She had no crew to talk to, and she hadn’t talked to Felix since her night in the apartment. Her TSF monitors had told her to limit her Link communications. While any message she might have sent would be encrypted, the Andersonians would certainly be monitoring her EM spectrum. They trusted no one, least of all their own people.
When Loas had finally put the capture away and pulled his squad back into line, Cara squared her shoulders and decided to act the part of their commander. It had been easy enough to assess the space they were in from her criminal perspective, and she directed Loas to place his people around the room, covering windows, doors, the kitchen, and environmental access points.
The First Sergeant nodded vigorously at each of Cara’s commands, vibrating with a pleasure that made her feel dirty after he’d left.
Two hours later, Chancellor Osla was shaking the hands of various dignitaries. The event was a mixer with several corporations. It took Cara only a few minutes to understand that Osla and the senators were negotiating labor rates at factories on Luna’s surface.
Cara quickly grew tired of watching obsequious faces pandering to Osla, as well as the glances stolen her direction, like she was part of a pending deal.
She was dressed in slim-fitting, reinforced combat armor with kinetic-hardening panels. The material reminded her of crushed black crystal: soft in most situations, but hard as metal under any application of force. While it would stop most projectile weapons—with heavy bruising, of course—she suspected that a slow blade might slide through it. Cara didn’t want to test it. The armor was more for show than anything.
Osla laughed. He was talking to some dignitary wearing a uniform Cara didn’t recognize. She had been following the man around for two days now, with no word from Felix, and few updates from the TSF ‘spy crew’, as she’d come to call them.
She found herself glancing around the room, wondering which of the generic dignitaries might be operatives. They all looked completely interchangeable. The only constant was that she spotted very few augments, something the Andersonians found distasteful. They liked the human body inviolate, which she supposed gave them the freedom to use people like machines.
Osla glanced back at Cara, and she followed as he left the media area for the buffet. The chancellor loved to eat.
Thus far, his days were composed of a morning workout beating a wooden pole, breakfast of a dozen eggs, meetings with the Andersonian Council, then with individual senators. Lunch was another huge meal, followed by conference calls with the Andersonian diaspora—often several at a time, given the light-lag between the groups spread from Venus to the Jovian Combine. Dinner had all been state affairs, where he favored one senator or another.
Through all these events, Osla had taken great pleasure in drawing Cara into conversations, or simply pointing out that she was present. He never outright called her his bodyguard, instead referring to her as a trusted advisor, protector, or confidant. From some of the looks people had cast her, she was starting to wonder if they were assuming a sexual relationship.
Not that Osla was ugly, but he was a dictator, which made him something like a robot to her. The longer she spent with him, the more inhuman he became.
Presently, Osla sat at a table with several senators, and Cara walked along the back of the buffet, taking in the whole room.
She had been primed for any mention of Humanity First, but after two solid days of listening to Osla’s conversations, she couldn’t say that he had even mentioned SAI.
“Are you hungry, Captain Sykes?” a woman asked.
Cara looked at the server, a young woman in the standard grey worker’s garb. “I’ll have a water bulb, if you have it.”
The woman gave her a slight bow and went in search of the requested item.
There was a stir at the room’s entrance, and Cara tensed, hand on her pistol, as she watched a new group of dignitaries enter. An attendant approached Osla and leaned in to speak in his ear. The chancellor nodded and pushed back his seat to stand. He walked around the table of senators with his arms spread in greeting.
“Randal Harrin,” he called. “It’s been too long!”
Cara checked in with Loas and his people, shifting their deployment to account for the new arrivals. Harrin had his own security detail, two of which stayed with the SolGov senator while the rest spread out to the edges of the room. Their weapons were concealed inside their uniforms.
Harrin and Osla settled into their seats as servants brought them food. Their conversation remained focused on SolGov matters, from what Cara could hear.
She shifted closer, gaining the notice of Harrin’s bodyguard. The heavily muscled man gave her an assessing once-over, then frowned. Cara smiled at him.
Nearing the table only allowed her to hear more of their inane chatter. The two men kept up a conversation that seemed entirely composed of flattery and limp laughter.
When the meal was finished, Osla called for drink. For the next hour, the two men knocked back shots of some purple liquor that Osla seemed to love. Harrin was reluctant at first, but after the first shot had a chance to settle in, he fell for Osla’s goading, and swallowed every drink placed in front of him.
Cara counted six shots each when Osla finally pushed back from the table and motioned for Harrin to stand as well. With a grinning glance at Cara, Osla motioned for Harrin to follow him out a side exit.
Osla hadn’t said anything about leaving the banquet hall during the event.
Cara motioned for Loas to follow, then went after the chancellor. At the exit, however, Osla raised a hand to Cara.
“Only you, Captain Sykes. Leave the others here. We’re taking a private tour.”
First Sergeant Loas heard the chancellor and stopped immediately. Cara didn’t like following alone, but went after the two leaders, who walked unsteadily into the hall. The door slid closed, cutting off the clatter from the large room, and Cara was abruptly aware of the sound of her showy armor as she walked.
Harrin glanced back at her. “So, you’re the Bloody Pirate Cara Sykes, eh?” His face was flushed.
“I didn’t choose the name.”
“You spent fifteen years out in the Scattered Disk?”
“That’s right.”
Cara surmised that the corridor led to the edge of the underground facility and another shuttle bay, like the one she’d used to get Osla out after the attack. Osla walked confidently, no sign of his injury in his demeanor.
“You’re awfully terse,” the senator said.
Cara gave him a false smile. “I’m not here for my conversation, Senator.”
Harrin’s reddened face reminded her of an apple.
“I disagree,” the inebriated man
said. “Tell me, would you say the average citizen in the Disk is an AI-lover?”
Cara frowned. “You realize how big a place the Scattered Disk is, Senator?”
He waved a hand. “That doesn’t matter. They all share forums. There’s a nation out there. Where do they stand in the fight?”
“I wasn’t aware there was a fight.”
“Are you still dumb from your prison time? Of course there’s a fight. There’s a war happening right now. Psion is infiltrating SolGov, and InnerSol is swarming with SAIs in human form. You can’t trust anyone you see on the street. You can’t tell the difference between one of their frames and an augmented human.”
“Augmentation is surrender,” Osla added.
Harrin nodded emphatically.
That was the first time Cara had heard the chancellor repeat one of the Collective’s core tenets.
“Surrender of what?” she asked, irritated with the situation.
“Surrender of our humanity,” Harrin said. “Once you give up the integrity of your body, what are you?”
“A human with some added hardware,” Cara said.
Harrin ignored her sarcasm.
“It’s the core question. Where do we separate human from machine, organic from non-organic? We’ve gone too long, allowing the lines to blur in this essential decision.”
“Seems like the cat’s out of the bag on that one, Senator,” Cara said.
Harrin gave her a frustrated look but didn’t have time to answer before they were stepping through a hatch into a shuttle bay, as Cara had suspected.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“I’m taking the senator on a tour of our holdings. I’d like you to pilot.”
“I’m not here to question you, Chancellor, but are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“We’ve got work to do,” Osla said. “Ceremonial drinks only help cement our fraternity. Isn’t that right, Senator?”
“Absolutely,” Harrin said. “Positively.”
The corridor ended on a security door that required Osla’s token. Cara followed them into a small launch bay with a single shuttle, this one sleeker than the one she’d used for their escape. Heavy engines indicated a longer range. She suspected there might be armaments hiding beneath panels in the hull.
Osla used his token again to open the side hatch, and he climbed inside the shuttle, waving for his best friend Harrin to follow.
Cara mounted the short ladder into the shuttle’s interior. When she saw that Harrin and Osla were rummaging through a wet bar, she turned to lock the hatch, then settled into the pilot’s seat.
The shuttle was expensive tech. Cara activated the startup sequence and checked the controls. Osla was right about needing a pilot. While the shuttle had state-of-the-art systems, there was no NSAI, so she would be monitoring everything herself. It wasn’t impossible, just irritating.
“Where are we heading?” she asked.
“Hold on,” Osla said. “All right, sending the map over.”
The console acknowledged receipt of a flight plan, which Cara thought was interesting. Had Osla actually prepared this himself? That indicated more forethought to this trip than she had thought.
“Looks good,” she said. “You all strapped in, Chancellor?”
Osla raised a bottle from where he and Harrin were sitting on either side of the wet bar. The console chimed that the launch bay doors were open, and Cara didn’t wait for Osla to verify they were harnessed. She lit the engines.
The chancellor hung onto his bottle as the shuttle shot out of the bay. With the flight plan, all Cara had to do was monitor the engines and ensure the navigation system was functioning properly, which it was. As the shuttle climbed above the glimmering city, she contemplated removing her ridiculous armor.
A secure connection request drew her attention. It was Jentry.
Jentry said.
Cara cursed as she realized she didn’t have an EV suit.
Jentry laughed.
The shuttle passed over New Austin city limits and entered the grey zone of outer Luna. Lights shone in the distance from surrounding settlements, and a maglev line below them flashed when a car shot by.
Osla and Harrin shared swigs from the bottle.
“Bloody Pirate Sykes,” Harrin said. “How much cash were you sitting on before you got caught?”
“Enough to get by.”
“How many ships did you cut down?”
“A million,” Cara said.
“You’re lying.”
“Yes I am.”
“It’s a crime to lie to a senator.”
“Leave her alone,” Osla said. “She’s my bodyguard. I don’t need her running into trouble with SolGov. What about that show you were talking about? The weapons show? You make her mad, she shoots you, and I’ve lost my ticket.”
“You wouldn’t lose your ticket, Chancellor,” Harrin said. He sounded less drunk now. “You just shoot the dog that bites, that’s all. Then you get a new dog.”
“I love dogs,” Osla said.
Both men started laughing, and Osla fell into a long story about his favorite Blue Heeler.
With their first destination still thirty minutes out, Cara sent Felix a comm request. There was no response, so she settled into the seat and watched the topography flow by in the holodisplay.
When the nav system signaled its descent into the settlement, Cara pulled up the data entry on their destination. The place was called Python and filled one side of a twenty-kilometer crater. Most of the construction was underground except for a grid of tube-shaped structures around the landing port.
A private landing bay pinged the shuttle, and nav switched its destination to the new pad. All Cara had to do was bring the shuttle down, and then they were descending on a massive lift beneath the surface.
Five minutes after the lift reached the bottom, the shuttle verified environmental integrity, and Osla lurched out of his seat for the hatch control. He was the first out, with Harrin hurrying after him.
With the two men outside, Cara quickly sat back down and pulled up the shuttle’s firmware admin panel. She tried two hacks before the third allowed her access to the ownership verification system. Using one of several anonymous tokens she kept for this sort of use, she updated ownership of the shuttle to her key and reset the firmware. She made Osla a user on the system so any requests he made would at least look correct on the surface, but Cara now owned the craft.
While the little craft wouldn’t get her to Mars 1, its engines and fuel capacity could easily reach High Terra, or even Cruithne at its current location.
Cara smiled to herself. She had an out if she wanted it. Now it was time to start turning the situation to her benefit.
“Captain Sykes,” Osla called from outside the
shuttle. “Are you coming? They’re all here to greet you.”
Cara closed down the control console and went to the hatch. Standing in the opening, she found a group of people arrayed around the shuttle, all dressed in brighter clothes than the average Andersonian.
A tall woman with shoulder-length brown hair stood near Osla. She was wearing a blue ship-suit with a utility harness and pistol at her waist. She wore the suit open at the chest to display ample breasts.
The woman raised a hand just as Cara realized what this was.
“Captain Sykes,” the woman called. “Good to meet you. Looks like we’ll need to fight for the name.”
“That sounds like a wonderful idea!” Osla said, taking a long swig on his bottle.
“Just so you know,” Cara said, stepping out of the shuttle. “I hate your show.”
THE DOUBT
STELLAR DATE: 3.22.3011 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Outer Shell Manufacturing Layer
REGION: Mars 1 Ring, Mars Protectorate, InnerSol
The connection cut out and Lyssa came awake to find Emerson staring at her intently. Five more of the Weapon Born in human frames stood around the command suite, watching with worried looks.
Lyssa blinked. She remembered sitting in the console chair and folding her hands before accepting Camaris’s request. That was all.
She checked her internal logs, following the time record. As far as she could tell, there had been an external connection, but she had no way to pull the encrypted data. It was a blank spot.