Dylan set his glass down. “Sorry, man, I wish I could stay and relive the good old days, but I’ve a meet-up in thirty at a scraper downtown somewhere…the Dynamis Corporation building.”
Noah chuckled under his breath; Dynamis was next to Connova’s building. “It’s at Stratford and Lione. Take the Q-East levtram to the Lione stop.”
“Thanks, man—hey, that reminds me. I never asked what you’re doing on Romane.”
“Oh, you know, the usual. Fucking up my life.”
The self-pity kicked in along about the fourth beer.
He’d checked on Mia before heading to Ricardo’s and found she was working day and night to try to save the Prevos who had been attacked, even as she remained a target herself.
Caleb and Alex were busy risking their lives, again, sneaking into the lion’s den known as the Anaden universe in order to gather crucial intel for the war everyone believed was coming. According to Vii, Kennedy was currently crawling around the belly of a ship in zero-g at the Presidio to solve a manufacturing glitch holding up production of the new troop transports needed for the same coming war.
He was sitting in a bar getting drunk.
It occurred to him then that the last year might have just been a hyper-realistic illusoire fantasy, because this right here looked a lot more like his real life than anything that had happened since the night Zelones took a shot at him on Pandora and murdered an innocent, if batty, girl instead.
Only thing was, he didn’t remember himself being such a whiny, self-loathing bitch.
The fifth beer arrived at the same time a buxom redhead sidled up beside him. “Hey, handsome. You’ve been sitting here all alone since I got here, and it’s a travesty. Want some company?”
He shrugged, which she took for yes and planted herself on the stool Dylan had vacated earlier. “I’m Samantha. And you are?”
He stared at the glass in his hand, then over at her. She wielded bright blue eyes, a head full of ginger corkscrew curls, a freckled nose and nice curves like weapons she knew how to use.
Once upon a time she would’ve led him eagerly into the latest in a string of one-night stands or, if they hit it off, become an occasional fuck-buddy, until the next one sauntered up in the next sleazy bar to keep the party going.
He’d come here in search of a past that wasn’t what he’d remembered it to be. He and his buddies had enjoyed talking it up, but much of the time things had sucked—much like sitting in this bar making a pathetic wreck of himself did.
And even when they hadn’t sucked, they hadn’t…mattered. He’d never imagined living a life of meaning could feel so damn good, or that living it with the right person at your side could transform the meaning of every single day.
He set the full glass back on the bar and stood. “In the wrong place. You have a good night.”
36
SENECA
CAVARE
SENECAN FEDERATION PROVISIONAL MILITARY HEADQUARTERS
* * *
BROOKLYN MET TESSA HENNESSEY at a little pub three blocks from the temporary SF Military Headquarters on the outskirts of Cavare.
Striding quickly down the sidewalk toward the location, she decided that while she was sorry the Headquarters had exploded and people had died, she was glad it had moved. The memories of her recent visit there with Morgan were already distracting her too much from the damn mission as it was without adding in visual mnemonics.
She didn’t know Hennessey, but Mia had vouched for her, in a hand-wavy, ‘Prevos Unite’ way at least. On successfully identifying her contact by the long, distinctive orange-and-black braids and matching mandarin glyphs, she slid into the back corner booth across from the woman.
Hennessey studied her openly over a beer. “You’re Brooklyn Harper?”
She nodded, and the woman slid a tiny comm dot and a small case over to her. “I’m not going to break into Military HQ, but I will help walk you through it.”
Brooklyn placed the dot behind her ear, but regarded the case suspiciously. “And that is?”
“For your eye, love. If you expect me to navigate, I need to see what you see.”
She scowled at the suggestion, then reminded herself she’d do it without hesitation on an official mission and palmed the case. “I’ll put it in when I leave. Don’t want to attract attention in here.” She took a moment to study the woman.
Hennessey appeared to be the antithesis of everything Brooklyn had ever strove for—a hacker, a warenut, an overly emotive counterculture slacker lashing out at the world with the vicious weapons of dress, style and demeanor.
But the woman was a Prevo, which meant she was, at a minimum, smart. And she worked for Division, which meant she was, at a minimum, sneaky. So it was possible appearances were deceiving—given the spy factor, perhaps intentionally deceiving.
“If you get caught, here or later, you’ll lose your job and possibly go to prison. Why are you doing this?”
Hennessey shrugged. “Not so sure about the consequences. I’ve kind of got my boss wrapped, and I can get away with a lot. But even so…Prevos before profession? I want to help Morgan, and I can. So I will.”
“Good enough. What now?”
“I’m sending you the passcodes to get into the secured area of the building and the Artificial’s lab. If these got loose it would be bad—by which I mean put good people in danger—so do be kind enough to delete them once you’re done.
“I’m also sending you a basic schematic of the building layout, though you’ll still need my help to actually find anything. Nobody thinks the move here is permanent, so shit’s piled in corners, offices are conference rooms and conference rooms are labs. Enter via the lower rear entrance on Castilina. It’ll put you closer to the lab and in a less-crowded section for the first third of the way.”
A normal building wouldn’t be crowded in any section at 0200 local, but this was a military facility, and those never went to sleep. “Understood. Where will you be?”
Hennessey leaned back and slouched lower in the booth. “Right here, munching on tapas and drinking beer.”
Brooklyn wasn’t a secret agent. She preferred a straightforward, fists-readied approach for most things in life, and in her world stealth was a tool used to take an enemy by surprise and gain the advantage in a violent clash. But if extended subterfuge that didn’t end in a dead or disabled target was required, she would do extended subterfuge, just this once. For Morgan.
She did have a lot of practice using a Veil by now, however. Malcolm claimed she was a ninja master with it, and after the incident at the hospital, he might even be right. In comparison, navigating a building not currently under attack should be easy.
Finding a dark, shadowy corner in which to activate the Veil should have been easy as well, but all the streets were lit and Seneca’s gigantic moon transformed night to dusk. She finally settled for waiting until no people or cams were scanning her way and vanished.
Next, she slipped through the entrance and shadowed a tall man past lobby security. Once inside, she moved with ease down the populated halls of the Military Headquarters complex, anticipating people’s movements and timing her own accordingly.
Getting through the doors without raising red flags was always the hardest part, and she spent too much time waiting for the way to clear or for someone to come along, depending on the type of door and amount of traffic. She cooled her heels for six agonizing minutes until an opportunity to enter the passcode and open the door to the secure wing unnoticed arrived.
Hennessey corrected her turns a few times, but the schematic was easy enough to follow, and other than the delays she skulked through the halls and levels to reach the Command Center without critical incident.
The anteroom of the Command Center was a wide atrium featuring a security desk opposite the door. Multiple officers sat waiting to be granted entry by someone of higher rank than they.
The room was never going to be empty or unguarded, so she clung to the wall and wa
ited once more. This close to her goal, adrenaline fought her attempts to remain still and breathe evenly and quietly. Hennessey chattering gossip in her ear about the men and women who passed her did not help.
Finally one of the officers was called inside. The wide door opened, and she dodged the frame, the entrant and his escort in a series of pirouettes worthy of the Bolshoi Ballet.
The next second she was in the clear and veered off to the left.
As a former Alliance Marine, she ought to be interested in casing the former enemy’s nerve center. But everything had changed thrice over since either of those things were last true, so instead she focused on reaching Stanley’s lab.
Allegedly, enough functionality remained in the Artificial after Morgan had stripped it of its higher consciousness for the military to keep it in service, giving it complex calculations and such to churn while smaller, newer Artificials were enlisted to handle more nuanced matters. The old lab had been far enough below ground to survive the bombing attack with only minor damage, and the hardware for all the military’s Artificials were moved here with the rest of the fixtures.
She wondered if Field Marshal Gianno, when she was alive, had secretly worried shutting Stanley down could kill Morgan, and this concern had led Gianno to keep the Artificial functioning when it might otherwise have been scrapped. As Brooklyn understood it, that wouldn’t have been the case—but either way, now he would bring her back to life.
Hopefully.
She watched until the on-duty security officer turned his back, then hurriedly entered the passcode and sneaked into the lab. Racks upon racks of uniform, identical servers and quantum boxes greeted her, along with a lab tech trying not to nod off at his desk.
Hennessey?
There will be an input slot on the far left, first row, eye level—because people do input.
The snort which followed implied there had been humor, but warenut comedy was lost on her. She ignored the comment to traverse the front of the room as near to silently as possible.
Someone who worked for ASCEND had told her the other day that Veils were going to be able to mute the sound of footsteps up to thirty-six decibels with the next firmware patch. She’d scoffed at the time, but right now, here in this hyper-quiet lab, she longed for the upgrade.
When she found the input slot, she sent a pulse to Mia to confirm things were ready on her end.
By now the woman should have fitted an external interface linked to a module Brooklyn carried onto the ports at the base of Morgan’s neck. ‘The old-fashioned way,’ Mia had called it, before explaining it was necessary because Morgan had physically severed her connection to Stanley’s hardware before leaving Seneca and the Federation military.
Mia gave her the go-ahead, and Brooklyn retrieved the module from her small hip pack. She was supposed to insert the device into the input slot, or any input slot, and wait while Prevos did Prevo things.
Now she did exactly that. The module fit neatly in the slot, and no sirens rang out amid flashing lights and slamming doors. Truth be told, it was sort of anticlimactic.
Though operating, the hardware didn’t make any noise—hence her worry about footsteps being audible—but it did fill the air with a vibrational hum she felt more than heard.
She rested against the wall in the silence, a hand on each weapon, as the seconds became minutes.
Finally—twelve minutes and thirty-two seconds later, to be precise—she received another pulse from Mia.
We’ve pulled everything we’re able to access without tripping a bunch of failsafes. You can remove the module and get out of there.
Did it work?
Maybe.
SENECAN FEDERATION INTELLIGENCE DIVISION HEADQUARTERS
Graham leaned opposite the doorway in a calculated stance of false casualness as Tessa came around the corner to approach her office.
Her steps slowed when she saw him, but she offered him a wide smile. “Morning, Director. What’s up?”
He gestured her into her office, followed her and closed the door behind them.
She sank into her chair and started toeing it back and forth as if she hadn’t a care in the world. But he had gotten very, very good at reading people over the years—that one disastrous failure with his former deputy Oberti notwithstanding—and guilt bled out from the jerkiness in her eyes and bouncing of her sandal-clad toes.
He crossed his arms against his chest and considered her grimly. “You know I like you, Tessa. I probably shouldn’t, but I do. You’ve got balls, which I respect, not to mention a cheeky disregard for boundaries that reminds me of my rowdier days. This has made me overly indulgent of your flaunting of every semblance of regulation and procedure Division has ever put in place. But you’ve gone too far this time, and I can’t pretend to ignore it.”
She studied him, then seemed to decide she wouldn’t try to deny her crime. “Okay, but I was saving Morgan Lekkas’ life.”
“Which is the only reason you’re not in restraints and on the way to confinement as we speak. But it doesn’t excuse you breaking not merely half a dozen Division regulations but several national security laws along the way. If you wanted to help, you could have asked.”
“Yeah? And what would have come of me asking, you think? Lekkas is a deserter and Marshal Bastian is an asshole, so I think a big, fat nothing would have come of it.”
He fought back a grimace, as she wasn’t wrong on any particular point. Bastian was an honorable man, but he could be an asshole about it; Lekkas was now an acknowledged military leader for an ally, but she’d gotten there by deserting her post.
“Regardless of what may or may not have happened had you followed regs, you didn’t. Instead you used your privileged position to flagrantly violate both laws and every ethical duty that comes with the position. Tessa, I cannot have the Division Prevo going rogue and breaking into Military HQ. Vranas will drag me to the curb by my ear.”
She pouted. “Well, when you put it that way…. How did you find out?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Oh, come on! If I was stupid, I need to know.”
“Not stupid—just not a spy.” He sighed, fully cognizant she had his number. “We never stopped watching Morgan Lekkas, not completely. When she was attacked, we escalated to a more active surveillance, which means we had eyes on Brooklyn Harper from the second her feet hit dirt in Cavare.”
Tessa peered at him in evident suspicion. “But you let her infiltrate Military HQ?”
“Fine, so we had eyes on Ms. Harper from the second her feet hit dirt in Cavare until she veiled.” They still hadn’t successfully developed a way to detect when a Veil was in use outside of optimal, close-quarters and controlled conditions.
“In a different way, we also never stopped watching STAN. I’m told the Artificial exhibited some highly unusual activity in its processes last night.”
Her jaw fell open. “You didn’t know for certain I did anything wrong until I admitted it, did you?”
He shrugged broadly.
“So I was stupid—only it was this morning rather than last night.”
“Good people feel and act guilty when they’ve misbehaved, Tessa.”
“But I don’t feel guilty…I mean, I’m not sorry I helped.”
“Fair enough.”
She ran a hand idly across the surface of her desk. “So…what happens now?”
“I should fire you. I should also disconnect you from Cleo, but apparently it’s illegal under H+ to do so without a court order.”
“ ‘Should’ means you’re not, though.”
Oh, how she tried his patience. Had he been that cocky once upon a time? Had he been that young? “Keep smarting off and I will.”
She bit her lips together in an exaggerated expression veering toward condescension.
“I’m permanently reassigning you to SENTRI. Go work for Richard and Will.”
The news evoked a bright grin as her mood swung from defiance to elation. “I can l
ive with that. I like Will. He knows how to keep it real. I mean, I like you, too. You’re not bad for an old guy, and you’re not firing me, which obviously increases your likeability. What about Cleo?”
“I don’t see as I have much of a claim on her any longer. But you’re paying to transfer her hardware to the Presidio.”
She quickly agreed. “We’ll be out of your way in no time.”
“See that you are. And don’t think I’m not telling Richard and Will all about this transgression before you show up at the Presidio. If they have any sense, they’ll assign you a full-time guard.”
She opened her mouth to retort, then wisely closed it. He turned to go, but paused in the doorway. “What’s the word on Lekkas? Did the shenanigans you abetted work?”
Tessa looked genuinely pained for the first time. “Maybe.”
Her morose visage got a sympathetic smile out of him—on accident—and he hurriedly departed before he talked himself into letting her stay on.
On his way upstairs he filed a recommendation, should Morgan Lekkas recover, for the military to donate STAN’s hardware to the IDCC, seeing as it clearly didn’t belong to the Federation any longer.
AMARANTHE
37
MACHIMIS
MILKY WAY SECTOR 36
* * *
MACHIMIS RESEMBLED AN OVERWROUGHT CARICATURE of a dystopian idyll. An angsty teenager’s idea of what would happen if her evil, drill sergeant teachers took control of society and proceeded to exact their vengeance upon the world.
A sea of drab, windowless structures towered over unadorned platforms—themselves raised an unknown distance above the ground—parsed and divided into strict passages. Some type of maglev rails high above the platforms ferried equipment and crates from building to building, suggesting the structures were by and large factories rather than offices or living quarters. Of course, if they were all three it might look no different.
Alex had been interested in the mammoth orbital modules which captured the power gathered and sent by three Dyson rings then delivered it to the surface. But Eren had muttered something snarky about Inquisitors not lolling around gaping at millennia-old technology, and given they were by that point within the purview of planetary security, she’d reluctantly passed them by to descend toward the surface.
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