by A. K. DuBoff
Stars, how big is this place? The facility seemed entirely too large for the workforce she’d seen—or for the population of Tribeca, for that matter.
“What are all these rooms?” Kira asked telepathically when her curiosity could no longer be contained.
“Storage,” Jared stated.
At the risk of doing something out of character for someone on a tour, Kira tried one of the door handles, but it was locked. “Open it.”
Jared complied using his keycard and handprint, his face twisted into a grimace of resistance.
Kira’s chest constricted when she saw the contents of the room: racks of weapons. What the fok? She glared at her informant. “What’s going on here?”
“Preparations.”
“For what?”
“For war.”
Well, yeah, that much was obvious. Kira bit her lip. “Against whom and with what army?”
“Anyone who resists,” was all Jared told her in his mind. A spasm wracked his body. She couldn’t push him further, lest she be unable to use him for the critical task ahead.
“What else do you have here?” she asked him, hoping for just a little more.
“Weapons, armor… soldiers.”
Now, soldiers… that was what Kira was really after. “Are those soldiers your test subjects?”
Jared swallowed. “Yes.”
“Where are they located?”
“In D Wing.”
“Take me to them.” Kira closed the door to the storage room, and it relocked automatically. If this many rooms are filled with armaments, how many soldiers do they plan to have? When she started doing the math, she didn’t like the answer.
They continued down the hall. At a right turn, they reached a seemingly dead-end corridor similar to what Kira had encountered earlier in A Wing. “Open it,” she commanded.
Jared accessed a concealed control panel, placed his palm on it, then entered a code on the screen.
The back wall slid horizontally, revealing a corridor beyond.
“You won’t get away with this,” Jared managed to say in his mind.
“Spare me the cliché villain-speak. More leading, less hollow threats.”
Beyond the false wall, the architectural aesthetic took on a decidedly different feel. Rather than shiny, white surfaces, the corridor was bare concrete. This was clearly an area that didn’t need to keep up appearances about being a cutting-edge tech firm; it was strictly utilitarian.
Hesitantly, she followed Jared inside. The immediate interior was a four-way intersection, with sealed doors marked ‘A Wing’ and ‘C Wing’ to either side.
What concerned Kira about the bare-bones look of the place was that there were no signs of the supplemental amenities found in the rest of the facility, such as markings on doors to indicate maintenance crew storage rooms. It was entirely possible that the operations in this wing were wholly self-contained and she’d be on her own if she became trapped. While she was confident the Guard would come for her, she had no way to be sure they’d arrive before MTech did… whatever it was they did to people who didn’t support their vision.
“Who has access to this wing?” Kira asked her informant, deciding that she’d rather know exactly how screwed she’d be if she was caught.
“Myself, Doctor Waylon, the Security Chief, and two caretakers,” Jared replied inside his mind.
“Are we alone in here right now?”
“Yes.”
“If yes, where are the others?” she asked.
“Doctor Waylon is in C Wing, the Security Chief only responds to emergencies, and the caretakers only come in early morning and night.”
Kira relaxed her mental hold on him just the slightest measure, knowing no one was about to barge in on them. “And who or what do those caretakers look after?” she asked aloud.
“The subjects,” he replied.
That’s the ticket. “Take me to them,” Kira instructed.
A grimace flitted across Jared’s face, but he sped up his pace down the corridor.
The featureless outer corridor continued for one hundred meters before it took a bend. Ten meters beyond the turn, the hall opened into a square room that bore closer aesthetic resemblance to the outer areas. An island of computer stations was situated in the center of the room, and monitors lined the side walls. Doors were centered on the left and back walls.
Kira’s heart dropped as her gaze passed over the monitors—those on the right wall provided a live feed of the activities in the outer facility, documenting all the places where Kira had spent time over the last day and a half. Whatever she had thought she’d gotten away with during her investigation, it was almost certain that they’d been watching and waiting to see exactly what she had been sent there to do.
She glared at Jared.
He nodded. “We know who you are and why you’re here.”
“Then why let me stay?”
“Because you’re unique.”
Before Kira could ask him to elaborate, she noticed the images on the monitors mounted along the left side of the room to either side of the door. “You fokers…”
The monitors displayed what must have been two hundred holding cells, half of which were occupied.
“How many people are here?” she demanded. My team is going to lose their shite when they see this—probably Kaen, too.
“We have one hundred subjects in this facility,” Jared revealed, unable to answer her requests with anything but the truth.
“And what are you doing to them?”
“Making them more.”
“Cut the mad scientist shite! What have you done to these people?!”
Jared took a step back. “We gave them a nanite treatment to enhance their innate abilities.”
That was the previous stage of research Kaen indicated in the mission brief. So what are they really up to now? Kira glared at the scientist. “You’re holding back, Jared. This will get very uncomfortable for you if you aren’t honest with me.” She tightened the vise on his mind.
He cried out in pain, gripping his head. His knees buckled, but he managed to remain standing.
Kira eased off. “What are you planning to do with them?”
“We began by administering a nanotech treatment that would express the desired traits, finding a way to merge the tech to allow expression of the alien physiology along with their telekinetic abilities. The intent, though, was to develop a new strain of nanites that will grant telekinetic skills to someone with no previous abilities.”
Oh, fok… Kira’s heart pounded in her ears. “They’ve been trying to solve the Generation Cycle on Tararia for years. You can’t jumpstart the expression of telekinetic and telepathic abilities.”
Jared smiled. “Maybe not with only the limited Taran genetic stock. But those Taran scientists don’t have the alien tech we do.”
Kira swallowed. The MTech scientists had wanted her because she was ‘unique’. She had no interest in sticking around long enough to find out how they wanted to exploit her. “Have you completed this new nanotech strain?”
Jared’s face twisted while he tried to resist answering her question, but she stabbed a telepathic spear into his mind. “Over there!” he blurted out, pointing toward a door she hadn’t noticed before.
“You first,” she said, following him across the room.
The scientist grimaced when he reached the door and pulled it open.
A moment later, Kira understood why. Inside was a sophisticated laboratory like something out of a movie in the pre-Revolution records—test tubes, culture incubators, a laboratory glove box, and the obligatory array of microscopes and monitors displaying gibberish to Kira’s untrained eye.
“This is where you keep all the secrets, eh?” she commented.
Jared grunted in response, wringing his hands.
“Where is the nanite strain?”
He shuffled across the room and grabbed a vial from a sealed case.
Kira snatched it from h
im. She held the vial up to the light. The contents were a slightly thicker consistency than water and had a metallic sheen, but it was otherwise unremarkable to the naked eye. “Will this work on anyone?”
“That’s what the tests were to find out.”
I can’t let them use this. “Where’s the rest of it?” Kira asked.
Jared was about to respond when a comm embedded in Jared’s jacket chirped. “I’m coming back from C Wing. I’ll see you in the lab.”
Kira recognized it as Monica’s voice. Oh shite, I need to get out of here! There was no time to do anything with any other nanite batches—frankly, she didn’t even know how to destroy them. Getting the sample to the proper authorities had to be her priority.
There was just the problem of what to do with Jared.
“Out, now!” Kira directed him back out to the main room. She tucked the vial into her bra for safekeeping.
When Jared reached the island of computer stations, Kira nodded her head for him to sit.
“Now, Jared,” she said, staring into his eyes, “I need you to forget everything we did here today.” Even knowing that the man had done some horrific things, she still hated what she was about to do.
“I remember…” he murmured.
“Not for long.” Kira dove into his mind, searching for his recent memories that had yet to be encoded into long-term storage. While it was possible to strip the deeper memories, as well, it was a much more time-consuming and delicate process. Since it had been less than an hour, taking care of his short-term recollections should be sufficient.
It took her a matter of seconds to find what she was looking for. She destroyed the memories related to entering D Wing and made selective edits to those related to their prior conversation, making it appear as though they’d chatted and he simply decided to leave.
Someone of Monica’s skills would be able to identify the alterations, but, with any luck, it would take her some time to become suspicious. Kira just needed an hour or two.
To hedge her bets, Kira left a final instruction for Jared to begin an observation of one of his subjects. The task should delay him and stave off Monica’s suspicion while Kira took care of her remaining business.
“Get to it,” she told Jared, and then she took off at a jog toward the exit.
This better work, or I think I’ll be the next one in a holding cell. Kira gulped.
She broke into a sprint down the straight corridor through which she’d entered, slowing only when she reached the security door. She briefly considered going straight to A Wing to meet up with Leon, but there’d be no log of her entering through the lobby arch, and it might flag her on the way back out. It was better to keep things looking as proper as possible.
Fortunately, no ID badge was required to exit, and the B Wing door began sliding open as soon as she tapped on an indicator mounted on the wall.
She peeked out into the hall. Clear—for now.
There was no knowing which hallways might be under surveillance by security personnel at any given moment, so she took a brisk but controlled pace toward the building lobby by following the exit signs. At last, she made it to the outer door.
Just as she had made it past the security arch, she saw Monica emerge from C Wing.
Kira quickly spun around to hide her face, but it was too late.
“Kira? Hello!” Monica called out.
Shite! Kira composed a pleasant smile and turned back to greet the director. “Oh, hi! I finished up with Jared and was just about to go see Leon.”
“How did the test go?”
Oh, foknuggets. It’s going to be pretty bomaxed obvious our conversation was cut short when there’s no record of the test Jared was supposed to perform. Kira shook her head. “Please don’t be disappointed, but I had a little too much to drink at dinner last night and I have a headache that just won’t quit. I wasn’t feeling up for telepathy. Tomorrow?”
Monica evaluated her. Kira could feel the other woman’s prodding at the wall around her mind, but Kira held the shield firmly in place.
After several seconds, the director nodded. “Of course, I understand. Tomorrow will be fine.”
“Thanks.” Kira glanced toward A Wing. “Leon is waiting for me—there was some model he was excited to share with me.”
“By all means. We’ll talk later.” Monica’s eyes narrowed just the slightest measure as she inclined her head, then she walked toward the arch into B Wing.
Kira breathed a tentative sigh of relief and resumed her route to A Wing.
The security guard waved her forward but then frowned and held up his hand. “Ma’am, may I see that device in your right pants pocket?”
Why is the cloaking module a problem now when I got through just fine this morning? She slipped the metal rectangle from her pocket and handed it to him, making eye contact to persuade him with subtle trusting thoughts. “This? It’s just for sightseeing—I’m heading straight out from here this evening on a tour.”
The guard took the module, dropping his gaze to study the minute imprint of the manufacture’s logo. “Ah, yeah. I did one of those when I transferred in. Have fun.” He handed the device back to her.
“Thanks, I will.”
He waved her through.
Letting out a long breath, Kira hurried down the main entrance corridor for the wing and followed the route to Leon’s work area.
When she entered the open common space for the lab, three of the techs were working at the central computer stations and Leon was holed up in his office. She jogged to his office and tapped on the glass.
Leon looked up from his work and waved her in. “How’d it go?”
“Oh, it was lovely.” Kira closed the door behind her and pulled out the cloaking module. She let it sit on his desk to record. “How’s your morning been?”
“Great… you know, work-y,” Leon replied. He looked into Kira’s eyes. “How long do you need for the loop?”
“More time than we have right now.” She activated the device. “We’re in even deeper shite than I realized.”
Leon sighed. “Why am I not surprised?”
“They’re gearing up for a war,” Kira said. “I don’t know against whom, but they have all sorts of armaments, and I think the genetic engineering might be for some sort of super-soldier.”
“Fok…” Leon breathed.
“What equipment do you need to analyze the programmed function of nanites?” she asked.
“Uh… That’s not really my specialization,” Leon replied.
“It gets to be now. Grab whatever you need. We’re getting out of here.”
Leon sighed. “Granted, I can figure out how to run an analysis, but that kind of analysis equipment isn’t mobile, Kira. I’d need to use some of the stationary components in this lab.”
“How long will it take?”
“I can probably complete a rudimentary assessment within half an hour.”
That’ll be cutting it close… With any luck, Jared wouldn’t come to his senses before then. “Do it. Work as fast as you can—I need to know what abilities these soldiers may possess.” Kira pulled out the vial from her bra. “I got this.”
“Fok, Kira! Where did you…?”
“I’ve been busy.” She returned it to inside her shirt. “Get everything ready.”
Kira deactivated the cloaking module while Leon grabbed the necessary equipment. When he returned, they refreshed the cloaking module to represent Leon’s office with him working on the computer and Kira nowhere to be seen. In reality, she was camped out behind his desk out of sight from anyone passing by the outer glass wall exposed to the rest of the lab.
She knew she could have bolted, but the analysis was too important. The Guard needed proof to intervene as soon as possible—transporting a nanite sample for analysis, getting the results, and preparing for action would take two days or more. Those captives might not have that kind of time, if her hunches about Monica were correct.
“Analysis in p
rogress,” Leon told her in the safety of the cloaking module’s field.
“I have a sneaking suspicion what it’s going to say.”
“We’ll know soon enough.”
Kira set her jaw. No one messes with my home. If Monica thinks she can get away with this, she’s in for a rude reality check.
CHAPTER 13
Only one suspect to go, and Kaen had more questions than answers.
In preparation for his final interview, Kaen had looked into the detailed personnel files for all three suspects. He hoped to corroborate their claims about when they were first approached by their mystery contacts, to see if there were any commonalities. Both the lieutenant and the captain had indeed been on leave three years prior, on the dates they claimed in their written statements. The lieutenant had passed through the station that supported Guard transit, when extra capacity was needed, and the captain had been passing through a station that handled tens of thousands of passengers.
The two incidents were within a day of each other. Kaen remembered that timeframe because the unit he was attached to had just completed a major op. They needed to route through the ancillary station while the nearby Guard base dealt with some repairs to the fleet. Never before had there been damage on a scale sufficient enough to mess up docking orders, but the Empire had been a mess during the governing Priesthood’s fall.
But more than ships, they’d lost some good people on that op. It wasn’t an occasion he’d soon forget. It was those events that ultimately precipitated his investigation into MTech and had set the tone for the last three years of his career. He now needed to see it through to the end.
Returning his thoughts to the review of personnel records, Kaen noticed that the third suspect—a comm tech named Reece Alan—hadn’t left Guard headquarters during that same timeframe. That wasn’t to say he hadn’t been contacted at some other time, but it was a wrinkle in the near-pattern that had been forming.
Kaen sighed. It’s all still circumstantial. What is the thread that ties it all together?
He didn’t yet have an answer, but perhaps the final interview would reveal the clues he needed.
Olvera met Kaen outside the interrogation room, the same space they’d used for the previous two conversations. The other suspects were still being held in the brig until the investigation was complete.
