House of Fate

by Barbara Ann Wright

  At the tram stop, Annika sat on a plastic bench, trying to look like a bored commuter. She needed to be closer to Presidio’s heart in order to strike. Ama had no doubt locked out her personal codes, but Annika had memorized many from her forays into Nocturna’s computers, and Ama couldn’t possibly have changed all the codes Annika had memorized. That would cut too many people off. And Ama couldn’t lock everyone out for long if she decided to go that route. There was too much that needed to be done.

  When the tram arrived, Annika stepped inside, not bothering to jockey for anything restricted to Blood. When the doors closed, the tram slid down the rail while a computerized voice listed the upcoming stops, and holo ads called from the ceiling.

  Annika kept her eyes on her bag while she listened to the stops, trying to think of which she should use. She needed access to somewhere with a terminal, somewhere that wouldn’t have as much security as a government building but nothing so low in the food chain that it might have an outdated system or restricted access.

  As the sun came out from behind the clouds, Annika took Noal’s shades from her bag and unrolled them, holding the flimsy-looking plastic up to her face so it could form around her head like nanosheen, covering her eyes and perching over her nose before it stiffened. It dampened the light amazingly well, and she barely felt the weight of it. Noal always had the best toys.

  As the tram continued, Annika began to change her mind about her destination. Maybe the city’s heart wasn’t the best place to go. Maybe she needed to be in what the locals called Off Center, a cluster of buildings not quite in downtown, but still with an affluent, important air. Access with less attention. She waited through two more stops, then disembarked with a horde of others, trying to look as if she had a specific destination in mind.

  She passed many upscale shops, real merchandise or rotating holos in each window. She slowed and glanced around as if considering a day of leisure. When her eyes passed over a squat, discreet building behind the others, she slowed. Some kind of distribution warehouse, probably catering to many of these shops. It had its own shuttle bay sitting atop it. It wouldn’t be a main warehouse, just a drop-off for these high-end places, but it would need to organize merchandise with off-world suppliers.

  And that meant it would have to hook into Nocturna’s main net, at least peripherally.

  Annika ducked inside one of the shops and demanded an empty box with the store’s logo. The clerk babbled at her, glancing behind his counter, his eyes wide. The store’s DNA scanners would be telling him she was Blood, so she barked that he wasn’t being fast enough. He handed the box over with something like a sob. Annika strode from the store as quickly as she’d stormed in.

  From her bag, she selected an extravagant scarf and wrapped it around her head before marching to the small warehouse, the box held before her.

  After sounding the chime, she yelled, “Hurry up! I have an incorrect delivery that needs to be fixed immediately!”

  No doubt they scanned her, too, and the door opened quickly. There weren’t many members of the Blood who acted as shopkeepers, so they had to conclude she was an owner, and any owner in that area had to be rolling in creds.

  “Dama,” the man who opened the door said. His eyes were wide, skin tight and waxy. “If you had but called—”

  She pushed past him. “My merchandise is too important to use comms. I can’t have my competitors knowing that I’ll be the last ones selling this season’s fashions because you and your staff are incompetent.”

  There were more people on the floor, gawking. Off to the side, a set of stairs led upward.

  “Dama,” the man said, “perhaps if you let me see the box and the order slip?”

  She yanked it out of reach. “Fool! I’m not letting this merchandise out of my sight until I see this error corrected. I demand you show me the order in your system immediately.”

  He blanched and bowed, a custom that hadn’t been in vogue for twenty years. “Dama, of course. I would be happy to. Anything I or my staff can do to make your errand easier—”

  She leaned close and pitched her voice dangerously low. “Now.”

  He nearly jumped out of his skin and led the way upstairs. It was almost too easy. He led her into a small office and closed the door, and then there were only three of them. She let him lead her close to a console. One of the workers stood so she could have his chair, and she hit him in the face with the box. While he reeled, she kicked the manager in the knee. He fell, and as he drew breath to cry out she kicked up into his chin, silencing him. The other was plastered to her seat, eyes wide in terror. Annika slammed her hand into the neck of the one she’d hit with the box, and he fell, too.

  “Da…Dama?” the last worker said. Her face had gone bloodless, but she hadn’t made a move to alert anyone.

  Use her to navigate the system? No, too great a chance she’d come to her senses and sound an alarm. Annika placed her box on the ground. “Face the console. I need you to access some files.”

  With hesitant, wooden motions, the woman obeyed, but before her hands moved, Annika hit her as she’d hit the other, then caught her before she could pitch forward over the controls. She leaned the woman over the seat and gently pushed the chair away.

  Annika locked the door and sat, passing her hand over the console to bring up the holo display. She saw the connections to Nocturna’s system that allowed the warehouse to move merchandise from one place to another on Prime as well as off-world. The console also had access to the news vids. She found some reports of a net outage near the area where she’d sent the shuttle. As expected, her grandmother cut ties to some of the outlying sectors of the planet, thinking Annika would be trying to access the net there. So now Ama knew she was on the loose but couldn’t yet know where she was. She’d have to work quickly.

  She wouldn’t be able to access her grandmother’s personal files, not from anywhere except her grandmother’s computer, but with the right codes, she could access some of the intelligence Nocturna had gathered. She didn’t have time to sort through it, but even at a cursory glance, there was a lot to see. Nocturna’s spy network was extensive, but until that moment, she didn’t realize how large it was, how much information was being fed into their system every single day. Not just reports but camera feeds and entire logs from listening posts. It could have been every single transmission from anywhere in the galaxy. It took entire teams to go through all the data on Nocturna; how in the world would Judit and her crew manage it?

  She’d have to narrow her search to the past month. Annika copied the information onto a data chip. She moved to shut down her link to the system just as it blinked off on its own. She was out of time. She took the chip, picked up her box, and stomped imperiously down the stairs, walking across the floor as if she had every right to be there. The guard at the door even opened it for her, his eyes averted.

  Once outside, Annika picked up speed, dumping the box in the nearest trash receptacle and taking off the scarf. Her grandmother might have located the console she was using, or she might have cut off access to the whole street, maybe to all of Presidio. Annika didn’t know, but she couldn’t stick around to find out.

  Once she joined the regular traffic on the street, Annika tried to walk as she had before, an important person with purpose, above the notice of those around her unless they happened to stumble into her path. Now all she had to do was get off the planet, no easy task. But taking off was always easier than landing when it came to Nocturna Prime.

  She considered the space elevator. Too risky, too many opportunities to be caught. And if she managed to make it aboard, she’d be stuck for the ponderous journey up to the station. No, better to aim for a shuttle, and not a passenger vessel this time. Shuttles carrying goods came and went all the time: to Caligo, the other moons, and various stations where they would be transferred to larger ships. She’d sneak aboard one before Ama had time to shut down the shuttle port.

  Annika jumped on one of the trams and k
ept near the door, feeling the seconds tick by keenly, as if there was a clock under her skin. She tried to picture what her grandmother was doing, how computers and people were sorting through footage, looking at faces or strides, looking for people acting out of place before they looked even deeper. When the tram stopped, she was at the doors along with a crowd of others. She crossed the lane to another stop, one that would take her to the port where the bulk of the shuttles landed. Guards lounged around this station, rifles hung across their shoulders, the kind she never saw in space because of the damage they could do to a ship.

  These guards didn’t seem on high alert, but they were scanning the faces of everyone who went past. Annika changed direction smoothly, heading away from them. Unlike on Caligo, there was more than one way to get to the shuttle port here. She remembered a fence that guarded the cargo entrance, but she could find a way around that. As she strode down an alley, she risked a look back and spotted someone from the crowd peeling off to follow her. All her senses on alert, she listened to his footsteps, the way he was talking urgently into the comm curling around his ear, something about trading futures and shares. She didn’t believe the ruse. Noal might call her paranoid, but she’d been right on Caligo. And this wasn’t Noal’s planet.

  At the end of the alley, she ducked into the doorway of a shop, hand to her own ear as if making a call or listening to one.

  In the reflection of a pane of glass across the way, she watched for the man to come out, waiting to see who was right, her or Noal. The faux-businessman stepped out, and for the blink of an eye, she thought maybe she was wrong. He didn’t seem to notice she’d gone. Then he paused, looked both ways down the street, and then back the way he’d come. He was still talking, but his chatter began to make less sense, as if he thought the most important thing was to keep talking, no matter what he said.

  When he turned and scanned the street again, she knew he was looking for her, and the satisfaction of being right about him was almost enough to combat the aggravation she had about either having to lose him or take him out.

  There were too many people on the street for option number two. He began easing in the opposite direction, craning his neck to see into doorways. She slipped out and sidled behind him, hurrying back down the alley until she was far enough away to break into a run. She didn’t look over her shoulder but sprinted for the street. Before she reached it, she slowed, getting her breathing under control so her heart rate could climb down from the heavens.

  Once clear of the alley, Annika glanced back but didn’t see the faux-businessman. She wasn’t naive enough to think herself in the clear, though. She wondered if he was following her because he suspected her or if Nocturna spies practiced following people all the time. She wasn’t going to wait and find out.

  Annika turned up a few more streets, working her way to the shuttle port cargo entrance. A line of self-driving trucks waited to get through a security checkpoint that scanned each as it went by. She wondered what the scans were looking for. Weapons? Stowaways? Not many people sneaked off Nocturna Prime.

  Except her. And her mother. She had a sudden thought that her mother had been in this same situation years ago. Had she taken this route? Hidden in a box of vegetables so no one would find her? Or did she have confederates waiting to sneak her off-world? Had she known them personally, or had she bought their help?

  Annika shook her head, focusing on the trucks. She supposed the scanners could be looking for people. Criminals perhaps. But such people were caught and dealt with hurriedly on Nocturna Prime. There was always someone watching, and Annika suspected she’d gotten as far as she’d had mostly because the scanners acknowledged her DNA. There were no prisons on Prime, no reason for someone to want to get off the planet covertly unless they were practicing, as she’d done a time or two.

  Or if they wanted to leave their family forever, as her mother had done.

  Annika told herself to get it together. One truck passed through the checkpoint, but unlike the others, this one had a man riding in the cab. He leaned out and spoke to the guard minding the scanning equipment. They had a quick conversation, then she waved him on.

  The alarms hadn’t sounded. Good news. Annika could grab hold of one of the trucks and hide, ride through the scanners, but just because no alarms went off didn’t mean the scanners weren’t looking for living organisms. If a person fell asleep or unconscious in a truck, no one wanted them to be shot into space in an unprotected cargo hold. And Nocturna wouldn’t risk sending bacteria or animals to a planet that wasn’t ready for them, like a new world that expected only sanitized equipment or building materials.

  Annika turned away from the gate and walked through the grass along the fence, staying well away as she scanned for weak spots. Cameras clustered near the gate, but along the fence, their little black eyes didn’t shine as frequently. She paused at one section between two cameras and hurried forward, kneeling at the base of the fence. It would be covered in sensors, but it didn’t look electrified or shielded. She supposed no one would risk pulling a robbery in the shuttle port. Nocturna dealt harshly with all lawbreakers, especially thieves. Well, those who weren’t working under the house’s orders, anyway.

  She could vault over the fence, but she needed cover once inside. Just because the guards weren’t having to combat crafty thieves didn’t mean they wanted random people wandering their shuttle port. She’d need a better disguise than any she had on her.

  Annika smiled, remembering the guard at the entrance. She gave the fence a few harsh kicks. As expected, an alarm sounded from the nearby guard booth. Annika lay in the long grass, waiting. The guard on the gate would close it securely before coming to check, but she would come, Annika had no doubt. It was probably the most interesting thing that had happened all day.

  When Annika heard footsteps, she darted up, smacking the guard in the face and neck until she fell. Annika dragged her into the grass and stripped her quickly, then donned her uniform and took her belt, palm computer, and keycard. She didn’t bother to go back to the gate but strapped her bag over her shoulder, vaulted the fence, and walked toward the gate from the inside, looking at the palm computer as if checking something.

  In the distance, a group of attendants drove a little cart toward where Annika had kicked the fence. Some central system must have registered the strikes, too. “False alarm,” she shouted, waving them away.

  They waved back but went on to look at the fence. She shrugged as if she couldn’t care less. From the inside, they wouldn’t see the guard in the grass, and once they’d made sure the fence was all right, they’d go back to whatever they’d been doing.

  Once at the gate, Annika opened it again, letting the machinery do its work, but instead of monitoring it, she took the cart parked outside the booth and drove toward where the shuttles waited on the tarmac beyond.

  Now all that was left was to find the best place to hide. On a larger shuttle, she couldn’t remain in the cargo hold. She didn’t know which ones would keep the atmosphere flowing and the temperature controlled. A smaller shuttle would do, but it would have fewer places to hide. Maybe she could sneak aboard a large shuttle and hide in an escape pod or some kind of emergency space. She’d need something fast, capable of long-distance travel, but with a small crew she could easily subdue. And she had to pick one that was going to launch before the guard was discovered, and the shuttles were placed on lockdown.

  A siren sounded through the field, and Annika cursed, not knowing what caused it, not knowing if it was normal. She pulled to a stop near the closest shuttle. The ground crew stood around talking while maintenance bots loaded cargo into the hold. She crept along the shuttle’s side, trying to get close enough to hear what the crew was saying.

  She spotted movement in the distance, another of the carts trundling down the tarmac. She tried to keep tighter to the shuttle, thinking she could run from one ship to another, but another cart was coming from the opposite direction. They had to be looking for her
. She was out of time. Again.

  Not daring to think too hard, Annika sprinted for the shuttle’s open hatch and bounded in as the crew called out to her. The hold was full of equipment, and in the dark, she stumbled across it, looking for a door to the cockpit. She spotted it and tried the panel. Unlocked. But why would anyone bother locking it when it was on the ground? The thought almost made her laugh. Were these still her mother’s footsteps?

  She dashed into the small cockpit and flung herself into one of the seats, gaze raking the controls as she figured out how to prime the engines and shut the doors. There was a clatter from behind as the cargo door slid shut, and the maintenance bots fell away. Someone banged on the outer door, but she’d engaged the locks.

  Her heart pounded hard, but she felt almost giddy. She didn’t have clearance. She’d have to bull her way through Prime’s defenses. She could already picture bursting through the lines of waiting shuttles and hurtling into the sky, flying close to someone else to make her a less desirable target before she finally—

  The cockpit door squealed open behind her, locks overridden by brute force. She was up in an instant, launching a kick before she even saw who it was. Her heel banged off the side of a maintenance bot. She yelped as she spun away, her foot throbbing. She saw the stun stick aimed around the bot and tried to dive to the side, but the cockpit was tiny. The stick rushed forward, the attacker’s face in shadow, and the blast hit her full force. The sounds of the shuttle flickered and died around her.

  Chapter Sixteen