True Dark

by Niall Teasdale

  ‘I think we got it, Pen,’ June said. ‘Denny? I’m sure you’ve watched the whole thing. Does Kilmer say anything about how this is supposed to happen?’

  ‘Only that the brightest minds would come together to solve the problems. If mankind can reach the Moon, they can put a prison in space.’ There was a slight pause and then the computer added, ‘Having some idea of the requirements of long-term space habitats, I have to say that humans could build such a station, but the likelihood of it performing to specifications would be extremely low.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Penny said. ‘Let’s put The Freak in an orbital prison and see how long that lasts.’

  ‘It’s sort of what we did with Magmatic,’ June pointed out.

  ‘He’s dead and in space. If we feel like getting him back, we can probably revive him. We’ve no absolute proof that even The Freak could survive re-entry. Most of the prisoners in the Fortress and all the staff would definitely die if anything went wrong up there. That’s setting aside the cost of keeping a station like that functioning. They’re not roping us into ferrying supplies up there. The entire concept is ridiculous.’

  ‘And yet,’ Denny said, ‘it went down exceptionally well with Senator Kilmer’s audience.’

  ‘I bet it did,’ Penny said sullenly. ‘People really do believe the stupidest things at times.’

  18th May.

  Up on the wall screen, the great and the good were standing for a minute’s silence. It was eleven thirty on May the eighteenth, and America was mourning the nuclear death which had claimed so many the year before.

  In New Millennium City, Cygnus, June, Jacob, and Heather sat in silence, but their thoughts were more focused on one person who had been lost on that day. Up on the screen, gunshots rang out; someone had decided that the firing of weapons – technically a salute – was an appropriate ending to the silence.

  Heather pulled in a long breath through her nose. ‘They didn’t ask you to attend?’ she asked, looking across at Cygnus.

  ‘Nope,’ Cygnus replied. ‘I guess you could argue that I precipitated it.’

  ‘Bullshit!’ Jacob snapped.

  ‘Naryan was here for me. Subjugating Earth was just something he felt he had to do once I was out of the way.’

  ‘Bullshit,’ Jacob repeated. ‘You and Andrea are the reasons we still have a planet.’

  ‘And the Guardians would’ve found Earth sooner or later,’ Heather added. ‘The fact that your, um, predecessor found us first meant we had a way to fight back when they did.’

  ‘You can’t blame yourself, love,’ June said.

  Cygnus shrugged. ‘Maybe not. Rationally.’

  ‘Uh, any more news on Andrea?’ Heather asked.

  ‘Nothing. We know she’s alive. We know she’s managed to get control back from Midnight. We know she was in Ordos City. We don’t know where she is now or why she hasn’t just come home.’

  ‘Maybe she hasn’t got control back,’ June suggested. ‘I mean, not fully. She’s still worried Midnight could take over again.’

  ‘Then why not go to Viviane?’

  ‘Oh. I suppose Viviane could help…’

  ‘I think she’s hurting,’ Jacob said. ‘It’s like Mrs Pan said in Ordos, she’s trying to atone for what Midnight did in Hong Kong, or maybe for something we don’t know about. We’ll keep looking, but I think it’s down to her. She’ll come home, or make contact, when she’s ready.’

  Pingliang, China.

  Andrea sat atop Kongtong Mountain in the dark, looking out into the night with a small flask of really bad whiskey to sip from. One year. She had been away from home for a year. That seemed to need some form of event to mark it, so she was sitting on a mountain which was sacred to Taoists, drinking bad whiskey.

  ‘You could have got something better to drink,’ Midnight commented.

  ‘I hate to agree with her,’ Twilight said, ‘but that stuff is terrible.’

  Andrea ignored them.

  ‘There’s nothing really stopping you from going home,’ Twilight tried after a minute or so.

  ‘Yes,’ Andrea replied, ‘there is.’

  ‘The monster isn’t anything to do with you,’ Midnight snapped.

  ‘No, you were the one who blew up that ship. You caused the second burst, so it’s your fault there’s a monster trashing China.’

  ‘You would prefer there was still a Guardian ship in orbit? Or that it had gone home to report what happened?’

  Andrea was silent. She had been over the logic of the situation a thousand times, but she was still left feeling that she needed to do something about Guàiwù. The monster was a consequence of Midnight’s decision to destroy the second ship. Andrea agreed with that decision, but she felt she needed to face up to that choice and its results. And then there was the matter of Billy…

  ‘We can’t go back until Guàiwù is dealt with,’ Andrea said.

  ‘You won’t hear me arguing,’ Midnight replied. ‘If you go back, you’ll want to waste our time fighting crime and being the good guy.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I probably will.’

  New Millennium City, MD.

  ‘Why do we watch the news?’ June asked.

  ‘Today in particular?’ Penny asked. ‘Or at all?’

  ‘Well’ – June waved a hand at the wall screen – ‘today is just going to be the memorial and rehashing old stuff from last year.’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘But in general, really. Denny could let us know if there is anything important on, and it’s just depressing most of the time. Even the fluff piece at the end is depressing when you realise it’s just there to make the rest of it more palatable.’

  Penny shrugged. ‘I guess I feel like it keeps me in touch with things.’

  ‘Following the memorial service,’ the presenter said, ‘Captain Freedom gave a speech in which he seemed to echo some aspects of Senator Kilmer’s recent “space prison” speech.’

  ‘And then there are things like that,’ Penny added, frowning at the screen.

  ACPN had cut over to a shot of Freedom standing at a podium with the flattened DC skyline in the background. ‘We now know that the threat from alien aggressors is real,’ the Captain was saying. ‘We know that we are not alone and that our neighbours are armed and belligerent. We need to defend our people, our country, our world against those who might wish to harm us. I believe the first step in that defence should be to build structures in orbit and train men to fight in space.’

  ‘Nuts seems to be going around,’ Penny commented.

  June gave a little grimace. ‘I think he’s lying, or not telling the whole truth.’

  Penny pursed her lips. ‘He’s the Avatar of America, basically. He could be pushing this as a screen for getting weaponry in space. But it’s a bit like the space prison. It sounds good in theory, but the economics and practical issues make it kind of a stupid idea.’

  ‘It’s campaign season,’ June said. ‘This is the time when crazy ideas get floated to see whether the voters are going to buy any of it.’

  ‘Yeah, I guess. The trouble is, I think they probably will buy into this one. What is the Captain up to?’

  Haidong, China, 1st July.

  Haidong was basically a subjugated city. It had been upgraded from a prefecture to a prefecture-level city a little more than three years earlier, but now it might as well have been considered a district of Xining.

  The people of Haidong were afraid. As many of them as could manage had left the area: the last census had reported a population of over one point three million and, if forced to estimate, Andrea would have guessed that over a quarter of those had run. As far as Andrea was concerned, that was fine because it gave her a choice of places to stay and even allowed her to move locations if she thought she was in danger.

  Andrea had spent the last sixteen days in Haidong, and most of the last fifteen nights spying on General Xue’s army in Xining. The general, it seemed, had developed powers of some sort thanks to the energy bu
rst, and those powers allowed him to take control of a substantial contingent of troops. He was basically a super-powered warlord and he was trying to take control of large swathes of the country. Maybe with just the troops he had, that would have been difficult, but Xue had somehow managed to turn Guàiwù into his pet monster. Faced with a ravening, radioactive lizard-creature and an army, people were electing to give up rather than fight.

  Xue was another product of the Guardian ship exploding over China, a pompous, self-aggrandising petty dictator. Andrea was going to have to deal with him before she left the country.

  The sound of boots outside the door pulled Andrea’s attention from the bowl of rice she was eating. The house had no lights on, since she did not need light to see. The neighbours did not come to visit here and probably did not know she was there. This was probably someone else. The door was pushed, the lock holding it shut, and Andrea pulled the darkness around her, reached out for her sword, and then got to her feet, waiting.

  The door was smashed open and three men in Chinese Army uniforms rushed in. Each was armed with the latest QBZ-95-1 assault rifles. Andrea smiled. The uniforms had red epaulets: these were Xue’s people and she had seen enough for now. As the men realised that the blackness inside the room was more than just a normal lack of light, she let the fear slide over them and allowed them to realise they had stumbled into a situation they were not prepared for. They had come looking for insurgents, spies. They had found something far worse.

  Two of the men fainted on the spot. The third let out a wail of terror and lifted his weapon, spraying bullets into the darkness as he turned, trying to find a target. The rifle’s bolt slammed down on an empty chamber and the soldier fumbled for the magazine release. Andrea stepped in before he could find it and sliced through his neck in one, clean swipe of her sword.

  Someone was shouting from outside. ‘What is going on? Report!’ Sergeant or lieutenant, the leader of the squad had waited outside as his men entered.

  Andrea headed for the door, her shadows sweeping out ahead of her. She saw the fourth man’s eyes widen as a cloud of black exploded from the door and swept down on him. Then his eyes rolled back in his head and he crumpled to the ground.

  Andrea paused, scanning around for signs of life. There were no more soldiers. Her neighbours had not come out to see what the shooting was about. Good enough. She would see that these men never bothered anyone again, and then she would pack up and leave. It was time to move on again. She had things to do.

  New Millennium City, MD, 2nd July.

  Denny was a very powerful computer. Compared to the run-of-the-mill systems she occasionally interacted with, Denny was some form of silicon goddess. Not that there was an excessive amount of silicon in her core processing elements, but she felt that the analogy was applicable. She frequently had to slow herself down alarmingly when communicating with external equipment, even the systems belonging to the Union of Ultrahumans.

  She was also exceptionally reliable. The fact that various external devices she talked to were not was another source of occasional irritation, but she had learned to be patient. She had learned that, when something failed, it could take some time for a human to intervene to correct the problem. Still, an hour to reset a router was a little much.

  ‘Penny, I have an operational problem I should make you aware of.’

  Penny looked up at the wall screen – which was not where Denny was, but it had become a habit – and frowned. ‘Is there something wrong with you?’

  ‘Not with my systems. I am currently not receiving various municipal camera feeds, including the ones at the airport and important street cameras. I am, therefore, unable to provide the watch coverage I normally do.’

  ‘Oh. Do you know what the problem is?’

  ‘It would appear that the router providing the streams has failed. It is not responding in any way. It has been down for one hour, three minutes, and thirty-seven seconds.’

  Penny smiled at the accuracy. ‘I guess you should call through to the city’s IT department and tell them it’s down.’

  ‘I will do so immediately.’

  Nodding, Penny returned to the book she was reading. After a minute or so, she looked back up. ‘Does this happen a lot, Denny? Router failures, I mean.’

  ‘More frequently than I would like,’ Denny replied sourly. ‘That said, a complete failure like this has never happened before. I have recorded two instances of software errors blocking all feeds. In those cases, I could still access the router at a protocol level. It is far more common for individual camera feeds to fail for short periods.’

  ‘Okay. Maybe they’ve got a serious problem with that router then.’

  ‘I have notified the help desk of the situation. They indicated that they would see what they could do.’

  ‘Uh-huh. That sounds like something a help desk would do. Did they suggest power-cycling the equipment at our end?’

  ‘Why yes, they did.’

  ‘That definitely sounds like something a help desk would do.’

  22nd July.

  The big headline of the day had shifted slightly when the evening news came on. It all seemed like it was going the same way, until the presenter dropped the bombshell.

  ‘Having received the official nomination of the GOP, the Kilmer/Montrose ticket received a massive boost when Captain Freedom came out in support of Senator Kilmer this afternoon.’

  Penny’s head snapped around. ‘He what?’

  ‘This is unprecedented for the national hero, who avoided political affiliations in prior elections. Asked about this change of policy, Captain Freedom had this to say.’

  The image changed to show Freedom at a podium. ‘I have never before felt a strong affinity for the policies of a candidate. I have spoken with Senator Kilmer and I believe that he will make an excellent president for this nation.’

  ‘Mute!’ Penny squeaked. ‘Oh Hell.’

  ‘It’s not exactly good for Hart,’ June said, ‘but why are you so upset?’

  ‘Because the other candidates are going to come asking for Cygnus to endorse them. Because Captain Freedom shouldn’t be stuffing his nose into national politics. Because this is going to mess things up good and proper. Take your pick.’

  ‘The current polls suggest that Captain Freedom’s endorsement has put Senator Kilmer well ahead,’ Denny said. ‘A fully audited reaction will not be available until tomorrow, but the trend is toward a large Republican win at the election.’

  ‘Swell,’ Penny grumbled.

  ‘There is another matter I wished to bring up,’ Denny went on, ‘and now would seem as good a time as any.’

  ‘What is it, Denny?’

  ‘My monitoring of internet activity is indicating a downturn in Cygnus’s popularity.’

  ‘Why?’ June asked, frowning. ‘I haven’t noticed–’

  ‘She remains popular on most of the sites you read, June,’ Denny said, not mentioning that June mostly read the slash-fiction sites. ‘There has been a rise in negative sentiment regarding “aliens” and the possibility of alien invasion. Senator Kilmer is riding this wave to some extent. He has enthusiastically backed Captain Freedom’s call for defensive systems in space. A number of posters have described Cygnus as an alien and appear to be reluctant to change their opinion despite the evidence against it.’

  There was a moment of silence. ‘On the bright side,’ Penny said, ‘if the other candidates are monitoring that kind of thing, they won’t be interested in me endorsing them.’

  ‘I never took you for that kind of optimist, Pen,’ June replied.

  Penny shrugged. ‘I work with what I’ve got.’

  29th July.

  ‘There are cars approaching,’ Denny announced, and the screen changed to show two black town cars on the drive up to the house.

  ‘UID?’ June asked.

  ‘No idea,’ Penny said, heading for their bedroom. ‘I’ll get it.’

  ‘I do not believe these are UID vehicle
s,’ Denny said. On the screen, the picture changed to an angle from the front of the house. The two cars were coming to a stop, and then they were disgorging men and women in dark suits, all of them wearing sunglasses. ‘These are Secret Service agents,’ Denny said. Another woman stepped out of the rear of the two cars, dressed in a short, pin-striped dress and holding a small black purse. She did not look like any sort of agent. ‘And that,’ Denny added, ‘is Francesca Hart.’

  ‘Crap,’ Cygnus muttered as she emerged from the bedroom in an emergency sweater-dress. ‘I bet I know what this is about.’

  The Democrats had held their convention through the week and Hart had won their nomination with a comfortable, if not huge, majority. The pundits were suggesting that her choice of running mate was helping: Stephen Walker was a former senator for Vermont, politically experienced, and well liked. Penny and June had avoided much of the coverage of the convention, as they had done with the Republican one, but they had had trouble avoiding all of it. The Democrats were in a weak position and needed all the help they could get. Perhaps Hart had been persuaded to come to see Cygnus, perhaps it was her own idea, but either way, the woman was after an endorsement from perhaps the second-best-known hero in the country at the moment.

  Cygnus opened the door just as the bell rang. ‘Mrs Hart,’ Cygnus said, smiling, ‘what can I do for you?’

  Francesca Hart was an attractive woman. Five-foot-ten in flats, fit and shapely. She had a longish face with prominent cheekbones and a slim, straight nose. Brown hair with just a hint of red in it fell in curls to her shoulders. She had deep, dark-brown eyes under quite heavy eyebrows and full lips. She wore minimal makeup, but her coat-dress was mid-thigh and showed off her figure well. Black pumps with a couple of inches of heel made her an inch or so taller than Cygnus, who was in bare feet.

  She smiled warmly. ‘I was hoping we could have a little talk about big things.’ She had a pleasant voice with a hint of a Californian accent. She was a lawyer, and a fairly good one, and that voice had to work for her.

  ‘I guess you’d better come in,’ Cygnus said, glancing back at her Secret Service detail.