“I have your nephew.”
Her eyes widened for a split second. “And Ming? You have her?”
Anthony shrugged.
“Don’t be coy with me, Anthony! Do you have her or not?”
“Temper, Xi, temper. I have her. ”
“Good, then we can—”
“But she stays here for now.”
The woman’s nostrils flared. “We had a deal, Anthony.”
He sat back in his chair. “No, you had the opportunity to make a deal when you had me at a disadvantage, but you refused. Now, I hold the advantage and there are new terms.”
Xi’s green-lacquered nails tapped her glass desktop. Anthony suppressed a little surge of glee.
“What do you propose?” she said.
“The safe return of your nephew for the manufacture of an initial batch of my nanites. If I’m satisfied with the quality of your work, we can discuss more work—and further payment.”
Xi steepled her fingers together. “I propose—”
“This is not a negotiation, Xi,” Anthony interrupted harshly. “This will go one of two ways: either you accept young Ruben and the possibility of getting Ming in the future, or I will announce on YourVoice that Ming Qinlao, the current CEO of Qinlao Manufacturing, is alive and well and under my protection. How would that play with your board, Xi?”
The soft skin of her neck fluttered as she swallowed. Xi nodded curtly. “You can send the specifications back with my nephew.”
“Thank you. I’ll be in touch with the arrangements.”
Xi’s smile had all the warmth of an arctic sunrise.
“Thank you for your business, Mr. Taulke.”
Anthony killed the connection, but his fingers worried at the glass edge of his desk. It was done. He didn’t expect Ming to understand, but he would not accept failure as his legacy. Sacrifices must be made .
He strode to the windows. Tony had assigned him a new office overlooking the ruddy canyons of Valles Marineris. From orbit, the collection of rocky regions appeared as a jagged scar across the planet surface. From this vantage point, during the soft Martian twilight, it almost felt like he was looking across the vista of a rocky seabed.
His retinal display pinged. A message from Earth. General William Graves. Anthony eye-scanned acceptance.
“General Graves, I’ve been expecting your call,” Anthony said.
Graves looked worn, his face lined like tanned leather. Saving the world was taking its toll. Anthony could relate.
“Mr. Taulke,” Graves said. He sounded uncomfortable, like he’d made the call against his better judgment.
“Anthony, please.” He took in the silver stars on his collar. “And congratulations on the promotion, General. Well deserved.”
“No rest for the wicked is what my grandmother would have said,” Graves replied with a faint smile.
“H told me about your new role in the president’s plan to relocate people off-world. I’d like to offer my assistance.”
Graves seemed relieved to be getting down to business. “Right. How many can Mars take?”
Fifty thousand, max, Tony’s voice said in his head.
“One hundred thousand,” Anthony said. The positive press alone would sell Tony.
Graves’s eyebrows shot up. If he had considered holding a poker face during negotiations, he’d failed.
“Not enough?” Anthony suggested.
“No, sir,” Graves said. “I mean—it’s more than we hoped for. ”
“Tony’s doing incredible things on the planet,” Anthony said, hoping his smile looked sincere. “Rapid construction, modular housing, prefabricated, 3-D printing of—well, I won’t bore you with the details.”
“I wish he’d been the contractor on my last house.”
Anthony chuckled. “How are you set for transport? I can send ships if you need them.”
“Anything you can spare,” Graves said. “No one thought we’d be moving this many people this quickly.”
“Understood. I can send escorts, too.”
Graves appeared both concerned and curious. “Escorts? Military escorts?”
Raising a placating hand, Anthony said, “Security vessels only, General. Converted freighters and mining ships mostly.”
“That’s very generous of you, Anthony, I’m glad we’re on the same side here.”
“Indeed.” Anthony cleared his throat. “And speaking of sides, I could use some help on my end…”
“Yes?” Graves crossed his arms and waited.
“The New Earth Order, General,” Anthony said, plunging ahead. “I need to know what you know. Everything you know.”
Chapter 13
Luca Vasquez • Haven 6, Blue Earth, Minnesota
Luca scooped up Frack the rat and placed his frail carcass in a small box. She detached the electrical leads, looped them around her hand, and placed the neat coil on the workbench.
“Maybe the pulse was too strong,” Jeremy Cabbot said. To him, the animals were just tools in an experimental process, no different from Bunsen burners or computers.
Luca grunted a noncommittal response, not trusting herself to speak just yet.
It’s just a stupid rat .
Her eyes roved over the lab, looking for something to do. She moved to the sink, rearranging the test tubes and the packages of unopened hypodermics on the counter. Anything to keep her hands busy, her mind occupied with other things.
Jeremy followed her. “We could use the other rat and modify the—”
“No,” Luca snapped. She controlled her breathing before turning to face her lab assistant. “No,” she continued in a gentler tone. “They’re too important, too valuable, to waste on guessing. We need a better hypothesis.”
Jeremy let out a huff that made her want to strangle him. Then, after a moment: “Want me to put it in storage?”
“Sure,” she said, realizing Jeremy probably thought he was doing something kind for her.
Technically, they were equals, but General Graves considered Luca the lead researcher in charge of finishing Markov’s work. Jeremy had resented her position in the lab from day one.
“I’m going for a walk,” she called after him. She opened her office door and whistled for Leroy. “Just so we’re clear, you do not have permission to conduct animal tests while I’m out.”
Jeremy’s expression contorted, confirming her worst fears.
She considered taking the cat and the other rat with her. “I mean it,” she said in as menacing a tone as she could manage. She stared at him until he nodded.
Luca led Leroy from the lab, his nails clicking on the metal floor. Haven 6 was more industrial in design than military, with molded, heavy-duty plastic walls and plain, block-lettered signs. Leroy held his head high, like he knew he was the only dog allowed on the medical deck.
The pair passed the security station that marked the entrance to the secure wing where Luca worked. The guard nodded as his eyes dropped to his scanner. Luca was not allowed to take any notes out of the lab and Hannah said it was very important she not speak about her research to anyone, which was a little ironic considering that’s how she met Hannah in the first place.
Officially, they were investigating medical implant devices. Unofficially, they were trying to figure out a way to disconnect a Neo’s brain from the subspace network run by the religious mystic Cassandra.
At the nurse’s station, Elly, the nurse on duty, peered over the high counter at Leroy. He knew his audience and wagged his tail.
“How is she today?” Luca asked.
Elly’s expression fell. “Same as yesterday.”
Walking into her sister’s room, Luca wondered if all the nurses thought she was an idiot. There was nothing wrong with Donna. But, at Graves’s order, she was being held in a medically induced coma until Luca could figure out a way to turn off the Neo implant in her head. At her current rate of progress, that would be a very long time.
“No te preocupes por mi, hermana ma
yor, ” Luca imagined Donna saying, followed by a snort of teenage bravado.
I’ll always worry about you. And English, D!
She sat on the edge of the bed and stroked Donna’s forehead. The girl’s pale skin was warm and responsive. At times like these, the weight of Luca’s choices crushed her. Donna was a child, not a doll to be kept in storage until…
She stopped herself. If not for Jansen and Graves, they might both be dead already. She needed to set aside emotional, irrational, short-term thinking and focus on the future. She’d made a deal: Donna could stay, but her implant had to be made “inert”—Captain Jansen’s term. When Luca figured out a way to turn off the nanites infecting her sister’s brain, then Donna was her first patient.
Luca gritted her teeth. Donna was just another lab rat to these people, no better than Leroy, who was now scratching at her knee .
“Am I interrupting?” Jansen stood in the doorway, her rank insignia glinting on her collar, sleeves rolled up on her workday jumpsuit. “I heard about the rat, Luca. I’m sorry. I know you two were close.”
“His name was Frack.” Luca laughed in spite of herself. “I know I’m being all emo, but I’m worried, Hannah. I’m running out of ideas.” She blinked back tears. “If I can’t figure this out…”
Jansen shut the door behind her and sat next to Luca on the bed. Leroy rested his chin on the top of the captain’s boot.
“Don’t think like that, Luca. You’ll figure it out. Markov had the pieces of the puzzle. You just have to put them together.”
“I don’t think this puzzle has edges!” Luca said. “He talked about a trigger signal that could turn the nanites off, but he never found it. It could be anywhere in the EM spectrum—blue-light waves or ultra-high-frequency gamma pulses. We’re just guessing.”
Hannah stood and held out her hand. “C’mon.”
Luca looked back at Donna. “Where are we going?”
“Just come with me. You need a break.” She looked at Leroy. “You too.”
Hannah walked at a quick pace as if she knew the exercise would be good for Luca. “Where are we going?” Luca asked again. The other woman flashed her a fleeting smile over her shoulder but no reply. Leroy trotted along happily, glad for the adventure.
In the elevator, Hannah said, “Garden level.”
They began to descend.
“There’s a garden level?”
“Wait’ll you see it. ”
When the doors opened, the scent of freshly turned soil and green things flooded the lift. Luca inhaled deeply and followed Hannah. Simulated sunshine bathed her face with warmth. Leroy’s nose hovered over the deck, his nostrils quivering with delight.
“This level is twice the normal height of most, and we plant everything in these stacked rows for efficiency.” Jansen pointed to row after row of plants reaching upward. “Above this deck is a fish tank. We pump its nutrient-rich water into the hydroponic levels to grow vegetables.”
Luca sniffed again. “But I smell dirt.”
Hannah grinned. “So you do. Follow me.” She led them through so many different types of vegetables that Luca lost count. As they neared the last row, the scent of dirt grew stronger and another familiar smell tickled Luca’s senses.
“I smell oranges,” she said.
“Yes, you do.” Jansen stepped through a doorway into a grove of fruit trees.
The tart, sweet smell transported Luca back to her home in Mexico. “Where I grew up in Veracruz, we had an orange tree in our backyard. In season, my father would send me outside—Donna was just a baby then—to pick an orange for breakfast.” She stopped, the words catching in her throat. “I haven’t had an orange since I left home.”
“Go pick one,” Jansen said.
Luca approached the tree and stood on her tiptoes to reach the fattest orange she could find. Hannah offered her an open pocketknife to cut the stem. The orange dropped into Luca’s hand, heavy with juice. She held it to her nose and breathed in the memories .
“Thank you, Hannah,” Luca said.
Even the normally stoic Captain Jansen looked a little misty-eyed. “You gonna share that orange?” she asked, her voice husky.
They walked and ate as Leroy ran in circles, his nose to the ground. “If this place had squirrels and rabbits, he’d be in heaven,” Luca laughed.
“Sorry, Leroy,” Hannah called, “no bunny rabbits for you.” She smiled at Luca. “Wanna see something cool? We keep bees as pollinators for the groves.”
“Real bees?”
Jansen nodded. “Much more efficient than pollinator drones. NSF has kept bee colonies in controlled living conditions for decades. Plus, we get honey.” She drew in a sharp breath. “Look, they’re swarming!”
A heavy droning sound filled the air, and Luca followed Hannah’s pointing finger to a thick tree branch that seemed to be moving. Luca squinted. The limb was covered with thousands of bees. “Are they dangerous?”
Jansen walked forward cautiously. “No, their stingers have been genetically deleted. I’ve never seen it, but I’ve been told touching a swarm is an amazing feeling.” She reached out, and hundreds of bees swirled around her arm. Hannah’s mouth opened in surprise. “Try it, Luca.”
Luca’s fingers shook as she extended her arm toward the bees as Hannah had done. When she touched the mass of insects, a few braves bees crawled down her fingers. Soon, her hand was consumed by a mass of yellow and black. She imagined thousands of tiny feet and antennae probing at her skin. “It tickles. ”
Jansen grinned. “My grandfather kept bees back home, before they went extinct. He told me how bees communicate. They exude pheromones, and they dance and send each other tiny electrical signals about danger and where the best nectar can be found.”
The air around them grew thick with flying bees, their wings beating a soothing harmonic. Leroy sat off by himself, watching them warily. A group swarmed toward him, then veered away when they got close. The air around the dog remained clear of bees, as if he was sitting in a bubble.
Luca watched this happen a few more times. Then, still covered with bees, she approached the dog.
At first singly, then by the handful, the bees peeled away from her arm. The closer she got to Leroy, the faster they fled. By the time she knelt beside the beagle, her arm was bare.
“Hannah, look at this.”
Jansen walked over and watched her own bee collection dissipate. “What the hell?”
Luca’s hands shook. She put on her data glasses and placed a call to Jeremy in the lab.
“Where have you been?” he demanded.
She ignored him. “Find everything you can on how bees communicate. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
• • •
Four days later, Luca’s workspace more resembled an apiary than a laboratory. Like so many complex problems, the answer was blindingly simple in hindsight.
True to their ethos, the New Earth Order had taken a lesson from nature. Building on how Apis mellifera —western honey bees—communicate, Luca discovered the Neo tattoo was actually a bio-based transceiver tuned to 190 hertz, the average frequency of a bee beating its wings. The pattern was clear in Markov’s data when she knew what to look for. Leroy’s implant had caused a constructive interference signal which drove the bees away when they flew near him.
Luca’s theory assumed the Neos had adapted the chordotonal organ from the insect’s antenna to create modern bio-circuits laid down in the organic ink of the tattoo itself. Injected through surgically precise tattoo needles, nanites—a brilliant hybrid of living organisms and programmed bots—embedded themselves in the brain stem to form a biochemical symbiosis with the host. Powered by the body’s naturally generated EM field, the nanites replaced certain DNA sequences with pre-programmed genetic coding that, once activated, made the host pliable to suggestion.
“You mean Cassandra figured out how to hack humans?” Graves asked.
“More or less,” Luca explained. “The Neo signal can
piggyback on any commercial transmission anywhere in the solar system.”
Jansen flashed Graves a horrified look. “Holy shit.”
“The nanites are integrated within the victim’s brain stem.” Luca flinched at her use of the word victim . That made Donna a victim. “They could be forced to do anything, and they might not even know it.”
“Like walk into a hurricane or dust storm, where their lives were in danger?” General Graves asked.
“Exactly. You could tell someone to shoot themselves and they’d have to do it. They’d be unable to resist. Because the nanites are powered at the cellular level, when cellular activity in the host ceases, the nanites disappear. That’s why no one has been able to identify them before.”
“Except Markov,” Jansen said.
“He created a rough prototype of the nanite tech,” Luca explained. “It functioned, crudely, in the same way. But the Neo implant is much more sophisticated. It’s like a work of bio-engineering art.”
“But you’ve figured out a way to turn them off?” Graves pressed.
“The bees gave me the first clue,” Luca continued. “Leroy’s implant repelled them, so I figured I could use that same frequency to overload the antenna and attack the nanites.”
Graves arched his chin, thinking. “The tattoo, you mean.”
“Exactly,” Luca said. “The brand relays signals between Cassandra and the host, like the mechanical versions Markov placed on the animals’ necks. Whenever Cassandra decides to activate an acolyte, she ‘wakes’ them by transmitting to the tattoo. If we hit them with a large enough signal on the right frequency, we cause a feedback loop and overload the system.”
“And you’ve tested this?” Graves said.
Luca nodded. “On Frick—the rat. The procedure stunned him, but he lived.” She hesitated. “But there’s a genetic component in this. A rat is different from a dog, and a dog is different from a person. The sequence and the dosage might not be the same. If I’m wrong…”
“And if you’re wrong?” Graves prompted.
Luca swallowed, unwilling to acknowledge what Graves was asking .
The general let out a sigh. “You performed the procedure successfully on a rat, so the next step is to try it on a different species, right? You have a dog?”
Cassandra's War: A Sci-Fi Corporate Technothriller (The SynCorp Saga Book 2) Page 12
