Waypoint Kangaroo

by Curtis C. Chen

  “You’re saying he did it for fun?”

  “Not exactly.” Santamaria stops pacing. “But Bartelt was running Wachlin. He was giving orders.”

  My headache has abated slightly. I stand up. “That device we found in his closet. He was hiding comms inside the ship’s existing network.”

  Santamaria nods. “And inexperienced operators don’t always follow orders to the letter.”

  “So you’re saying Wachlin went off-script, and Bartelt had to scramble to salvage the mission.”

  “It’s a common problem within terrorist organizations,” Santamaria says. “Zealots need to be micromanaged.”

  “Bartelt did look pretty annoyed when Rogers visited him,” Jemison says. “Angry, even.”

  “Okay, but we’re saying D.Int is behind this. The head of Non-Territorial Intelligence. The man who runs all of the agency’s surveillance and recon assets throughout the entire Solar System.” My headache’s coming back. “If this is his op, he’ll have contingency plans up the wazoo. He must have anticipated that either Bartelt or Wachlin would get captured.” I should stop staring at the captain. “He knew you were on board. Would he really think he could hide all this from you? And why? We crash into Mars and it’s war. There’s no other possible outcome. Who benefits from that?”

  “Well,” Santamaria says, “I know someone we can ask.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Dejah Thoris—Crew elevator

  24 hours until we hit Mars and start another war

  Jemison gets a call on her radio as our elevator descends to the lower decks. Santamaria and I exit the elevator when it reaches the holding area, but Jemison stays inside.

  “I need to go work security,” she says. “Rumors are spreading. Passengers are panicking. Some don’t want to get in the lifeboats. We need to break up the crowds before they turn into mobs.”

  “Go,” Santamaria says. Jemison nods as the elevator doors close.

  Danny and Mike are guarding Jerry Bartelt. Danny is in the corridor, just outside the door to the holding area, leaning against the wall. As soon as he notices Santamaria and me approaching, Danny steps forward and stands up straight.

  “Captain,” Danny says. “Mr. Rogers.”

  “At ease, Mr. Egnor,” Santamaria says. “Any trouble from the prisoner?”

  “No, sir,” Danny says. “Mike’s been checking in every five minutes. No problems.”

  “Is that standard procedure?” I ask. I can’t imagine drunk and disorderly passengers would merit that kind of constant attention.

  “No,” Danny says, “but the chief told us to watch this guy real close. Said he’s dangerous.”

  “He is,” Santamaria says. “Open it up.”

  Danny nods and taps his radio button. “Got two coming in, Mike.”

  The door slides open with a pneumatic hiss—I note that it’s not a simple hinged affair, which makes it that much harder to force open, and probably has an interlock to keep it closed even in case of power failure. It’s almost as if Jemison expected she’d have to keep a dangerous prisoner in here at some point.

  Bartelt’s cell is at the far end of the compartment, the last of six small berths fitted with clear acrylic panels for doors. Mike is standing in front of that last cell, with his back up against the door and both hands clutching at his neck.

  Santamaria mutters a curse and calls back to Danny. I rush forward and blink my eye into scanning mode. The Faraday cage disrupts active scan frequencies, but it doesn’t stop the rest of the EM spectrum from showing through and registering on my passive sensors.

  The transparent doors on these cells give a clear view of each holding cell, presumably to minimize the chances of prisoners getting up to too much mischief inside. Each clear panel has a series of breathing holes cut into it, making a dotted line across the midsection of each cell door. The holes aren’t large enough to fit anything bigger than a writing stylus through—they’re designed to be the only ventilation in the cell.

  Despite all those safeguards, Jerry Bartelt was able to slip a loop of piezoelectric filament cord through one of the air holes and maneuver it around Mike’s neck. I can see the glowing outline of the filament ending at Bartelt’s right wrist. It must be a garrote implant, but I can’t see the reel that should be under his skin.

  That’s when I realize: I can’t see anything. On its current setting, my eye should be able to pick out most of the equipment that Bartelt must have surgically hidden in his body. There’s got to be a computer core, a power source, and at least one comms package implanted somewhere, not to mention the garrote he’s got around Mike’s neck. But I can’t see any of that.

  It’s not until I get closer that I notice it. There’s a slight sensor shimmer all over Bartelt’s body—an interference grid built into his skin itself, masking certain EM frequencies. I can see his biological heat map, but his implanted tech is camouflaged. I’ve heard Jessica and Oliver talk about Science Division working on ways to “cloak” a field agent’s implants—it’s one research area where their two normally disjoint areas of expertise overlap. There still isn’t a way to do it without dangerous chemicals, unstable power sources, or both.

  So either Jerry Bartelt’s got toxic fibers surgically woven into his epidermis, or he’s been given some exotic gene therapy that alters his body chemistry and will probably kill him before he’s forty. In either case, my key takeaway from this bit of reconnaissance is that he’s crazy, and the people running him are even crazier.

  “Quantico?” Bartelt says. He’s looking directly at me. Santamaria is just coming up next to me, with Danny close behind, his stunner drawn and aimed at the cell. He’s got no hope of accomplishing anything useful with it, but I understand his need to do something.

  “Are you talking to me?” I say, hoping to distract and delay him while Santamaria figures out how to deal with this.

  “You’re in Operations,” Bartelt says. “You’ve got the eye, a comms unit under your collarbone, and wireless implants in your torso. Where did you train in hand-to-hand?”

  “Let me think,” I say. “Yeah. That would have been last week, in a cheap motel near Miami Beach, with your mother. She didn’t have great control, but she did some very interesting things with her legs.”

  This is not my finest hour. I really hope you’re thinking up a brilliant plan back there, Captain.

  The only reaction I get from Bartelt is a slow grin that spreads over his face like an oil slick. “Open this cell or I cut his head off.”

  I guess he’s decided he isn’t going to get anywhere talking to me. He’s looking at Santamaria now.

  “Then you’d be free,” Santamaria says, “and you’d kill him anyway.”

  “Maybe,” Bartelt says. “Maybe not. Can you afford to take that chance?”

  I have no idea what Santamaria’s thinking, and that’s a problem. We didn’t come in here expecting to deal with a hostage situation, so we didn’t have a plan. Bartelt, on the other hand, has had hours alone in his cell to think up an escape scheme.

  Escape. He wants to escape. That means—

  Gotcha, you son of a bitch.

  I move out of the corner, getting closer to Bartelt, upstaging Santamaria. “What do you know about the hijacking?” I ask.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see Santamaria shoot me a burning look. Yeah, he thinks I’m being an idiot, panicking and giving away information when we should be trying to get it out of Bartelt. I hope he’ll catch on and follow my lead.

  “Hijacking?” Bartelt says. “I don’t know anything about that.”

  He’s replaced his grin with a very convincing frown. Convincing, but not perfect. He wasn’t prepared for me to volunteer such an important piece of information. I can tell he’s lying. And if I can tell, the captain can tell.

  Santamaria puts a hand on my shoulder. I turn my head and hope he can read my expression. I’m not really an idiot, Captain. Come on, put it together!

  His eyes are dark
, bottomless pools, and I can’t read them. I raise my eyebrows and flick my eyes upward, as if looking through the ceiling, up where Jemison went to help with the evacuation. Lifeboats. Escape. Come on!

  Santamaria leans in close to me and says, “I’ll handle this.” He’s turned the right side of his face toward Bartelt, in profile, and he gives me a quick wink with his left eye.

  I do my best not to exhale or otherwise show how relieved I am.

  Santamaria turns to face Bartelt. “You know who I am. And I know who your boss is. Let’s not waste time. What are his demands?”

  Bartelt chuckles. “Wrong game, Captain.”

  “He’s threatening to kill half of Mars,” Santamaria says.

  “Actually, you are,” Bartelt says. “To no one’s surprise, the hero of Elysium Planitia is still bitter about what happened on that battlefield. Your manifesto is quite eloquent. It’ll be the top story on every news service tomorrow.”

  Santamaria grits his teeth. “So he’s completely insane.”

  “Like many Independence War veterans, you disagreed with the terms of the armistice,” Bartelt says. “You never stopped fighting for your beliefs. Even if it had to be in secret.”

  “And what beliefs are those?”

  “Humanity united.” Bartelt says it solemnly, like a pledge. “One people, many worlds.”

  “There’s no guarantee Earth would win another war,” Santamaria says.

  “Once again, we disagree. But it doesn’t matter.” Bartelt grins. “The war’s the thing, Captain. Have you forgotten all that history you studied? Armed conflict advances civilization. Nothing spurs innovation like the fear of violent mass murder. Everybody wins.”

  “I’m intrigued,” Santamaria says. “Tell me more. Is it too late for me to switch sides?”

  Bartelt stops smiling. “Open this cell or your man dies.”

  Mike’s eyes are wide, and I can’t tell if it’s from lack of oxygen or fear of dying. He looks from me to Santamaria to Danny. His fingers haven’t stopped scrabbling against the wire, but he can’t get any purchase. The line is digging into his neck. Small droplets of blood are starting to form around the incipient cut. I don’t know if the filament can actually slice through bone, but I’m sure none of us is eager to find out.

  Santamaria takes a step back. “You’ll have to release him before we can open the door.”

  Bartelt shakes his head. “No deal.”

  “Do you see any hinges on these panels?” Santamaria says. “They retract into the ceiling. If you’ve still got that wire around his neck, it’ll drag both of you up.”

  “I’ll survive,” Bartelt says.

  “You have to release the wire to exit the cell,” Santamaria says. “That will leave you vulnerable to being stunned.”

  “No,” Bartelt says, “because your other guard is going to give me his stunner.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  I can see Bartelt’s annoyance increasing. “He can’t tag me through this Faraday cage anyway—”

  “What’s a Faraday cage?”

  “Don’t insult my intelligence,” Bartelt snaps. “His stunner’s useless. And I’ll kill his friend if he doesn’t hand it over.”

  Santamaria stares at Bartelt for a moment longer, then turns to Danny.

  “Do it,” Santamaria says.

  Danny hesitates.

  “Do it!” Santamaria repeats.

  Danny flinches and lowers his arms. His hesitation wasn’t long enough to merit a barked order like that, but I know what the captain’s doing: he’s creating the appearance of dissension within his ranks. I started it by seeming to volunteer information, and Danny’s reluctance is continuing to sell our performance. I hope Santamaria’s got a good finale planned.

  The stunner leaves Danny’s hands and tumbles to the floor.

  “Good,” Bartelt says. “Now open this door.”

  He’s collected both ends of the garrote in his right hand, leaving his left hand free to grab the stunner. I briefly wonder how he’s going to get through the Faraday cage, but then I remember that the conductive mesh isn’t terribly sturdy. It wasn’t designed to be used on its own; both in the cargo container and here in the holding cell, it needed structural support from another, stronger enclosure. Once the cell door slides away, Bartelt can just punch through the mesh and grab the stunner.

  Santamaria makes a show of inhaling deeply and then sighing. He raises both his hands and says to Danny, “Go ahead.”

  “Yes, sir,” Danny says in a tight voice. He swipes his thumb against the lockpad and enters an access code.

  The next few things happen almost too quickly for me to follow.

  First, the clear panel of Bartelt’s cell hisses open. The door doesn’t move very quickly, but it’s fast enough to surprise me. Mike and Bartelt are both dragged upward by the wire around Mike’s neck, just as Santamaria predicted, but Bartelt releases his hold on the wire before his own head hits the top of the cell.

  As Mike bounces off the ceiling and falls forward, Bartelt dives toward the stunner on the floor. Santamaria, Danny, and I have also started moving. I’m the closest one to Mike, and I need to catch him and get his body out of the way of whatever Santamaria is planning to do. Danny behaves like a good security guard, going after his weapon before it falls into the wrong hands.

  Santamaria rockets toward Bartelt, using his right arm to intercept Danny and knock him away. Santamaria extends his left arm and reaches the edge of the Faraday cage at the same time Bartelt rips through it.

  Just as Bartelt’s hand touches the stunner on the ground, Santamaria’s fingers grab his hair and jerk his head backward. Bartelt grunts as both men fall away from me and crash into the back wall of the cell. Danny grabs his stunner. Mike slams into me, and I wrap my arms around him and spin myself backward, cushioning our fall.

  Mike’s weight knocks the wind out of me, and it takes me a moment to refocus my eyes and look around.

  Santamaria has his right arm around Bartelt’s neck in a chokehold. He’s kicking and struggling, but the captain is holding him tight. I can see Bartelt’s face changing color. He’ll be unconscious in a matter of seconds—unless he’s got some crazy body modification that lets him hold his breath for hours.

  Fortunately, he doesn’t. Bartelt’s body goes limp, and I relax a little when Santamaria releases his head and lowers his left arm. But he keeps Bartelt in the chokehold, and then I see Santamaria’s left hand come back up holding what appears to be an antique hunting knife with a ten-centimeter blade.

  I’m too confused to say anything until Santamaria puts the blade to Bartelt’s shoulder.

  “Whoa!” I say. “We can’t question him if he’s dead!”

  Santamaria shoots me the absolute epitome of a dirty look. “I don’t murder people.”

  I hold up my hands. “Okay, then, what’s with the knife?”

  “I’m going to remove his communications package,” Santamaria says.

  I blink. “You’re going to cut out his shoulder-phone?”

  “Yes.”

  “With a hunting knife and no anesthetic.”

  “I need you and Danny to hold him down.”

  “With all due respect, Captain, you need your head examined.” In my peripheral vision, I can see Danny and Mike moving closer, and I wonder if they’ll agree with me. This is a civilian vessel, but it’s still insubordination if they disobey a direct order. “If you want to keep him from using his comms, I can jam his frequency with my own transmitter—”

  “For fuck’s sake, Rogers,” Santamaria says, “why do you think he wanted out of the cell?”

  “To get off the ship, right? Because he knows—”

  Santamaria frowns at me. “This was a suicide mission. Neither of these men expected to walk away.”

  “He wanted to get out of the Faraday cage,” Danny says. “So he could use his comms.”

  There’s only one person Bartelt could talk to via his shoulder-phone. And the
re’s only one reason Santamaria would want to remove Bartelt’s shoulder-phone instead of just jamming it.

  Even I’ve never had an idea this bad before.

  “He’s going to know it’s us,” I say.

  “Not if you do your job right,” Santamaria says. “Danny, hold his legs. Mike, are you well?”

  “Yes, sir,” Mike says. His voice sounds hoarse, but there’s no hesitation in his tone. “Want me to grab his arms?”

  “Please.”

  Danny and Mike move into position, pinning down Bartelt’s limbs. Santamaria drags the knife across Bartelt’s shirt. The fabric tears open, and Santamaria rips it away to reveal Bartelt’s skin underneath.

  “Okay, let’s stop and think about this for a second,” I say. “That comms package is a very specialized piece of hardware. You can’t just take it up to the radio room and plug it in. You’re going to need something that can interface with—”

  Santamaria’s smiling now. It’s really unsettling.

  “I think we need to involve a medical professional at this point,” I say.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Dejah Thoris—Deck D, Sickbay

  23 hours until we hit Mars and everybody dies

  The surgery doesn’t take long. After expressing strenuous objections on the record, Dr. Sawhney puts Bartelt and me in adjoining beds, administers a local anesthetic, and then makes matching shallow incisions in our shoulders. I flinch as nanobot-filled blood bubbles out of my body and the doctor siphons it away.

  “Almost done,” he says, misinterpreting my discomfort.

  We’re joined by a crewman with short brown hair, dark eyes, and a slim build. Santamaria introduces him as Fritz Fisher, the acting chief engineer. Fritz sets up a portacomp to which Sawhney attaches the data cables leading from the subcutaneous access ports on Bartelt’s and my comms implants.

  “How do you feel, Mr. Rogers?” Sawhney asks, setting the portacomp on a tray clipped to the railings between the beds.

  “Like I’ve got a hole in my chest,” I say. I look down at the bandage covering my left collarbone. There’s a small spot of blood seeping through the gauze.