Crossover

by Joel Shepherd

  Emerged onto the second-floor balcony overlooking the atrium, beside the elevators. Tucked her pistol away as she went to the head of the main staircase, scanning the atrium. Two staffers were on duty at the main desk. A lone woman crossed the broad patterned carpet, past the smoothly carved wooden elephants. Besides her, the elephants and an idle luggage robot, the atrium was as empty as she'd have expected at this early hour.

  She descended the curving staircase, all senses primed. The water tinkling in the atrium fountain assaulted her eardrums, a sound like smashing glass. She noted the desk staff's demeanour. Even heat distribution, steady pulses. Not alarmed. She performed a brief, casual turn at the bottom of the staircase then walked to the desk. The woman on duty looked up with a customer-friendly smile.

  "Hi, I'm Stephanie Dravid from room 903. Have there been any messages left for me?" The woman appeared surprised.

  "Er ... yes, just ten minutes ago a handsome young man left you ..." She searched for a piece of notepaper. "... this." Producing the paper. Sandy took it. "He said his name was Mahud."

  Despite her control Sandy's heart nearly stopped. Resumed again, a fast, desperate thudding. Her fingers unfolded the notepaper, unhesitating. It was an address, written in pen. 113 Jardeja Road, Jardeja. She flashed the woman a smile.

  "Thank you." She pocketed the paper as she walked off, headed for the main exit. A quick scan of a city directory would have been safe enough, being a heavily travelled route, but she decided against it. She walked out the sliding main doors of the Chennai International Hotel and into the cold Tanushan night. Jardeja, the maglev station display told her, was in the northern development zone. Uninhabited. Somehow that didn't surprise her.

  She took the maglev to the nearest stop. From there, a connecting lightrail line performed a loop out near to the inhabited perimeter. From there she started walking.

  Meticulously planned city that it was, Tanusha's perimeter construction progressed in neatly outlined zones. At one point, a single main tower stood tall and proud, agleam with sophisticated lighting. To the south, metropolitan Tanusha, a seamless feast for the eye. To the north, all construction.

  Sandy walked along a deserted street under a recently completed ped-cover. An aircab stand stood new and empty. Work holes dotted the pavement, surrounded by barriers of orange safety tape—traffic control infrastructure being laid. The small-scale buildings to either side looked like regular, middle-density urban zoning, much like Vanessa's suburb of Santiello. That part of it anyway. Already, though, the large trees had been transplanted to line the roadside, missing in sections where the crews had not yet reached.

  All looked eerie and silent in the sporadic, yellow streetlight. Sandy's footsteps would have echoed, if she'd let them. She walked in the shadow of the ped-cover, hands buried deep in jacket pockets as she stepped around sections of incomplete paving, breath frosting in the cold night air.

  She took a shortcut across an open courtyard, surrounded by the multiple levels of a shopping complex and what would soon be outdoor café seating. For sale signs and exhibition schedules stood by the empty glass shopfronts. It was dark away from the streets. She kept her vision tuned for any sign of movement as she walked. Some birds had made a nest in a nearby tree. A red line of tiny paw-prints across a walkway marked the recent passing of an urban bunbun. Bats flitted overhead sporadically. Their sonar pulses felt strange to her ears. One species, she'd discovered, gave her a bad twitch, a signature that felt uncomfortably similar to a Federate-model personnel hand-tracker. Thankfully that species was uncommon. These were chasing insects. If she concentrated, she could hear the thrumming of leathery wings.

  A sign by a pathway displayed a local map. 113 Jardeja Road was clearly marked—it was a major tower. She glanced up. The tower loomed overhead, standard height for A-level Tanushan office space. That meant enormous. It looked complete, but no interior lights showed, only exterior navigation lights.

  Interesting. With combat reflexes raised, she allowed herself no more than that one, mildly curious thought. She did not ponder the possible identity of the man who had left her the message, or what it might mean. She knew it would distract her. She pulled the pistol from its holster, deactivated the safety and continued.

  * * * *

  113 Jardeja Road was, in typically Tanushan fashion, designed for style rather than security, although both were evident. Multi-level shopping malls stood deserted in the pale yellow streetlight opposite, newly installed windows blank and empty. Pedestrian walkways linked malls with the tower, in anticipation of the crowds, shoppers and retail commerce to come. In other districts workers toiled all night on generous benefits. Only weeks from opening, this subregion about Jardeja Road was slowly approaching completion. Things progressed more leisurely here. At this hour all was deserted.

  Everything was linked below ground, through the usual maze of malls, walkways and shopping thoroughfares that proliferated about Tanusha's commercial districts. Sandy got in through a road underpass, the only barrier some red tape and a warning sign. Beyond, the floor was bare concrete, messy with sand and recent construction. She walked softly, pistol in hand, vision-scanning the way ahead.

  Past empty recesses that would soon be shop-stalls, dark and echoing. Many were under development, shelves, counters and displays installed. Unadorned glass in the windows, reflecting no light. All dark and off-limits to casual wanderers.

  Several corners and bare corridors brought her to a web of security tape, making a red plastic wall of the way ahead. She paused, squatting against one wall, pistol ready. Parted the tape with the other hand, scanning on multiple spectrums. Beyond the tape were laser-trips, a series of red lines across the floor at knee height. Those were easy. The molecule-sniffer implanted in the wall beyond wasn't.

  She hooked into the local network, a quick rush of data-sensation ... frequency was bad here, underground, and the network incomplete, but she could get in as quietly as the League infiltration keys in her implants had ever allowed her to. Found the correct security branch and made a fast, clean access past the unimpressive civilian barriers, turning off the relevant systems. Quietly and without fuss or alarm, the red lines on the floor vanished. Sandy ripped the tape aside and strolled through. No alarm.

  More perils of an integrated network, she thought as she moved silently down the corridor beyond. If all systems were connected, then all systems could be accessed, legally or not. Military systems were frequently independent. It made info-networking a problem, but where security systems were concerned it was more important that they simply performed their job of preventing unauthorised access. The convenience of the user had to be balanced against the need to inconvenience the opposition. The latter was clearly more important.

  Up a long flight of steps from what she guessed would eventually become a food court and she was in the tower's main entrance foyer. Paused, scanning the broad, open floor. Tall glass on all sides, a huge, typically ostentatious space. Dark, but for the pale yellow streetlight beyond the glass, a splash of colour across the broad, shiny floor.

  An infrared scan moved across a nearby wall, and Sandy aimed her pistol... security droid, she guessed by the steadiness of the light, and the speed that it moved. Headed this way. She moved quickly and soundlessly across the floor, heading for a point where the foyer gave way to tall, marble walls and broad glass elevators. She jogged toward the stairway entrance. The door was locked. She hacked the system and opened it in barely three seconds flat. A long, steady climb up flight after flight. No more security though, which made things faster. If someone was using this tower as some kind of base, or was merely occupying it temporarily, they would probably be at the top. It had the best strategic view. And long drops were of little concern to a GI.

  Ten minutes later she was at the top. The top-level doors had not yet been installed. She stepped calmly through the opening, pistol tracking, all senses keen ... nothing. She was standing in the middle of the big, open, entirely deserted
top floor. Up here at the tower's narrower top the windows went around in a broad, 360-degree circle. Beyond the yellow-specked darkness of Jardeja, and the shadows of middle-distant, neighbouring towers, the lights of Tanusha proper sprawled with undimmed brilliance. Her shadow cast along the bare floor behind her at a hundred different angles, half of the window-circle alive with colour.

  She moved soundlessly across the deserted floor, turning in slow, gentle circles. Alert for traps—the floor rigged to blow, soldiers suspended above a window outside, ready to drop in and surprise her. She breathed through her nose, but smelt no explosive, no recent working of relevant tools. Her vision showed nothing but bare floor and windows ... and a doorway that led to the roof. She headed that way, moving cautiously. In Dark Star, she would have gone up out a window, or blasted through the ceiling, anything to avoid the deathtrap of a single entrance. But this was not Dark Star. Everything was different.

  The door was newly installed. Safe, her vision told her. She opened it fast, dropping to a knee, pistol straight-armed up the stairs. Empty stairwell. She followed it up, covering each turn, moving fast and without sound. Paused at the step by the door, listening. Tuned to the clear navi-beacon, a pulse from directly above. Active trackers, part of the aerial traffic network. And recalled the radio tower she'd observed from the ground. Formed that mental picture clearly and pushed open the door.

  Stood back from the doorway, cool in the night breeze. Braced for fire, crouching low, back to the wall a metre from the doorframe—a high-calibre weapon and a good guess from its wielder could have nailed her through the wall, and thus have lost the initiative. He who fired first against Sandy, and missed, was dead. One of her guys would have known that. One of her guys would be unlikely to take the risk.

  "Mahud!" she shouted. The stairwell interior made her voice echo, and pinpointing impossible. "Are you out there?"

  "Course I'm bloody out here!" a male voice replied, high above. "Where else would I be?"

  Combat nerves or not, Sandy's heart nearly stopped. She felt cold all over. Her skin prickled. The voice sounded familiar. She could hardly believe her ears.

  "I'm coming out!" she called. "If you shoot me, I'll be very angry!"

  "What do you think I am?" came the reply. "Stupid?"

  Sandy stepped out from the doorway. The tower rooftop was mostly flat, and mostly empty. Some nearby plant-holders suggested the beginnings of a garden. Railing ringed the perimeter. And in the middle, a broad gridwork transmission tower fenced with wire and warning signs.

  Up on a platform near the top sat a man. A long way up, legs swinging, leaning on the protective rail within the tower structure. Sandy stared, vision zooming ... oh God. Night breeze ruffled hair about her face as she stared upward, pistol dangling limply by her side. For a long, long moment, she could not move.

  Abruptly she sheathed the pistol in the shoulder holster, walked briskly to the tower and leapt ... cleared the fencing comfortably with a grab at the metal cross-supports, and swung herself inside to the personnel ladder. Scrambled up at high speed, feet and hands flying over the rungs. Past one level, then another, approaching the third ...

  And stopped, half emerged onto the top platform, staring at the man sitting directly before her. Light brown skin. Youthful, handsome features. An interesting nose ... she recalled, in a daze, that she had always thought so. Dressed in civvies, jeans and sports jacket, neatly groomed, the weight of a hand weapon in one pocket ... God, he looked like a Tanushan yuppie. His eyes were unblinking, intent.

  And slowly a broad, delighted smile spread across his face. Sandy swung around the ladder grip, slid in beside and hugged him, ferociously hard. Mahud hugged her back. For a long time they sat on cold, bare metal, locked together with force enough to bend steel, alone in the cool night air. Sandy's heart hammered frantically against her ribs. Combat reflexes all dissolved, barely able to breathe past the lump in her throat.

  "God," she gasped eventually, her voice tight, almost trembling. "I thought you were dead." Her voice cracked, tears blurring her vision.

  "I'm not dead," he told her, chin against her shoulder. Sounding almost calm, by comparison. And stating the obvious, Sandy realised, as always. She nearly laughed, but her throat seized up. She hugged him harder, a forceful rippling of shoulders and biceps, and felt a similar, steely tension in return. It'd been so long since she'd felt that from anyone but herself. She hadn't realised how much she'd missed it.

  She released him, and he followed suit. Sat back, staring him in the eyes, hands on his shoulders. Accumulated moisture spilled down her cheeks. Mahud was still grinning. Wiped the tears away with firm, gentle fingers.

  "You're crying," he stated. Sandy bit back a laugh with great effort. She felt totally unstable.

  "I'm so glad to see you," she explained. Mahud nodded knowingly, still grinning. Brushed hair back from her forehead with great affection.

  "Damn, you're pretty," he said. "I'd nearly forgotten how pretty you are." Sandy did laugh.

  "What about you? You look like some local millionaire's son," she tugged at the collar of his jacket. "What a stud!"

  He kissed her firmly on the lips. Sandy responded, kissing back deeply, wrapping her arms about him as his went about her, pulling each other close once more. It felt warm, and passionate, and desperately emotional, and it was a while before she could bear to stop.

  "Damn, this is hardly the place for a reunion," she gasped as they finally parted, and rested her head on his shoulder.

  "We could go some place warm," he suggested. Sandy laughed again, holding him close.

  "Maybe later." A pause, as the issues at hand began to sink back in. "Dammit Mahud, what are you even doing here? And how the hell are you still alive? I didn't fucking believe them when they told me everyone was dead, I hacked their files, I stole codes, I looked at everything! The entire fucking C&C thought you were dead. They'd confirmed it."

  Mahud sighed, resting his cheek on her hair. For a long moment he didn't reply. Sandy waited, struggling between impatience and the pleasure it gave her just to hold him a little longer.

  "You won't be mad at me if I tell you?" he asked finally.

  "Mad at you?" Sandy pulled away, staring him in the eyes. He looked very sombre, she thought. Almost thoughtful. From Mahud, that wasn't expected. Not that he was stupid. Just that... well, he was a GI. GI-43AU, she remembered his designation. In the higher range—not that that was a reliable indication of anything, intelligence-wise. He could be damn smart sometimes. He just wasn't much given to thoughtful introspection. Apart from herself, very few were. "What could I possibly be mad about?"

  "Kiss me again and I'll tell you." Which also surprised her. Subtle humour. She gazed at him, her mind spinning in circles, her world turned on its head once more ... she'd lost track of how many times that had happened in the past forty-eight hours alone. She was so used to being in control, and this ... this just wasn't fair.

  "It is you, isn't it Mahud?" she asked a little warily. "League admin haven't made some copy or something?" Mahud laughed outright, reaching into his shirtfront and pulling out a small symbol on a chain ... a silver crescent moon. A quick zoom showed his name engraved on the surface.

  "You gave it to me when the Indians were celebrating the month of Shravan," he told her, smiling broadly at the memory. "You said it wasn't exactly a rakhi, and I wasn't exactly your brother, but I was the closest thing to it so I might as well have it anyway." Sandy looked at it for a long moment. Remembering. And looked up.

  "And you remember what I told you about it?"

  "That the crescent moon was an Arabic symbol, and since my human ancestry is based on Arabic people, I ought to have it so it would remind me of my human origins."

  "And what did you think of that?"

  Mahud gave a wry, self-deprecating grin.

  "I thought you were nuts." Grinning wide as she smiled. "I mean, I'm a bloody GI. I don't have any ancestry. They just give us features and skin colour
s and names to make us fit in. It's just a bloody custom job."

  "And what do you think now?"

  Mahud's smile faded slightly. "I don't know. I think I know what you were trying to say. I don't know if I agree with it, but I think I know why you said it."

  "Mahud ..." Sandy grasped his hands with her own, holding them tightly, "what the hell happened to you? Are you the only one here?"

  "Yes." Mahud nodded sadly. "I'm the only one."

  "What happened?" Sandy's hands gripped his own, hard enough to damage. Mahud's fingers flexed slightly in reply, steely tension. "What happened to everyone?"

  Mahud sighed, looking down at her hands. Reluctant. Somewhere in the broad, city-lit night, a flicker of lightning.

  "All right." Another sigh. "All right, I'll tell you."

  * * * *

  "The guys were worried when you warned them, you know," Mahud began, sitting propped against the railing, his fingers toying idly with the silver crescent on the chain about his neck. Sandy sat opposite, watching him. The platform was barely two metres wide, cold metal grid. About them was empty space, cold and whistling in all directions. Suspended in empty air, far above the city. Even the towertop looked small and far below. Most Tanushans would only ever see such views from the windows of aircars, and even then rarely from these lofty altitudes.

  "We talked about it," Mahud continued. He sounded bleak, almost distant. Against the empty, limitless night, his voice seemed strangely small. "Tran was worried. She kept saying that she wished you hadn't been dragged off the mission, and wondering why they'd done it ... Stark told her to shut up—you know what he was like. But Tran ..." he shrugged.

  Sandy nodded faintly. "I know."

  "Yeah." Mahud looked down at the crescent, turning it over and over in his fingers. "She was ... anyway, we got to position, made the approach, no big deal ... then Stark tells us his orders have changed, and we're to keep a reserve team on the destroyer while the main team proceeds to target. Backup, he says." Looking at her quizzically.