“Let’s,” said Nick, turning off the intercom connection.
The holographic images disappeared, and he was completely alone in the empty room.
“Kir, wrap the wall,” he whispered, and it folded, revealing the expanse of the ocean.
Dawn was definitely approaching, but the horizon was still gray, not having gained the pink hue of real morning yet. Nick looked into the pearl sky, and a cold shiver went down his spine; it was the endgame, and his main piece could very well be missing from the board. A gentle breeze ruffled his hair as if trying to calm him down.
“It has to be there,” he whispered, squeezing the armrests, “Kir, on.”
“Good morning, Nick!” said Kir.
Johan’s red dot indicating the security break was back at its place in the corner, and the president and the minister’s windows were pinned to the center of his vision field.
“Let me load the file. It’ll take a moment,” Nick forced his voice to sound as confident as possible. He closed his eyes and collapsed all open screens to the corner of his default bluish-gray backdrop.
Now …
To initiate the download, Johan had told him to focus on his favorite color.
What was his favorite color, Nick asked himself. He never thought about it in such terms. He chose a clean gunmetal background because the color was practical, and made his eyes less tired.
Maybe it was black? He always respected its simplicity, its dignity. He imagined black. Nothing happened.
What if he didn’t have a favorite color, he thought in sudden panic. To him it sounded like a stupid question in the first place. But Johan wasn’t stupid. It probably wasn’t the color that mattered; it was how he felt when he thought about it … but what if he felt nothing at all about colors?
How many people were waiting for him at this moment, he wondered. These two were waiting, and Reish and Hilgor, and, without a doubt, an armed swat team – and Lita.
Stop it, he ordered himself, use the usual fear-fighting technique. Ask yourself the standard question: What would be the absolute worst thing that could happen even if everything went completely wrong? It was clear – Lita would violently die in the very near future. And most likely they would kill him too in order to cover up this mess. He vividly imagined how it would happen, and felt nauseous. Don’t fight your fear, shouted the rational part of his mind before collapsing, just roll with it as with that rip current on Beta Blue, as with Eve’s amplifier.
Fine, let’s agree I will die today, of all days, he said to himself, and focused on it. He had always imagined that after death he would simply float in some empty space forever. What color would he want that space to be? Not black.
He would like it to be orange. Like the morning sun.
“A file is being downloaded to my system from an unknown source,” said Kir, “in universally compatible format.”
Nick opened his eyes. The sun wasn’t out yet, but the pink band on the horizon announced its close arrival.
“Thank you,” whispered Nick, surprised at himself for talking to an inanimate object, but then he smiled realizing that it was Johan he was extending his gratitude to.
“Download completed,” said Kir. “Warning: the source is irrevocably corrupted.”
Nick reopened the minister and president’s communication windows.
“Where did this file come from?” asked the president sharply. “We scanned him for any information holding devices. His ship too,” she said to the minister. “He had nothing that could have stored this recording.”
“That is rather irrelevant, isn’t it?” asked Nick, and the minister tilted his head slightly, as a possible indication of a silent agreement. “So let’s focus on practical matters. The file source has been destroyed. So no hidden backdoors; all the cards are on the table, as they say. Let’s not waste time,” said Nick, “Kir, play the recording.”
“Viggo, destroy that file. It’s an order,” the president sounded suspiciously discordant.
“Caroline, don’t be ridiculous. I want to see it,” now there was an open defiance in the minister’s tone. “Kir, play it on full screen.”
The president and the minister disappeared, and Nick was inside a long hallway.
The footage was jerky, jumping up and down in rhythm with a fast walk. It was very quiet, the silence broken only by the almost inaudible sound of hurried steps. The illusion was so convincing that only the fresh air on his face and the smell of the ocean reminded Nick that he was still in the middle of the Pacific.
The hallway made a sharp turn and came to a dead end in the form of a massive closed door with a smooth metallic surface. The perception of movement stopped, and Elisabeth’s face stared at him from the reflection.
The door opened, letting Elisabeth in.
Three men and a woman were sitting at a table in a small windowless room, looking extremely gloomy and exhausted. They immediately turned in Elisabeth’s direction, and Hilgor thought that in spite of their mismatched outfits, all four of them had the same non-civilian air as JJ or the Defense Minister himself, for that matter.
“We got your message. So you added a virus with an unsanctioned gene sequence to the last commercial DNA enhancement batch. Why on Earth did you do it?” said the man in the corner, not bothering with any sort of greeting.
“You have to listen to me. Everyone will gain from it,” Elisabeth’s voice had a characteristic timbre in it, always present in an implant’s recording of its owner. “Did you see this outlier’s score? It’s off the charts. Look.”
The number that popped up on the screen reminded Nick of his failed award, and the expressions of the people at the table changed.
“It’s from this Remir’s assessment file. His raw score exceeds the maximum across all our donors by more than twice,” she paused for emphasis. “We couldn’t just throw this material away.”
“Wait,” the woman in the tight black bodysuit recovered first. “What material? The outlier is dead. The headhunter lost him on M-237.”
“I figured out how to get his DNA after I watched that moron’s field report. Let me play you the last part …”
Nick clenched his teeth, guessing at what he was about to see.
And there it was – an alpine meadow, lush grass, peppered with small bright flowers, which Nick hadn’t even noticed before, and two still bodies on the ground. They grew closer in uneven, jumping intervals, then the movement stopped, and the sound of heavy breathing ceased for a moment as the close-up of Remir’s lifeless face filled the screen. The camera stayed on it for a moment, and then there was a sequence of images as the body was dragged aside, freeing the second, smaller body underneath.
“And … is she …?” Nick didn’t recognize the crackling sound of his own voice.
He knew that closing his eyes wouldn’t help, so he just helplessly watched the blood gushing in spurts from Lita’s wound, his hands frantically tearing the fabric of Remir’s blood-soaked jacket and tying a strip of it around her arm. There was the sound of an explosion. And then the perspective changed, revealing figures in gray uniforms at the edge of the meadow. “Kir, prepare engines for immediate takeoff,” Nick heard his voice, and then the recording stopped.
“I got the outlier’s DNA from the blood on that woman’s bandage,” Elisabeth tried to keep her voice matter of fact, not entirely succeeding. “I took a physical sample from her hospital vault.”
The silence in the room lasted for several seconds before anyone spoke.
“I don’t even know where to start,” the oldest person in the group stood up and crossed his arms. “How can you prove the correlation between the test subject and your … genetic find?”
“Well, look at this,” Elisabeth clearly wasn’t put off by his derisive tone. She displayed a still from Nick’s first encounter with Remir right after the neuro-analgesic trans
mission was administered, so Remir’s features were smooth, not crumbled by fear or anger, or depression.
“Now, here is the DNA face reconstruction.”
Another image appeared next to the first one. The face of the person on the second screen was undoubtedly the same, only lacking the prominent scar in the corner of the mouth.
“Elisabeth, who are you kidding?” the man’s face twitched in annoyance. “Unless we stop the shipment, a significant number of fetuses across the Commonwealth will be modified with the specious DNA segment. We retest people on Earth to ensure that the DNA we use came from the assessment taker and not some other source! Why am I even saying this?” the man sighed heavily. “We don’t want any possibility of useless garbage in our children’s genes.”
“In other children’s genes,” quietly corrected a man from the far corner. “I’m sure you opted out of any genetic enhancements for your own kids. Get off your high horse.”
“Even if I did, enhancements are completely voluntary procedures,” the standing man’s face turned red, and he stepped towards the table.
“Stop it! This is all besides the point. The question is: What are we going to do right now?” the woman in the black suit sharply cut them off. “Can you imagine what the president will say when she finds out that we implanted an unconfirmed gene segment into the population? It’ll undermine her whole program! I am not planning to cover this up. But hiding wasn’t Elisabeth’s intention in any case.” She looked acridly in Elisabeth’s direction, “She wants attention, don’t you, Elisabeth?”
“Once the president sees all of the facts she will appreciate it. She’ll care about the results, not your protocols.”
Bravo, thought Nick, go, the Dark Triad woman, we all had been there.
“Come on, it’s so simple,” continued Elisabeth, “this sample is simply outstanding. And the downside … fine, even if there’s a mistake – and I’m sure nobody here believes that – well, what’s the harm if a part of the population gets a useless genetic adjustment?”
The elder man shook his head in silent astonishment.
“Oh come on, don’t get ethical on me. If ethics is your concern you shouldn’t be a part of this project to begin with,” Elisabeth’s voice acquired a forceful note. “We all know that the transplants can’t boost our progress fast enough, and it will only be a matter of time before our defense systems are completely obsolete. This project is the only hope for our civilization’s survival.”
“Please, Elisabeth. We all know you’re fighting for the president’s First Counselor position. You set us up,” the man who had been silent so far didn’t hide the disgust from his voice. “You should have had your career ambitions in check.”
“Enough of this,” the woman at the table raised her voice again, “we need to make a fast decision. In my opinion, it’s too late to do a shipment recall without attracting significant attention; nothing like that has happened in commercial genetic engineering in centuries. There will doubtless be questions. It could blow up the whole program, and we will all go down, including the president. Thank Elisabeth here for the excitement.”
There was a heavy silence, and then the gray-haired man, who was now leaning on the wall, shrugged, “It’s too dangerous to back out. Approve the shipment. Elisabeth, submit a report with a detailed explanation. We’ll review it before sending it to the president.” The man got up and moved towards the door, “See you all later. Now I am going to express my unedited emotional response to this cluster fuck in a private setting.”
The recording stopped, and the president and the minister’s windows reappeared on the backdrop of Nick’s natural vision. The view was so flawlessly pretty that it could have been mistaken for an artificial wall screen – a cloudless sky and pristine ocean, very calm at that early hour. She was holding an empty glass in her hand, and a mild spasm went down her throat as if her last gulp was accidentally too big.
“What was that about?” For a moment, Nick thought that the minister was addressing him, but the man continued. “Ma’am?” There was much more in his voice than simple surprise.
“Nonsense, it was staged,” she put her glass on the table with a clank.
“I am sorry, but it didn’t look like that. I’ll have to order an investigation, Caroline.”
“No need,” she winced, “Viggo, I sponsor a government program that secretly collects genetic samples from every verified outlier and slips them into our population with the standard DNA enhancement packages. In practical terms, a nano-virus inserts DNA segments responsible for the Dark Triad traits from donor material.”
“But why? You know that any brain-related genetic engineering is banned. And we already have a solution to fix the problem. What your Elisabeth was saying is nonsense – we have time for restoring the pre-cleansing environment by bringing outliers from Mirror Worlds. The program is working.”
The president made a grimace. She wasn’t an elected president for nothing, thought Nick – she seemed to completely regroup from her initial shock.
“Listen, Viggo, let’s be frank. Everyone knows what people secretly think about the Mirror World outliers. They are ugly barbarians from the backward worlds. Look at them …”
A still picture of Johan with his screwed facial proportions, porous unhealthy skin and stooping posture flashed on her window.
“We want this on Earth, Viggo? After centuries of perfecting our genes to look like we do. To bring this genetic trash to Earth when we can just replace the small part that we are missing? We can have the best of both worlds.”
“She knows what she is talking about,” said Nick, “she is a natural example.”
“So are you,” she said not looking at him, “and there is everything wrong with you in the way we need. But your looks are on par.”
The minister was silently moving his eyes from the president to Nick with a flabbergasted expression.
“But, Caroline, my children …”
“The virus is applied to randomly chosen batches. I am sorry, in case your children …” she shrugged her shoulders. “That was the problem in the first place. Remember how this whole mess started – nobody wanted shadows in their children’s genes. But I thought that it was still better than invading the Commonwealth with dirty, sickly immigrants, don’t you agree?” she gave him a long look before continuing. “Getting back to the practical side of our situation – you and I will discuss the terms under which this information stays between us. But let’s deal with the headhunter first.”
“What do you mean … deal?” the minister still seemed to be in a state of lasting shock.
“He can’t leave the island alive, obviously,” there wasn’t any hesitation in her tone. She looked into the air in front of her and lifted her hand. “I’ll dispatch a swat team right away. We’ll have to accept a failed hostage rescue operation, Viggo. I’ll take the heat.”
“Stop,” Nick didn’t shout, but his voice had enough weight in it that she froze and looked at him.
“I am afraid that you can’t afford it. In fact, our power balance is rather different than you think.” Nick pulled out Hilgor’s wristband from his pocket, “See this thing? This is an external chip – one of the hostages, the male, has issues with our biotechnology. It works just like a standard implant, only I control it now,” he tapped the bracelet, turning on its interface, and moved his fingers across the screen. “Let me play something for you.”
“… I sponsor a government program that secretly collects genetic samples from every verified outlier and slips them into our population with the standard DNA enhancement packages. In practical terms, a nano-virus gets inserted DNA segments responsible for the Dark Triad traits from donor material.” Nick touched the virtual surface again, and the slightly muted but otherwise perfectly clear sound of the president’s voice, coming from the chip, cut off.
“What?” she whis
pered in real time, blood instantly rushing from her face.
“So … no hidden backdoors?” asked the minister, and Nick could swear that there was a note of an inappropriate amusement in his voice.
“I gave this chip full access to Kir’s feeds, including all online conversations – off-label use in conjoined mode, but it came in very handy. You can go ahead and delete the original file from Kir’s memory. I don’t need it anymore. You know, Caroline, the Dark Triad just simply can’t be trusted,” Nick said.
She blinked but didn’t argue.
“Now,” he rotated the bracelet in his hand, “we have already established that you don’t care about the hostages. So I’ll transmit this recording through all channels the very moment I receive an alert that the perimeter screen has been penetrated. Your missiles are fast, but I am holding my finger on a button, just in case you are thinking about blowing up the whole house. So hold off on that.”
The president’s irises made subtle side-to-side movements, indicating that she was quickly evaluating the new state of affairs.
“I know that you’ll try to hack this chip too, but I won’t give you time – it’s set to release the recording in exactly one hour.” Now Nick could afford to take a short breath.
“You can’t stop me,” he paused slightly longer. “Is it sinking in?”
The president’s face looked like a stone mask, and the minister’s expression was that of a bystander watching a spectacular crash in real time.
“I expect a scandal like we haven’t seen in centuries,” said Nick. “I would start packing your prison bag right away, Caroline.”
The president picked up the glass from the table and slowly rotated it as if she was studying the pattern of light reflected on its surface. Then she threw it against the floor. “I warned the Defense Department that we couldn’t trust headhunters. They are not Commonwealth people anymore. The bastard switched sides. Your department missed it, Viggo, and it’s your fault!”
Fire of the Dark Triad Page 27
