gaian consortium 05 - the titan trap

by Christine Pope

  “Days?” he repeated, lifting an eyebrow.

  “Days,” she said firmly. “That’s what room service is for, right?”

  “True.” At least, he supposed room service had been utilized in such a capacity before, although the few times he’d availed himself of it, it was only for a hurried breakfast before running off to a meeting or conference.

  He had to admire her confidence, even if it was really only bravado. Giving herself something to look forward to made the more immediate future a little less frightening, or at least that was what he surmised. And he had to admit to himself that he wanted to be a part of Cassidy’s future, whether it was locked up in the grandest suite in the Hotel Crillon in Paris, or settling down somewhere far away from all this madness.

  Where that particular thought had come from, he wasn’t sure. A life of quiet domesticity wasn’t something he’d ever aspired to, but now, on reflection, he thought it might not be half bad…especially if he had someone by his side who would make sure that it might be quiet, but it would never be dull.

  Good. Now they just had to get through the next few days.

  * * *

  The depot wasn’t as large as Cassidy had imagined it, being a somewhat haphazard collection of insta-construct barracks that someone had put up years ago and which had somehow survived, even though such buildings generally had a lifespan of a decade at most. In the waning light, the place looked even more rundown, and she could feel a cold sensation churning in her gut, telling her she didn’t want to go in there.

  Which was silly, because Derek had already told her he’d been there several times. That was the whole point of her carrying out this errand instead. No one knew who she was. She could pop in, get the items they needed, and be right back out again with no one noticing.

  At least, that was the plan. He told her to make sure her network I.D. was visible at all times, tacked to the collar of her jacket. To be safe, she pulled her hair back into a clip so there was no chance of it falling over the identification.

  Knowing there was no reason to delay any longer, Cassidy got out of the ’car and strode as confidently as she could toward the building’s entrance. She had to walk through some sort of screening device as she did so — checking for weapons, she guessed. But since she didn’t have anything on her more dangerous than a wallet, the lights on the machine stayed serenely green.

  Inside, the depot did look a little bigger than it had from the parking lot, and its organization left a bit to be desired, as she saw hiking boots stacked next to blankets, and all-weather tents dumped in a pile next to collapsible carbon-fiber bicycles. Even so, she slowly managed to gather all the items she needed, with the exception of the vid-recorder Derek had requested. She still wasn’t entirely clear about that, as he could shoot footage just fine with his handheld. But she supposed the vid-recorder would produce higher-quality images, and it was more in line with the sort of equipment a news crew would have with them. Since it was a fairly expensive device, it was probably kept locked up behind the counter somewhere.

  After wandering for a bit, she finally found someone manning said counter, an Asian man of indeterminate age who watched her with wary dark eyes as she approached. He asked a question in Chinese — she was sure of that much, even though she couldn’t be certain of the dialect — and she shook her head.

  “Sorry, I only speak Anglic.”

  “You looking for something in particular?” The words were heavily accented, but clear enough.

  “A vid-recorder.”

  His gaze slid to the I.D. clipped to her collar and then back to her face. “What you need a vid-recorder for if you working for NBN?”

  “My partner dropped ours,” she said glibly, giving him the first lie she could think of. “He always was a klutz. And now I’m paying for it out of my credit voucher, because if the higher-ups ever find out he broke a piece of equipment that valuable, it could be his job. And mine, if they’re feeling cranky enough that day.”

  A long silence as the man stared at her, face blank. Cassidy forced herself to not react, to remain standing there wearing what she hoped was a half-annoyed, half-amused expression. If the man asked too many questions, she didn’t know what she would say. Derek hadn’t warned her that she might get an in-depth grilling over something as innocuous as a vid-recorder.

  “Okay,” the man said at length, and she smiled, not allowing herself the relieved sigh she really wanted to make. He moved a few paces to his left and then pushed past a screen of some sort of wooden beads, disappearing into what she guessed must be a storeroom of some kind. The beads kept clacking against one another after he was gone, and something about the noise seemed to set her teeth on edge.

  As she waited, she allowed herself to glance around the depot, although she wouldn’t let her gaze settle on one particular patron for longer than a second or so. The place wasn’t all that crowded, but there were five or six other people browsing the wares. The customers, male and female, were a mix of Asian and Caucasian, and she heard both Chinese and Anglic being spoken. None of the people there seemed to be paying any attention to her or what she was doing, however, a fact for which she was grateful. This wasn’t so hard after all.

  The shopkeeper or clerk or owner — Cassidy couldn’t be quite sure what his exact role was — returned carrying a latching plastic case, which he set down on the counter. “All I got is last year’s model,” he said. “That okay?”

  “As long as it takes video images, that’s all we need,” she said, adding, as it looked as if he was going to open the case and inspect the contents, “I’m sure it’s fine. Just let me know the total for all this stuff, and we’re set.”

  “You don’t want to test it?” His tone was too flat to be openly curious, but she could tell he thought it strange that she didn’t want to inspect the equipment.

  “I trust you,” she replied, shooting him her most winning smile.

  A lift of his shoulders, and he started going through the contents of the large net shopping bag she’d been carrying, scanning each item and then setting it aside. The number in the holographic display that hovered over the register kept growing and growing, and she swallowed.

  Looks like we’re putting a dent in that credit voucher after all….

  Cassidy didn’t pretend to be an expert on Gaian prices, but she had a sneaking feeling that she was being charged a good deal more than any of these particular items were worth. Maybe he felt justified passing along some sort of surcharge because of being poised out here on the edge of the waste, or maybe he thought she was some silly Normerican with an expense account, someone he could take advantage of. Either way, she wasn’t going to protest. They needed the supplies, and it wasn’t as if there was anyplace else they could go.

  At the end she handed over the credit voucher and let him swipe it. She didn’t bother to look at the total remaining. They still had plenty to get them wherever they wanted to go, once they were done here in China and safely away.

  “You can take the bag,” the shopkeeper offered, and she essayed another smile and piled all her purchases into it, at the same time wishing — as she had when she first entered the store — that they weren’t quite so low-tech around here. One of the self-propelling carts she’d used back in Chicago would’ve been handy for hauling all this stuff around.

  But obviously the owners of the depot weren’t too concerned with customer satisfaction, since they were clearly the only game in town, and so Cassidy shouldered the bag and began moving toward the exit. A quick glance around told her that no one seemed to be paying any attention to her.

  Some of the tension in her neck eased slightly. For some reason, she’d had this thought in the back of her mind that the Consortium authorities had put her and Derek on some “most wanted” list, getting their faces out there so the general public would be able to recognize them on sight. Silly, she knew, because although of course the Consortium was actively looking for them, it also wanted this whole busine
ss kept as quiet as possible. Broadcasting hers and Derek’s faces wasn’t exactly the best way to go about that.

  As she was exiting the building, she accidentally grazed the shoulder of a man who was just heading inside. Damn shopping bag, she thought, before saying automatically, “I’m so sorry. This thing is bulkier than I thought.”

  He was tall and dark-haired, probably around her age, or a year or so older. “No problem,” he replied, not really looking at her.

  She smiled, said, “Okay, as long as I didn’t knock you off your feet,” and began to walk toward the ’car where Derek was waiting.

  The man didn’t say anything, just gave a brief abstracted nod. It was only because she risked another look back at him that she noticed he’d stopped and was staring after her, head tilted to one side, as if he had noted something familiar about her but couldn’t really figure out why.

  Well, that wasn’t good. It was probably something as silly as her reminding him of his secondary-school girlfriend or whatever, but any kind of attention felt unwelcome right then. She hurried to the ’car and went around to the back, which Derek had already unlocked for her. After setting the bundle of supplies in the cargo area, she moved quickly to get inside the vehicle.

  “Let’s move,” she said in an undertone, and Derek pushed the starter button immediately.

  “Something wrong?” he asked, even as he began backing out of the parking space. Well, it wasn’t really an official parking space, just a spot in between two other vehicles where they could fit.

  “I don’t know.” She glanced out the window of the car, but the man had disappeared — gone inside, most likely, or at least stepped out of the pool of bright illumination at the entrance to the depot. By then it was quite dark.

  Derek didn’t respond at first, was busy with guiding the ’car out of the lot and onto the highway. On the way out here, he’d let the aircar drive itself, but it looked as if he wanted to be in control for this leg of the journey. After they’d put a half-kilometer or so behind them, he said, “Care to elaborate?”

  “Just a feeling. I bumped into this man as I was leaving the building, and — ”

  “Man? What did he look like?”

  Good question. She’d gotten a brief impression that he was good-looking, and that was about it. “About my age…Caucasian…dark hair. Attractive.”

  A flicker of dark eyes toward her, and then Derek returned his attention to the road. “Anything else?”

  “Not really.” She frowned, trying to remember. It was hard when she hadn’t really looked at him directly. “Maybe he had blue eyes. I’m not sure. Anyway, at first he didn’t seem to even notice me, but as I was walking away, he gave me this weird look, like he was trying to figure out if he recognized me or something.”

  Derek’s fingers tightened on the steering wheel, but he sounded casual enough as he spoke. “I don’t know if it was that, exactly. To be frank, there aren’t a lot of women who look like you out here in the hinterlands.”

  The off-hand compliment made her cheeks heat a little, and then she shook her head. “No, I don’t think that was it. He wasn’t giving me that kind of look, if you know what I mean.”

  “If you say so.” He shrugged. “Did he see which vehicle you got in?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Then we’re fine. We’ll put some distance between us and the depot, and then we’ll find a place to park and rest for the night. The GPS shows a wood of some sort about twenty kilometers from here. That’s probably a good sheltered spot.”

  She nodded, mostly because she didn’t have any arguments she could offer at the moment. Something about the encounter with the stranger still felt off to her, but she decided to keep her misgivings to herself. After all, she was so on edge right now, she was probably reading something into what had really been an “oops” moment, and nothing else.

  At least, she had to hope that’s all it was.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  They’d found shelter in a stand of trees, too meager to be called a real forest, but it was enough to hide the aircar from anyone who might be passing on the highway. One of the items Cassidy had bought at the depot was a portable sanitation unit, and so, although it wasn’t quite the same as having a fully equipped bathroom, neither was it nearly as bad as having to go behind a tree and use a leaf or something equally uncomfortable.

  Dinner had been a couple of the SRPs, washed down with pouches of water. Afterward, they sat on the open tailgate of the ’car and gazed at the stars. Before the Cloud, this wouldn’t have been possible; China’s skies had been far too choked with pollution. But now the heavens above them were clear, the stars and planets and satellites blazingly bright.

  “So that’s the Milky Way,” Cassidy murmured. Somehow, her head had ended up on his shoulder, but Derek didn’t mind too much.

  “You’ve never seen it before?” he asked, surprised. Surely it should’ve been clearly visible from anywhere she traveled within the Solar System.

  “Of course I have.” She lifted her head then, gaze fixed on the velvety-dark skies above them. “I guess that’s not what I meant. It’s just that I had no idea what it would look like from down here on Gaia.”

  “And?”

  “It’s the same…but it isn’t. Not as bright, but at the same time it feels as if it’s shimmering more.”

  “Atmospheric disturbance, I would guess.”

  At that reply, she shifted so she could give him a mock-severe look. “You scientists — always taking the romance out of everything.”

  “Everything?” he inquired, and she grinned.

  “Well, not everything.”

  She reached for him, pulling his mouth down to hers, and that was enough for him. They’d already laid out their sleeping gear in the back of the vehicle, laying down the seats to give themselves enough room, and he pushed her onto that soft surface now, hands finding the fasteners of her clothing, fingers moving over her soft warm flesh once it was freed of its shirt and jacket. She did the same, pulling off his garments and tossing them over into a corner somewhere, and then by some unspoken agreement their bodies were locked together, no foreplay this time, only a joining brought on by mutual need, as if they didn’t want to waste any time before coming together again, reaffirming their decision to be with one another.

  Afterward, they slept, undisturbed the sound of the wind in the trees, or the night birds calling to one another from far away. A hundred more kilometers into the waste, there wouldn’t be any birds, save the ones brought in to slowly start repopulating the area, but here all was safe, the air still clean enough, the trees and grass growing as if nothing had ever come along to change the very face of the landscape.

  Bright dawn woke Derek first, slanting in through the ’car’s windows. He stirred, blinking, and then felt Cassidy stretch and yawn against him.

  “Did we really sleep the whole night through?”

  “Looks that way,” he replied, adding mentally, Good thing, too…we’re going to need all the energy we can get today.

  After levering herself up to a sitting position, she said, “Will we make it to the station today?”

  “Maybe, if we get an early enough start.” He glanced at the chronometer that was still strapped to his wrist. “We’re doing well. It’s not even six-thirty yet.”

  She made a face, looking more adorable than she probably intended, with her sleep-mussed hair, the blanket pulled up to cover her nakedness. “That’s way too early in my part of the universe, but I’ll do what I can. Have you seen my underwear around here?”

  A brief search turned up the discarded garment shoved into a corner, and she pulled on her panties and her shirt, sans bra, then slid out of the back of the vehicle, no doubt intent on using the sanitation unit. He knew she’d want some privacy for the next little while, and so he stayed where he was, scrabbling around his own discarded clothing until he located his handheld. No messages from their benefactor, which he assumed only meant that
he or she was waiting in the background, not bothering to intervene unless necessary.

  He pulled up the map function and did some quick calculations. If they left in the next half hour or so, then they should make it to his former research station…and the processing plant…by late afternoon. His plan was to cut off the main road before then and come in from the south, rather than the northeast, and get as much video as he could in a short period of time — say, no more than twenty minutes or so. Yes, he wanted the evidence, but he also knew the longer he and Cassidy lingered, the greater the chance that they would be caught. It should be clean enough. This vehicle shouldn’t be on anyone’s watch list, and as long as he didn’t let anyone get close enough to recognize him, they should be fine.

  Should. There was the operative word, and he knew there had been a disconcerting number of “should”s in his mental processes.

  Cassidy returned, looking freshly scrubbed, the ends of her hair damp where the water she’d splashed on her face had caught them. “Well, I’d still kill for a hot shower, but I’m starting to feel almost human,” she said, reaching up into the back of the ’car for her suitcase.

  “You got coffee, right?” That was all he needed to feel human, or at least functional.

  “Still in the bag.”

  He rooted around, found the pre-filled container, then flicked the tab to heat it up. This kind of coffee was only about two steps up from rocket fuel, but it did the trick. The gourmet espresso would have to wait until they were back in civilization.

  While he was pulling out some clean clothes of his own, Cassidy prepped her own coffee, took a sip, and then made a face.

  “I know,” he said.

  She just offered him a rueful grin and forced down another swallow. “Whatever doesn’t kill you, I suppose.”

  Although she’d meant the remark as a joke, Derek couldn’t help experiencing a sudden wave of foreboding. So far, quite a lot of things had tried to kill them. He could only hope no more were waiting on the road ahead.