“So…one more Adjustment and we’re out of here,” Eve prompted, rousing Masozi from her ruminations.
“Are you sure about this one, Eve?” Masozi asked hesitantly. Of the three Adjustments they had been given on Rationem, this was easily the most complex—and probably the most dangerous.
“Sure as I can be, babe,” Eve nodded confidently. “Major General Valentino De Rossi is the former commander of the Rationem 13th Infantry Division based on Reddere, Rationem’s largest colony, located on and named after a water-rich moon orbiting the outermost gas giant of the Star System. He refused to enter a plea of any kind during his court martial following a failed uprising—an uprising instigated by popular consensus and led primarily by him, which quickly gained popular support throughout Reddere’s civilian population. The movement sought to gain freedom for Reddere, as an independent state with significant autonomy, on the usual grounds of excessive taxation without commensurate representation in Rationem’s government. The uprising was put down rather violently, resulting in some thirty thousand combat deaths and three times as many collateral casualties. He was dismissed six months ago following a surprisingly brief court martial, after which he returned to his family home here on Rationem.”
Masozi flipped from page to page in the reports which Newman had provided—and which Eve had independently verified—until arriving at the operative phraseology in the military code of conduct governing General De Rossi’s crimes.
The verbiage of the Rationem Uniform Code was appallingly complex and long-winded, but Masozi had asked Eve to clarify several murky passages. They had concluded that Major General De Rossi’s crime had not primarily been that he had risen up on the people of Reddere’s behalf. Apparently, there was providence for this type of scenario in Rationem’s Uniform Code—which was easily the most comprehensive in the Chimera Sector, outweighing the runner up in terms of total word count by a factor of ten. Had General De Rossi filed a trio of one page forms, he would have been protected from an eventual General Court Martial even in the event his bid failed—as it clearly had.
“He got dismissed after twenty two years of service,” Masozi sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose as she tried to blink a haze of weariness from her eyes, “not for rebelling against his home world and starting a war that got tens of thousands of people killed; he got dismissed for failing to file the proper paperwork while doing so.”
“It is curious,” Eve agreed, “since he was legally protected for up to six weeks after his rebellion started. He could have filed the forms at any point within that window to avoid prosecution on the very grounds which ended up causing his dismissal, so long as he could verify his motives at the outset via notarized statement made prior to the rebellion.”
“He was obviously making a point by not filing those papers,” Masozi mused before shrugging her increasingly tight shoulders, “but I can’t see what it was.”
“It doesn’t really matter,” Eve sighed.
“True enough,” Masozi agreed sourly. “I’m starting to see why Hadden severed ties with this place.”
“The name says it all,” Eve said, “these folks believe more in the rule of law than they do in the laws themselves. I guess the presence of structure, rather than the shape that structure takes, is more important to human beings than I thought.”
“What kind of defenses can we expect at De Rossi’s house?” Masozi asked.
“Well…there’s good news and bad news there,” Eve said hesitantly.
“Give me the bad news,” Masozi said, knowing that a Major General and former commander of over ten thousand soldiers would pose the greatest challenge she had ever faced—how she wished she had her Infiltrator armor with her!
“The bad news is that De Rossi’s house, while lightly staffed, is equipped with gear that would make our last stop seem as easy as getting a date with a low-cut shirt and promises of anal—“ Eve began.
“So it’s fortified,” Masozi interrupted irritably. “I wish you’d cut with the smut-talk every now and then.”
“No,” Eve said thoughtfully, “I don’t think you do.” Her face turned green, and veins began to bulge on her virtual features as she added in a loud, growly voice, “You wouldn’t like me when I’m serious!”
True as that was, Masozi decided against feeding her ego any more than was absolutely necessary. “So what’s the good news?”
“The good news,” Eve explained as her face resumed its usual shape and color, “is that he’s not at his house just now.”
“Where is he?” Masozi pressed, knowing they would never get a better opportunity than one presented by De Rossi having left the safety of his home.
“Looks like he took a stroll,” Eve replied, and Masozi’s monocle flickered before showing a quartet of video feeds. It seemed to be in a park somewhere, and that park was sparsely populated at the moment. A map overlaid the camera images, and that map showed the park was less than two kilometers from their current position.
“What about security?” Masozi asked tightly.
“I’ve got three of them,” Eve said, and on the four video feeds a series of images were highlighted in red. The figures she had indicated were clearly working undercover, but Masozi didn’t even need Eve to highlight them to spot what they were really up to.
The plain clothes security personnel were maintaining a fairly wide perimeter, while General De Rossi was sitting on a bench feeding what looked to be a strange, red-headed strain of ducks in a nearby pond.
“We’d better go,” Masozi said, “this chance won’t last for very long.”
Riding the hover-bike, Masozi slewed into a parking space near an entry which would quickly take her to one of De Rossi’s bodyguards.
“Might want to show a little cleavage,” Eve suggested. “The nearest guard has a few terabytes of pretty kinky porn on his hand-held—get it, ‘hand-held’?” she said with a mischievous cackle.
Scowling—and less-than-surprised that Eve had already managed to hack into the guard’s data link—Masozi concluded that Eve was probably right. She unzipped her body glove, grabbed a water bottle from the hover-bike and poured most of the contents onto her head and chest to simulate a reasonable sweat.
She had never really considered herself overly chesty—Masozi happened to think that her best feature was on the other side of her body and a couple feet lower—but her musculature certainly gave her so-called ‘lady lumps’ more prominent positioning than most women could claim. That, combined with her tight body glove, made the job of presenting her feminine wiles much easier than it might have been for most women.
So she sprinted toward the park’s entrance and made a bee-line for the guard’s position. He was nearly a hundred meters within, which meant that her breathing was coming in shorter, long-practiced draws as her limbs felt the familiar fiery sensation that accompanied any good warm-up.
“Just around the next corner, Soze,” Eve said through the earpiece, though Masozi could easily see the man’s position.
Running around the corner, Masozi placed the water bottle to her lips an instant before running—chest-first—into the guard she aimed to subdue.
The man turned warily toward her, but did not draw a weapon as he did so, and Masozi immediately gushed, “I’m so sorry; I didn’t see you there.”
She had intentionally emptied the remainder of her water bottle onto him when they had collided, and the man gave her a sour look before his eyes caught on her plunging neckline.
“I just get so lost in my own little world,” she continued in an apologetic tone.
“It’s all right,” the guard replied, making a visible effort to extricate his gaze from her chest. He was more than passingly attractive, with a dimpled chin and blue eyes the color of a summer’s sky. Masozi almost felt sorry for what she was about to do as she played the distraught jogger and the man asked, “Are you ok?”
“Me?” she repeated with false anxiety. “I’m fine; I’m just worried about yo
u. I didn’t ruin anything with my water, did I?”
“No,” he assured her, stealing another glance at her heaving chest as she did her best to keep his attention fixated there without making it too obvious she was doing so. “I’m just here in the park for the view,” he added with a wry grin after she made eye contact with him as he made no attempt to hide the fact that he was undressing her with his eyes.
“The view…?” she began, resisting the urge to roll her eyes as she looked down at her soaked, more-exposed-than-she-remembered chest. “Oh,” she said with a light laugh, “well, I hope I’m not distracting you.”
“The truth is,” he grinned lustily, “I could use a—“
She snapped a left head kick up so fast that he never even reacted to it, and he collapsed to the ground like a sack of bricks.
“Almost makes you feel sorry for ‘em, doesn’t it?” Eve sighed wistfully.
“It’s not always that easy,” Masozi countered as she dragged the unconscious man off into the bushes. “Besides, not many girls can KO a full-grown man even with the element of surprise on their side.”
“True, true,” Eve allowed, “but most girls wouldn’t even try; they’d wait till he was post-coital and dope the bastard.”
“We don’t have that much time,” Masozi said with a grin, “though it probably wouldn’t have been all bad with this one.”
“Really?” Eve asked with surprise as Masozi placed one of the sublingual tranquilizer pills under his tongue. “Let me see…” she said, and the man’s face appeared—or, rather, a three-dimensional representation of it did—on her monocle and Eve began to analyze it with a series of what looked to be mathematical formulae. “Facial symmetry: 98th percentile; distinguishing characteristics: six; Golden Ratio of facial measurements: 94% match,” she said as Masozi moved back out onto the path. “I guess you’re right,” Eve concluded, “he is something of a hunk—geometrically speaking, of course.”
“What about the other two guards?” Masozi asked after stepping out from where she had dragged him.
“Looks like they’re staying put,” Eve replied. “We’d probably better get in there and do this.”
“I don’t like doing this in broad daylight,” Masozi said hesitantly, “but we don’t have a choice.”
“That’s the spirit,” Eve flashed a ‘thumbs up’ sign.
Moving down the path, Masozi quickly came within view of the bench on which the Adjustee sat. He was still feeding the red-headed ducks, but Masozi only then realized he was wearing a full dress uniform.
“Something’s not right,” Masozi said, ducking behind a tree.
“What is it?” Eve asked.
“Why is he wearing his dress uniform?” Masozi asked under her breath.
“Huh,” Eve said with a blank look that quickly turned as suspicious as Masozi felt. “That’s right…why don’t I notice these types of things?”
“Pattern recognition, Eve,” Masozi quipped. “It’s one of the advantages of non-linear thinking, right?”
Eve sighed, “So what do you think it means?”
Masozi looked left and right for several seconds, thinking the matter through as best she was able.
“I’ll tell you what I think it means,” Eve interrupted her thoughts, “even with the meager resources of this wrist-link, I’ve already calculated a 99.99954% probability that if he was being used as bait for a trap, we’d have already sprung it.”
“How did you—“ Masozi began, but Eve interrupted her quickly.
“Probability calculations, babe, made by incorporating all the available data,” the digital girl retorted in what was clearly turnabout. “You know, one of the advantages of linear thinking?”
“Ok…” Masozi mused before arriving at a decision, “we have to do this one way or the other, and we aren’t going to get another chance. But I have to figure out why he’s wearing his uniform first.”
“You really think you can take him up-close-and-personal?” Eve asked doubtfully.
“He’s nearly sixty years old,” Masozi said as she stepped confidently down the path toward the bench, zipping up her body glove as she did so, “and even in his prime, I outweigh him by ten kilos—to say nothing of my new leg’s capabilities.”
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Eve sighed.
Masozi came to a stop before the Major General and said, in a conversational tone, “Do you mind if I sit?”
Major General De Rossi looked up from the trio of ducks he was feeding with bread crumbs. “Please,” he said neutrally, gesturing to the vacant end of the bench opposite his own.
She sat down and looked at the ducks for several seconds of silence as she waited for him to finish feeding them the rest of the bread he had cupped in his hand.
When the last piece had been snatched up by an eager, black bill, General De Rossi sat back and gave Masozi an appraising look. “You know,” he said casually in his smooth, staccato accent as he gestured to her gloved body, “I’ve run this situation through my head a thousand times in the last few months…but I never once envisioned you to be so fetching.”
Masozi felt herself flush from the collar up. “Then you know why I’m here?” she asked levelly.
“Of course,” De Rossi replied with a soft laugh. “Every member of my staff tried to get me to sign those damned papers; you have no idea how difficult it was leaving them in the dark as to my real reasons for not doing so. They trusted me, and I them…but I knew it was the only way to get one of you here to warn you. In truth, I am fast running out of days when this meeting might have taken place—and events in the outer system taking place at this very moment have likely shortened that already brief window even further.”
“Warn us?” Masozi asked, her brow furrowed in confusion. “Warn us about what?”
De Rossi gave her a penetrating look. “I have naught but whispers and shadows,” he said after a lengthy pause. “But I will not part with even those unless you show me my Mark.”
Masozi hesitated for a moment before obliging, reaching to a small pocket on her left hip and producing the Mark of Adjustment which had been assigned for the General’s case.
“May I?” he said, holding out an expectant hand.
“There’s nothing in the regulations that says it’s forbidden,” Eve said when Masozi failed to comply with his request for several seconds.
Masozi eventually handed it to him, and General De Rossi turned it over in his hands for several seconds before nodding and handing it back. “I saw one of those once,” he said almost wistfully, “thank you for letting me see my own.”
“What did you need to warn us about?” she repeated, looking around to make sure her lines of escape were still clear and finding they were.
“Here is everything I know, though I was unable to corroborate much of it without raising suspicion,” De Rossi said, reaching into his left breast pocket—which was adorned with a truly impressive board of regalia and insignia befitting an officer of his stature—and producing a data crystal. “I do hope you didn’t hurt Christopher.”
Masozi accepted the data crystal. “Christopher?” she asked before realizing he meant the guard she had knocked unconscious. “No, he’ll be fine in about thirty minutes—though he might have a headache for a few days, and a bruise for even longer.”
“You are a credit to your order,” De Rossi said with a gracious nod.
“Tell me why you did it,” Masozi pressed into the growing silence.
“Because it was the right thing to do,” the General replied calmly. “The people of Reddere begged me to take up arms in their defense, and I realized when they pled with me to do so that I could perform an even greater service to the citizens of my home system of Rationem.”
“You never intended to succeed in your rebellion?” Masozi asked, completely mortified at the possibility.
“I did my level best,” he said, shooting her a dark look before relaxing fractionally, “but any commander could see that
it was a lost cause. We only had a dozen transports and a handful of aerospace fighters.”
“Then why—“ she began.
“Freedom can’t be legislated!” he snapped. “Anyone who thinks otherwise is blind to the truth of humanity, Adjuster; please don’t negate my sacrifices by refusing to accept that simple truth.”
Masozi was genuinely stunned into silence. She had never—not even once—thought about freedom in a way which had produced a similar conclusion to the one he had just so clearly stated. In just a few seconds, she found herself agreeing with him more than she would have previously believed possible.
The General reached slowly down to his belt, where an absolutely gorgeous, platinum-plated pistol of clearly custom design was holstered. “Take this,” he said as he deliberately withdrew it from its holster and offered it to her, grip-first, “and discharge your duty with it, Adjuster.”
Masozi’s monocle flared to life with a series of analytical programs, including x-ray analysis, which Eve had clearly instigated. After a few seconds Eve nodded in satisfaction, “Looks clean.”
Masozi took the pistol, which was a five-shot revolver of a medium caliber. But the length of the cartridges—which were equal to a mid-powered hunting rifle—suggested the weapon was far more potent than its caliber suggested. It was heavy in her hand, but felt surprisingly well-balanced considering its size and weight.
“After you have done as you came to do, I would like you to keep it,” De Rossi said with bone-chilling grace. Masozi held no illusions that she could be even half as calm at the hour of her own proverbial judgment. “It belonged to my twice great grandfather,” he explained, “he was once a member of your order—though he never attained your station before his military career consumed his attentions.”
Masozi nodded solemnly, “I’ve never been great with hand cannons…but I would be honored to keep it.”
“After you have done it,” he said calmly, pointing to the tree-line on the other side of the pond, “my men will see you to safety.”
Sic Semper Tyrannis: The Chimera Adjustment, Book Two (Imperium Cicernus 5) Page 19
