Archangel Down: Archangel Project. Book One

by C. Gockel

  Noa swallowed. This was not normally the sort of place where IDs were checked … and even if the dirt of their disguises hadn’t been washed away by the drizzle outside, they never would have passed muster in the bright light of the hallway. Her eyes flitted to James. His chin was dipped low, eyes on the security guard, and she could feel his readiness to fight.

  Noa took a deep breath and made a leap of faith. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out the billfold-like ID and handed it to the guard. Turning to James, she jerked her head in the guard’s direction. Thankfully, taking the hint, he handed his ID over. The guard looked at the pictures in his hand, looked at them, and down at the pictures again. He looked over at the book, and ran his fingers over the names.

  “These IDs check out,” he said, head bent over the podium. Not lifting his eyes, he said, “The pictures look old.” He handed the IDs back, still not looking at them. “You might want to have them updated.” He coughed into his hand. “We get some slack for being a Fleet establishment, but sometimes, the Local Guard checks in here.”

  Noa nodded, and said, “We understand. Thank you.” She wasn’t sure if the guard recognized her—but she was sure he knew the IDs were fake.

  Turning to James, she said, “Come on,” and led him down the hallway to the dark descending stairwell beyond. She noticed that the hologlobe that usually played a Fleet recruitment recording in the hall was gone, as was the two-dimensional old time recruitment poster that used to hang on the ceiling above the stairs. A chill descended on her, even though the hallway was as hot and humid as it had been outside.

  Beside her, James whispered, “He lied … he lied for us. I can’t believe it. Although … there is a wonderful little-known account of a mixed-race man living in Nazi Germany, titled Destined to Witness. He was saved by purposeful acts of disambiguation by—”

  “James,” Noa hissed as a man appeared at the foot of the steps, a wave of sound from the room following as he did. “Shhh ...”

  “Ah, right,” James said, stepping to the side to let the man pass.

  Noa could hear music thumping as they approached the bottom of the steps and the heavy metal door that separated the stairwell from the club. The humid smell of the hallway was replaced by a hint of Root and tobacco. James bumped Noa’s shoulder with his. “Have I ever entered a more wretched hive of scum and villainy?”

  Noa snapped, “These are mostly former Fleet personnel!” There were a lot of veterans on Luddeccea. The planet may have been ambivalent about joining the Republic, but Luddecceans were over-represented in the military, and especially over-represented in the ranks of grunts. If you were a Luddeccean from a lesser family aspiring to more than baby-making, Fleet was the way to go. Luddecceans made great spacers; they were farm kids used to hard work and doing without. And Luddeccea’s only recent conquest of native bacteria, fungi, and viral infections meant that Luddecceans were more likely to accept the risk of death that went along with space exploration and keeping order in the asteroid belts. Many Luddeccean veterans settled on other worlds when they left the Fleet, but some came back … and when they did, they came here. She felt protective of them. They were her people, more than other spacers or Luddeccean civilians. She glared up at James.

  His eyes narrowed, and his jaw twitched. “I was trying to lighten the mood.” One of his eyebrows lifted. “I was under the impression you liked that sort of thing.”

  Noa squeezed her eyes shut, remembering the movie he’d mangled the line from. She’d missed the joke in his deadpan delivery. Timothy would have been blushing from hairline to neck, and biting a smile to keep from laughing aloud. He wasn’t Tim. She released a breath. Not meeting his eyes, she nudged him with her shoulder. “Yeah, thanks. It was funny.”

  “Please, contain your mirth,” he said dryly.

  The wryness of his tone made her smirk. Putting her hand on the door latch, she said, “Now let’s try and find someone I recognize, who can play programmer for us.” She swallowed. “Without us being recognized.”

  Turning his head to her sharply, James said, “You said no one from Fleet would be likely to turn us in.”

  Wincing, Noa looked up at the ceiling. “Well, almost no one.” Without waiting for a response, Noa opened the door and stepped into the room beyond.

  * * *

  Hell’s Crater was almost exactly as Noa remembered it. Smokey and badly lit, it smelled like too many bodies and spilled drinks. But when her eyes grazed the crowd, she saw that things were different. It wasn’t as full as usual. The hologlobe at the bar’s end wasn’t playing live sports; it was playing an old holodrama instead. And when she peered into cubbies and nooks, her eyes actually went wide with shock. Some of the patrons were linked to each other via cables. Hell’s Crater wasn’t stuffy, but it also wasn’t the sort of establishment where this sort of thing usually went on.

  Normally, direct neural interface communication was achieved by ethernet; but, with the ethernet down, cables or “hard links” could substitute. Noa felt a near-constant desire to link, but she didn’t feel compelled to hard link. There was more risk involved in linking with hardware; it was easier to catch a bug of the biological or electronic variety. Also, the ethernet relay stations for thought transmissions had built-in gates to help keep errant thoughts and emotions from slipping through. With a hard link, the nearly subconscious observation that your data partner had nice biceps would be transmitted straight to his brain. And the way human brains worked, that observation was likely to be followed with thoughts even more explicit. Sex was so often a result of a hard link that “hard linking” was a metaphor for sex. Noa had some Fleet apps installed to provide filtering for her own thought transmissions; however, the apps couldn’t shield her from a stranger’s musings.

  Realizing she probably looked like a kid who’d just found porn playing on her grandmother’s hologlobe, she smoothed her expression. Squinting in the gloom, looking for someone she recognized, she saw a few hard linkers were smiling a little too broadly, eyes rolled back in their heads. A hard linked woman in one of the booths began to visibly moan, her mouth agape and eyes glazed. Her partner grunted, his hand beneath the table, his arm moving furiously. Noa had seen more explicit antics on some of her shore leaves, but nothing like it at Hell’s Crater. She shook her head—so why now? The security guard’s words came back to her. “We get some slack for being a Fleet establishment.” She sighed. They were here because they didn’t have anywhere else to go. She looked around the bar to see how the other patrons reacted. Some of them were laughing and pointing; others were shaking their heads. She noticed a man at a table directly across from the couple; he took credits from a man and then handed him a hard link. Noa’s eyebrows shot up. Apparently this was where people came to buy hardware; that would explain the festivities. Her eyes narrowed as she inspected the seller. He was wearing a glowing necklace. The necklace lit Eurasian features that were more perfect than James’s. He’d definitely had work done ... also not typical of this place. Fleet people were more likely than Luddecceans to have plastic surgery for major scars—but “pretty” wasn’t an ideal. Just before she turned away from the man, he caught her gaze. His eyes widened a fraction, and he lifted his glass in her direction and leered. Noa’s stomach churned.

  Beside her, James whispered, “You know him?”

  Noa stepped toward an empty booth in the corner. “No, but he makes my creep detector buzz.”

  “Is that an app?” James whispered in her ear.

  Noa had no idea if he was joking, which made it funnier. Covering what had to be a goofy grin with a cough, she slid into the booth and tried to observe everyone discreetly. James had just taken a seat across from her when the door flew open. The guy they’d passed on the way up the stairs lunged in, eyes wide, shouting something into the din. Noa couldn’t hear the words, but she could read his lips: “Patrol!”

  The holo went silent, but the noise in the room increased. There were a few cries, a few shouts, and around
them people started yanking cables from their ports. James lurched to his feet, and Noa did, too. Other patrons were already ahead of them, running to the back door, but before Noa had slid out of the booth, the door in the back burst open and men in Luddeccean Green blocked their exit.

  Noa’s eyes darted across the room, looking for a place to hide. There had been a time when alcohol was prohibited on Luddeccea. Maybe there was a hideaway behind the bar?

  “Noa,” James hissed. Her eyes snapped to him—he was staring at someone not two steps from the table.

  Chapter Seven

  James’s muscles tensed. He heard shouting and saw people dropping hard links to the ground as they pressed in a mob toward the exits. A part of his mind noted the anomaly of it—hard linking wasn’t illegal in the Republic. It was necessary for psychotherapy or neural interface repair. It was, however, typically found to be in poor taste in public places. He remembered half-seriously suggesting to a girlfriend that they hard link in the backroom during a particularly tedious event. She’d suggested he go hard link himself.

  At the same time his mind processed these thoughts, his eyes remained fixed on the “creep.” The man shuffled toward the table—fortunately, effectively blocking the Guard’s view of Noa and James. Hands in the pockets of a long trench coat, the stranger looked James up and down without ever meeting his eyes, and then he looked at Noa and smiled.

  Her eyes narrowed at the man. “Do I know you?”

  James heard footsteps on the stairs, and shouts of, “This is an ID check, stay calm!” James’s eyes darted around the room, looking for an escape, but he heard the Guard at both exits. For a brief moment his vision went black. They’d run through a blizzard, fallen into a gorge, crashed into a canyon wall, hidden in a magni-freight car … this couldn’t be their end … not in a bar. But of course it could be; it was magical thinking to suppose otherwise.

  There were whispers and screams, and someone cried, “Dear God, dear God.”

  More magical thinking. But what was the alternative? He told himself they would get out of this. His vision returned, and he was once more staring at the stranger, but he couldn’t move. He was frozen in place, his mind scrambling for a viable course of action and finding none.

  Chuckling despite the chaos, the stranger slid into the booth across from James, blocking Noa’s escape. Pulling his hand from his pocket, the stranger put a stiff plastic necklace on the table. “Put this on, Noa.”

  James looked to her, surprised the man knew her name. Realizing the man’s frame wasn’t blocking the view to others in the room, James leaned as far as he could in his seat, turned his head to Noa, and put a hand to the side of his face visible to the crowd.

  Noa didn’t move. “Who are you?” she demanded.

  The man’s smile widened, but he didn’t show teeth. “It will hide you from the patrol.” The smile lasted too long without changing, and was too symmetrical.

  Sliding toward him in her seat, Noa said, “Get out of my way … ”

  The man frowned. The necklace he wore went dark. Halting, Noa gaped. James did, too. Where an instant before there had been a handsome if artificial-looking face, what appeared now was the face of a man who was pudgy and overweight. He had a thin unkempt beard, above which his cheeks and forehead glistened with sweat. His nose was long, pointed and European, but his eyes were narrow and red-rimmed. He lacked a distinct chin.

  “I’m only trying to help you, Noa,” he said, his lower lip quivering.

  “Dan Chow,” said Noa. James’s eyes slid to her. She recognized “Dan” obviously, but didn’t look overjoyed to see him. Her eyes darted to the necklace. Dipping her chin toward James, she said, “If you’re going to help me, you’ve got to help my friend.”

  “We don’t have time for games,” Dan said. Around the table the crowd was being pushed backward. James heard shouts from the patrol, “Take out your IDs!”

  “Lizzar dung. You’ve been playing a game since we came in,” Noa hissed back.

  Dan’s eyes slipped to the crowd and back to Noa. He looked down his too-long nose at James and sniffed. “Fine, Noa. Keep your toys.” James felt heat flash beneath his skin, but instead of sweating, he shivered.

  “My friend,” Noa said, and the heat cooled.

  The man’s lips quirked up in a small smile. He snorted. “Really?” Pulling out another necklace, he slid it across the table to James. Leaning back, Dan said, “And he looks like a throwback, too ...” James raised an eyebrow. He remembered, in his past, getting into shouting matches with people who used that slur. Now … he told himself that it was just their circumstances forcing him to keep a level head. But the slur felt wrong, like his name, an incorrect label, a jumble of syllables.

  Taking the necklace proffered to her, Noa slid it on her neck—and she vanished. In her place was a woman with paler skin, straight black hair that cut off just above her shoulders, eyes that were narrower and lips that weren’t as full. She still wore the clothing they’d stolen from the train operators—it looked out of place. Her face looked perfectly made up with makeup that was sophisticated, but not too heavy. The tiny scars above and below her eye were gone.

  It was a look he normally would like, but now it set him on edge. Noa was the only thing that felt real to him. The hologram—he was sure that was what it was—took away his one tether to reality. He gave his head a tiny shake. He had to get over it. Picking up his own necklace, he inspected it briefly. It looked and felt like a slender band of lightweight plastic. Slipping it on, his mind whirred. To work, holographic projections required smoke at the very least. In the hologlobes, rapidly oscillating beads reflected cyan, magenta, and yellow depending on the holographic data received. The necklace had no such medium to operate in.

  As the latch at the back of James’s necklace clicked, Dan said, “Now you’re both more attractive.” Dan’s necklace was on again, his face once again artificially handsome.

  Noa—or the hologram she wore—rolled her eyes, and James found himself doing the same.

  “Hide your hands,” Dan commanded.

  Glancing down, James saw Noa’s hands were still dark and his were still light. They both slipped their hands beneath the table as Dan pushed some ID billfolds out on the tabletop.

  At that moment, a Luddeccean patrolman sidled up to the table. “IDs please!”

  Dan nodded at the ID billfolds. “Right there, Sir.”

  Beneath the table, Noa’s hand went to James’s arm, and he could feel her tension in her fingers.

  The guard picked up the billfolds. As he flipped through them, James had the distinct impression that time was slowing. He cast furtive glances around the Guardman, noting there were no less than fifteen other members of the Guard in the room. All armed with stunners, and more lethally, laser pistols.

  The Guard’s eyes went to James and then to Noa, and back again. James’s muscles coiled, ready to fight. Noa’s fingers tightened even more. Tipping his helmet, the Guard gave a wink to James and a smile to Noa. Nodding to Dan, the guard put the IDs back on the table. “Thank you for your cooperation,” he said, and strode away.

  Dan chuckled. “I wonder if I should feel jealous or proud that he found you two ladies interesting.”

  Noa made a barely audible gagging noise.

  At the table where the two lovers had been hardwired together, James heard a woman’s voice, “Please, no!” and a Luddeccean Guard saying, “You are under arrest!” Noa went completely quiet and still. There were more sounds of protests, and scuffling, as other patrons were shoved up against the bars and tabletops.

  James’s eyes slid to Noa’s and her holographic disguise met his gaze.

  “Easy ladies,” Dan whispered. “Haven’t I just proved that you have nothing to worry about?”

  Despite his assurances, Dan didn’t speak again until the Luddeccean Guard had cleared out of the room, taking a substantial number of patrons with them. And then he said, “Fancy meeting you here, Noa.”

&n
bsp; Noa’s holographic illusion fixed Dan with a glare. “What’s your game, Dan?”

  Dan cocked his head, and one side of his lip curled. “I go by Ghost now. Aren’t you going to thank me?”

  “You didn’t do it out of the goodness of your heart … ” Noa tilted her head. “... Dan.”

  Dan frowned and leaned across the table. “I could just as equally ask what your game is, Noa. You need something, too. You were off in one of their re-education camps—”

  Noa recoiled as though she’d been struck.

  Dan gave her a thin smile. “Didn’t think I’d know about that, did you?”

  Noa’s jaw hardened. “You knew about that, but didn’t help?”

  Dan’s lower lip trembled. And James smelled something familiar. He’d smelled it when Noa had darted off his bed and in the cattle car just before he clipped the man in the chin. Noa had been afraid. Had the man in the cattle car been afraid? Was Dan afraid? James’s eyes dropped from the man’s artificially generated face to Dan’s hands. They had a barely perceptible tremor.

  “You were too afraid to help,” James said flatly.

  Noa snorted. “Good call.”

  James couldn’t meet her eyes. He’d almost been too afraid to help, too. Dan’s eyes flicked to James, and then went back to Noa. “I was too smart to get involved.”

  “You’ve always been too smart, haven’t you, Dan?” Noa snapped.

  “Ever seen tech like this?” Dan said, stroking his neck.

  Noa’s holo’s eyes narrowed to slits.

  Dan leered. “Oh, your precious Fleet would love these, wouldn’t they? Are you sorry that you didn’t recommend me for a promotion now?”

  Huffing, Noa shook her head. “I had nothing to do with that.”

  “You could have put in a good word for me,” Dan snapped.

  She snapped right back, “Get to the point. Why are you helping us? Just to gloat? To show off your shiny new tech?”

  Dan sniffed. “Maybe.” He tilted his head. “Although I am curious as to how you escaped the camp.” He leaned closer to Noa. “That would seem to be a feat that would require divine assistance.”