Ascension_Age Of Expansion_A Kurtherian Gambit Series

by Ell Leigh Clarke

  While they were waiting for the pod, Bourne interrupted their musings. “Hey both, I’ve established a connection with Oz’s servers, which means that at least I have increased the probability of being able to communicate with you while you’re on the surface to about ninety percent. Additionally, I now have access to the processing power and the constant stream of data in order to assess the situation, the points of origin, and hopefully in a few hours, fighting the virus that has knocked out the holonodes.”

  “Great, that’s good news,” Paige told him, trying to sound as optimistic and encouraging as she could given the post-apocalyptic feel in the alleyway.

  “Keep us posted,” Maya added. “You can see the address that Bates has sent us, on the server, right?”

  “I can. And I can track your pod too, now. I’ll be in touch. Bourne, out.”

  The pod arrived, elegantly dropping down the final few feet and opening its front panel at the same time. The two strangers to this deteriorating city hopped in, and the pod disappeared up into the dusty darkness beyond the tops of the buildings.

  ***

  Without looking up, Carol pulled up a second holoscreen and connected a call with Alisha.

  “Hello?” Alisha answered, sounding slightly surprised to receive a holocall while there was so much network instability.

  “Agent Montella, I have a small task for you…” the Director told her, wiping a spot of mocha off the saucer of her drink with her napkin.

  The conversation lasted less than twenty seconds. When she was done, she closed up her holo and paid the restaurant bill. In the time that she had been there, daylight had turned to dusk, and dusk to dark.

  Carol stepped out of the restaurant, zipping her atmos suit up and closing her chest off to the elements. There was a brisk wind in the street that carried the dust of the planet with it.

  She was about to turn up the street back to her car when shouting and a smashing of bottles caused her to turn around quickly. She saw a couple of young males running in her direction and stood back out of the way, keeping eyes down so as not to draw their attention. Once they had moved past her, she pulled herself together. Head down, she started again, now striding in the direction of her car.

  She shook her head to herself as she walked. The things I do for this task force, she muttered, chastising herself for leaving the comfort and security of her office in order to get a holoconnection.

  Spire Penitentiary, Spire, Estaria

  Maybe it was petty to focus on the aesthetics of being a prisoner. Nevertheless, while Jennifer was alone in the room—cold and sterile as it was, with just a small table and two chairs—it left her with little else to do but to look at her reflection in the two-way mirror.

  She noticed the jumpsuit made her look like a character for toddlers, considering how garish the orange was compared to the blue of her skin. She didn’t even have the supplies to do anything decent with her hair.

  She averted her eyes from the mirror and allowed her gaze to bore into the table.

  She hardly even moved when the door opened, revealing a female Estarian visitor. The security officer stationed outside the room stated authoritatively, “We’ll be on hand in case anything goes wrong. The door will be locked while you’re in there, however.”

  “I’m sure I’ll be fine,” the visitor assured him, smiling politely as she stepped into the room. As soon as she cleared the doorway, the door slid closed behind her.

  She crossed the floor and sat down in the unoccupied chair across from Jennifer. Then, folding her hands on the table, she simply regarded Jennifer in silence for a few moments. Jennifer remained stubbornly silent, continuing to stare at the mirror just past Alisha’s shoulder.

  Alisha reached into her pack and pulled out a manual recorder. She fussed with a few buttons on it for a second before she set it down on the table. Jennifer eyed it in quiet bemusement.

  “Haven’t I talked to enough of you people?” Jennifer wondered finally, tapping one foot on the floor. “How many times am I going to have to do this?”

  “As many times as it takes for us to be satisfied that you have no more information to offer us,” Alisha answered plainly. She shifted in her seat to get more comfortable, as if she were simply sitting at her own kitchen table.

  “What do you want now?” the pretty inmate groaned, exasperated already. “What else is there to talk about? I’m pretty sure we’ve covered all of it already. Or are you just that desperate for any scrap of information you can get?” Her eyebrows rose, and she schooled her expression into something earnest. “It’s okay, you can just admit you’re coming up empty-handed.”

  Alisha regarded her passively for a moment before she simply shook her head slightly and moved on. “There’s still more we would all like to know about your connection to the Northern Clan.” Her expression turned expectant. “If you’re so eager for us to be finished, then just cooperate and tell me what I want to know. It’s as simple as that.”

  “That again?” Jennifer groused. “Like I said, we’ve been over this,” she insisted firmly. “What’s all that about the definition of insanity and trying things over again?”

  Jennifer huffed out an impatient sigh and sagged back in her chair, her arms folded over her chest. “You could just read the transcripts,” she pointed out petulantly. “Unless those disappeared into the same black hole my hearing disappeared into.” She snorted bitterly. “It’s been, what, three months? Oooh, I got arrested, and all I got was the Road Cone Chic wardrobe! I can see the T-shirt opportunities already.”

  Alisha clicked her tongue. “The media’s in enough of an uproar—you saw to that. We weren’t going to give them anything else to hyper-focus on.”

  Jennifer rolled her eyes so emphatically that she tilted her head with the motion. “Uh-huh,” she deadpanned. “You could still just read the transcripts. You’re not asking me anything I haven’t already been asked.”

  “I have read the transcripts,” Alisha replied. “I’m just not sure how much stock I put in them. After all, in the transcripts you’re rather insistent about how you don’t know what the upload was for.”

  “Gee, it’s almost like I don’t know what it was for,” Jennifer drawled, drumming her fingers on the table.

  Alisha arched one eyebrow, plainly unimpressed. “So everything you’ve done, you’ve had no idea of what you were actually doing?”

  “It’s not like they told me every single detail of it,” Jennifer muttered sullenly. “They told me what they wanted me to know.”

  “With a healthy dose of what you wanted to hear on the side,” Alisha added flatly.

  “Probably,” Jennifer replied, eyes narrowing in irritation. “But why are you focusing so much on me?” she demanded finally. “It’s not like I’m at the top of this pyramid.”

  “No?” Alisha asked, feigning surprise. “And yet you were instrumental in their plans. And you didn’t even know.” Her gaze drifted up and to the side in thought, and she clicked her tongue. “That might actually be worse,” she mused. “I’m not sure. I’ll need to think about it.”

  Jennifer heaved an impatient sigh. “What are you getting at?”

  “Do you even know what’s been going on?” Alisha asked sharply. “Do you have any idea what your actions have actually led to?”

  Jennifer’s eyebrows rose slowly, and she lifted her hands to gesture around. “It’s not like I get to shoot the shit with anyone,” she pointed out. “It hasn’t really been a priority to keep me in the loop.”

  “The world is falling apart,” Alisha informed her. “The holo network has gone dark from one corner of Estaria to the other. The space fleet has been launched and is courting galactic war. Martial law has been declared, and we’ve lost track of how much of the population has gone completely dark with the network blackout.” Her eyes narrowed. “And you didn’t even know what you were doing. Someone told you what you wanted to hear and you did what he asked without even knowing what he was asking you t
o do.”

  “It’s not like I asked for all of this to happen!” Jennifer burst out, curling her hands around the sides of her chair until her knuckles blanched.

  “You sure as hell made it easy for them to do it, though!” Alisha shot to her feet, hands slamming down on the table as she leaned halfway across it. Jennifer shrank back into her seat.

  The air thrummed with tension for a few seconds. Slowly, Alisha lowered herself back into her seat.

  Her voice was low as she stated, “Millions of people could very well be about to die if we wind up with a war on our hands. You helped goad that into happening. Maybe we don’t know each other, but you don’t strike me as a murderer. A bit too enamored with the limelight, maybe, but not a mass murderer.” She leaned her elbows on the table and linked her fingers together, so she could lean her chin on the back of her knuckles. “So, how are you going to prove that you aren’t a mass murderer?”

  Jennifer seemed to shrink as Alisha spoke. She stared off at a corner of the room and picked at one of her nails until the cuticles frayed and bled. “I didn’t actually know what the upload was going to do,” she stated eventually, her voice low and listless. “I swear, I didn’t. I didn’t know what was going to happen.”

  “What were you expecting, then?” Alisha asked sharply. “The population was turning into a writhing mosh pit before the fleet was even launched, in no small part because of your actions.”

  Jennifer shrugged one shoulder halfheartedly. “Fame, mostly. I wanted to be known. Or at least for my work to be known. Some sort of mark on the world, you know?” She scrubbed her hand off on her pants and folded her arms again to stop picking at her nails. “I didn’t know what the upload was going to do,” she repeated. “But yeah, it seems like the sort of thing they would want to happen. It would suit their purposes well enough.”

  She didn’t bother to elaborate on what those purposes were, but Alisha supposed it had become rather apparent in its own time even without an explanation.

  Slowly, Alisha sighed. She was fairly sure she wasn’t going to get anything else out of her. Or at least nothing else relevant. “Is there anything else you can tell me?”

  Jennifer was quiet for a moment before she offered simply, “Just be careful. The Northern Clan has people everywhere, and you’re never going to find someone who knows every single other person being bankrolled.” She fell silent after that, staring at a point on the far wall again.

  Alisha waited a few seconds to make sure she wasn’t going to say anything else, and then got to her feet. Her chair creaked as it slid away from the table. “Thank you. I’ll make a note of it.” She turned off her recorder and put it back into her pack.

  She made her way to the door and pressed the button for the intercom. It buzzed slightly, and she said into the speaker, “I’m done here.”

  The door clicked as it unlocked, and it slid open to reveal a security officer standing outside. He stepped aside to let Alisha through before stepping into the room to escort Jennifer back to her cell.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “We have a silent alarm at a department store just off of Helix and Crest.”

  “On it. I’m twelve minutes out.”

  “That long?”

  “Everyone closer is on more urgent leads.”

  ***

  “This is dispatch. We need a unit in Belladonne Square. An attempted carjacker. Armed, but restrained.”

  “Any injuries?”

  “Not that anyone mentioned.”

  “I’m on the way.”

  ***

  “Fire in Westlake, at 1219. Electrical.”

  “We’ve got a truck and an ambulance inbound. Isn’t Westlake a blackout zone?”

  “Someone was trying to get a network-connected heating system working.”

  “Ah, shit. Again?”

  “You know what people are like.”

  ***

  “Looting party and possible violence in the Citrine Quarter. At least a dozen people.”

  “I’m on it.”

  “Ideally, someone closer could respond.”

  “I’m all you’ve got; everyone closer is already busy.”

  ***

  “I’ve got a child alone in Sheer Court. It’s a blackout zone. Parents left to get food, said they’d be back in an hour. They haven’t returned and it’s been three. Who’s the closest available unit? …Anyone?”

  “Ah, shit. I’m headed towards a looting case. I’ll divert to Sheer Court instead.”

  ***

  “Break-in in the Quartz District. Someone from a blackout zone busting down the door into a house that was still lit up.”

  “Still there?”

  “Apparently he scampered when threatened with a large stick.”

  “Any injuries?”

  “No injuries, just a few things stolen.”

  “Then they’re going to have to wait. I’ve got to prioritize here.”

  “Understood.”

  ***

  “We’ve got an officer down. We have an armed robbery-turned-shootout in a residential area. Three civilians wounded so far. We need backup.”

  “You’re going to have to hold out for as long as you can. There’s no one else in the area right now.”

  “You have got to be shitting me!”

  Spire Police Precinct, Spire, Estaria

  Kelsey Mazo’s voice was as calm and assured as ever as she said, “An available unit has been diverted to your position, but they’re still a ways out. All closer units are already engaged in equally critical situations.” Her hands shook and she clenched them into fists on top of her desk to get them to stop.

  The monitor in front of her was just a bit too old for the software that had been hastily installed on it to let her track where various units were. She had to refresh it every few seconds to get it to update when positions changed and to keep it from spontaneously losing track of various units. Even so, it worked well enough that the department was still functional.

  “Tell them to step on it!” the officer barked. A moment later, she could hear him again, his voice softer and gentler and far away from his communicator as he assured one of the civilians, “Everything is under control. Help is on the way, and we’ll be out of here soon. Alright? Here, you can hold my hand.”

  Kelsey refreshed the program, once, twice, three times in a row. She knew it was working—as best as it was going to work, at any rate—and none of the more conveniently located units were available.

  She dragged her hands down her face, very nearly dislodging her headset as she did. Even so, there was no change in her tone as she said, “I understand that this isn’t ideal, sir, but nothing about any of this is ideal and I’m working as best as I can with the resources available to me. Has the situation changed at all?”

  She could hear the officer muttering to himself, though she couldn’t make out the words. And then she heard a shot go off and she recoiled from her desk. She reached up with one hand, curling it around the side of her headset as if that would make any sort of difference.

  “Sir! Has the situation changed at all?” she repeated, her voice pitching upwards with urgency. She refreshed the program again and mentally went over all of the closer units, trying to decide if she could feasibly divert any of them. But there were lives on the line for all of them. She clenched one hand around the edge of her desk so tightly she swore her nails cracked.

  “Pretty sure it was a warning shot,” the officer replied. “Gunman seems a bit queasy with all these bleeding people. Not sure he actually planned on everything going as far as it did.”

  “Is there any way you can talk him down?” Kelsey asked, her voice returning to its usual level.

  “He’s more of a ‘twitchy, unstable’ sort of queasy, not a ‘oh god what am I doing’ sort of queasy,” the officer answered flatly.

  Kelsey’s gut clenched. “I understand, sir. As I said, assistance is en route.”

  “I just need to sit on the live wir
e for a while longer, yeah, I know,” the officer grumbled in reply. “I got it.”

  “I’m doing everything I can, sir.” Kelsey refreshed the program again. No one closer was available yet.

  She refreshed it a few more times, each time worrying silently that it would finally crash and she would lose precious moments while she rebooted the system.

  Down the hall in the bullpen, a handful of detectives listened in on the entire conversation. They were shameless as they eavesdropped.

  Detective Indius stared down at the datapad in her hands, though she couldn’t say she was really seeing it. Most of her attention was on the dispatcher’s voice drifting down the hall. Around her, three other detectives spoke in hushed voices. Finally, one of them got to her feet.

  It was Detective Lewin—a scrappy young officer with more get up and go than most of her colleagues put together.

  “I’ll go help with the shootout,” she bit out, turning and storming from the room. It wasn’t her line of work—it wasn’t any of theirs—but everyone needed to work outside the box at that point.

  Down the hall, without missing a beat, Kelsey calmly stated into her headset, “Detective Lewin is on the way to your position now.” Knowing the detectives in the bullpen were listening in still, she added, “Twelve minutes out.”

  They could hear Lewin break into a sprint in the hallway. If she gunned it once she was in the car, she could just make it in twelve minutes. Knowing the way she drove, she would probably make it in nine.

  Even after that, nothing seemed calmer. Everything still felt as if it was balanced on the edge of a tightrope, like the air itself was vibrating and waiting to snap.

  The other two detectives, one of their partners, and an intern all clustered around a pair of smart boards, organizing what few resources the department had and messaging back and forth with dispatch down the hall. Most of the department’s files had been properly backed up and archived, but no one was perfect, and there were still a few case files that needed holes filled in from memory too. Even so, they had still fared better than at least a couple of the other stations in the city.