Jack Four

by Neal Asher

  The geodesic construction ceiling lay just ten feet above. Did he have a way we could get through it without causing a major atmosphere breach, since on the other side lay the interior of the hub? When I transferred my attention back to him he’d stripped off his pack and dropped it to the balcony. He put on his colour-change jacket and worked a small panel at its hem. A moment later, its colour changed and his torso all but disappeared. In the places covered by the jacket, it was as if he’d become transparent.

  ‘I’ll move fast so there’s a good chance I’ll not be seen,’ he told me. ‘You’ll be slower, though. Perhaps you should stay here.’

  ‘Not fucking likely.’

  ‘Then initiate your chameleonware and turn on your map – it’ll show you where her coms centre is.’ He paused, then continued, ‘The ’ware is power hungry, so be careful.’

  He stooped down and took a large, heavy handgun out, but left the pack and multigun at his feet. ‘This will have to do – with the pack I’m more likely to be seen and I don’t want its contents damaged.’

  ‘You still haven’t told me how we’re going to get across there,’ I observed.

  He pointed up again. ‘Rails for maintenance and inspection robots.’

  The geodesic consisted of hexagonal panes of chain-glass held in a composite framework. A bar half an inch thick hung suspended around this framework. I visualized working my way across near half a mile clinging to that thing.

  ‘Suit assist,’ he reminded me.

  ‘Right,’ I said.

  He nodded, squatted, then leapt up and grabbed a bar. He swung his feet up and it looked as if he clung with his toes too, then he began scuttling across the roof like a harvestman spider. He reached almost twenty feet out, looking like disconnected arms and legs moving independently, before I snapped back into focus. I raised my visor and, using a combination of wrist console and blink control, pulled up the suit’s main menu. Assist was still on automatic response whereby it intelligently kicked in when required. I set it to continuous at fifty per cent. I found the chameleonware and turned it on. I looked down at myself but could still see every detail. I lowered my visor – it paused to deliver the warning that I would not be fully covered – then looked at myself again, or rather where I should have been. I then reached out to the balcony wall and by feel rather than sight snared up my weapon. Once in my hand, it immediately disappeared. I stuck it to the patch on the front of my suit, then closed up the visor again.

  It all made sense. The warning about lowering the visor had been because people would see my disembodied face floating in the air. That I could see myself with the visor closed was a necessity for hand-eye coordination. By now Marcus was forty feet out and moving easily, with the suit amplifying my strength by half, I estimated I might be able to do the same, but felt a more cautious approach would be better. I climbed up on the balcony wall and from there could reach a bar. As I grabbed it, magnetic feedback stimulation gave me the strength of my grip. More confident now, I hauled myself up, taking a grip with my other hand and bringing my feet up for a further stabilizing grip either side of the bar. Ever so slowly, I released my hold and reached further along, then again and again, my feet sliding along the bar with me. I grew more confident and travelled faster. Halfway across, pausing to dangle by my hands, I felt utterly secure, and gazed down at those in the park far below. I then looked across to see Marcus dropping onto a balcony on the other side, drawing his sidearm and entering the apartment there. As I swung up again, a flashing bar appeared in the bottom of my visor, warning me that I’d used up half the suit’s power. I moved fast and economically then, having no confidence that I’d be able to cling on, supporting the weight of the suit, if the power ran out.

  Finally, I reached the other side and dropped onto the balcony. With suit power now down to a quarter, I cut the chameleonware. Someone clearly lived in the apartment within but luckily wasn’t home. I headed over to the door, calling up the map in my HUD, then I had to stop to work out how to read the thing. First it showed my location as a red dot in the station entire. As I zeroed in on that dot, the station expanded as a semi-transparent hologram. I had to orient the thing to my perspective by swinging it round a hundred and eighty degrees. Closer still, I got a 3D schematic of the complex I stood in, but without labels. Pulling out of the map and starting again gave me those and I zeroed in once more. The coms centre lay two floors below and a few hundred yards to my right at the end of a large oval tunnel labelled ‘The Hall of History’. I opened the door and stepped out.

  Fifty feet along the corridor, two of Suzeal’s people stood over two thralled technicians who’d taken off a wall cover to work at something inside. I quelled my immediate instinct to turn on the chameleonware, since I might need it later and power was limited. I also had to factor in that I probably didn’t have enough power to make the return journey. Instead I set my HUD for projected display so the map would at least partially conceal my face. The two looked up as I approached but showed no interest, instead returning their attention to the technicians. I saw that one of them had uncovered an air duct, while the other was programming an open case packed full of seeker spiders. Disaster-response teams used the small robots to seek out victims of building collapses. I should have kept going, but feared that somehow the nanite had been detected and Suzeal was now doing something about it.

  ‘What’re they doing?’ I asked.

  One of the guards looked up. ‘We want to make sure the fuckers don’t get in again.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Check your updates,’ said the other guard dismissively.

  But the first guard was more amenable.

  ‘Been asleep, have we?’ he asked.

  ‘Yeah – five hours – needed to get some stuff out of my system.’

  He smiled understandingly. ‘That Salander bitch released the prisoners. A few managed to crawl through the ventilation system and get in here. Don’t know how they managed it, I couldn’t get through those pipes.’

  ‘They been dealt with?’

  He slapped his sidearm. ‘Sprine ammo now. Takes ’em down fast. The survivors are running for the rim.’

  ‘I better get myself some,’ I said, and moved on.

  ‘You’ll need it later when we head out there,’ he called after me.

  I gave him a thumbs-up, now knowing why I’d seen dead prisoners down in the park.

  A stairway took me down to the curiously named hall, passing other soldiers I acknowledged with a nod or occasionally some brief comment. Walking confidently around a place where they didn’t expect an enemy to be worked better than chameleonware.

  The Hall of History turned out to be lit with holographic displays. I found myself walking through the ancient buildings of Earth. The art of Michelangelo slid overhead, next displaced by ancient beams, then patterned plaster. Under my feet passed carpets, cobblestones and tiles, but I felt none of them. In occasional sections, the display had gone out, exposing grey glassy tube. Halfway along I thought for a second I could hear sound effects, but then recognized gunfire ahead. Chameleonware back on, I moved to the edge of the tunnel where the floor curved up into the wall, but I kept walking. A few minutes later, my map indicated a turning ahead, just as a group of Suzeal’s soldiers spilled out of it. With weapons held ready, they gazed suspiciously along the tunnel in both directions. Suzeal walked out. I froze, wondering if my suit was managing to match the shifting hologram around me of some luxuriously furnished palace.

  Next came four people clad in overalls similar to those of the technicians I’d seen earlier. They too were thralled and walked along with a grav-gurney. Suzeal turned in my direction, the soldiers falling in around her. I shrank back against the wall and put my hands on my gun, loath to pull it from its fixing for fear it would somehow become visible.

  ‘How did you know?’ asked one of the soldiers.

  ‘I knew he’d want to get a message outside the station at some point, and this is the only place he
could do it.’

  ‘Didn’t kill him.’ The soldier looked back, and I recognized Brack. I wondered if he knew what had happened to his companion Frey.

  Suzeal glanced back also. ‘He’s infected with some version of the virus the prador altered, and he’s been infected for a long time. Seal him in the pens and we’ll deal with him later.’ She paused directly opposite me. ‘And search up here thoroughly; there might be others.’

  Now I could see the figure held down on the gurney with heavy ceramal bands. Marcus had been riddled with gunshots and was shifting as if in extreme discomfort. Even as I watched him, a bullet dropped out of one wound and clattered to the floor – a sprine bullet. So what should I do now? I pulled my gun off its fixing and pointed it at them. They couldn’t see me … I lowered the weapon as even more soldiers came out of the tunnel, and marching amidst them was one of the heavily armed robots we’d seen earlier. No. If I opened fire now, I might well kill many of them, but only before they killed me. Meanwhile the lives of thousands of people out at the rim depended on the plan Marcus had made, and I had to carry it through to completion. Anyway, Suzeal had ordered him to be thrown into the pens and I knew where they were. I could get to him later.

  As the gurney slid past and then the other soldiers came, I questioned whether my decision was based on self-preservation, but dismissed the idea. I owed Marcus a lot and would do my best to save him, after completion of the plan. I also considered whether killing Suzeal would stop her going after the refugees, and dismissed that too. Doubtless there would be some disruption, but their attack was already underway and someone in her command structure, like Brack, would fill her shoes. I also reasoned that Suzeal needed to be in place for Marcus’s plan to work – to order her troops back to the hub. They moved on past, and as they disappeared into history, I moved on.

  Coming round a turning, I saw that the holograms were down and this smaller tunnel was a grey glassy tube, peppered with slugs caught in some form of polymer. The tube ran into a square corridor with doors down one side. There was a lot of bullet damage here too. I came to the third door along, the one for the coms centre, according to the map. It stood partially open with a line of bullet holes down it, and I opened it all the way then stepped inside, still with my chameleonware on.

  Four people occupied the room, two sitting at consoles and two guards. The guards swung towards the opening door, bringing weapons to bear, visors slamming down. I moved aside and just waited. After a moment one of them headed over to the entrance, peered outside, then stepped back and closed the door.

  ‘They should have hit him before he got here,’ she said.

  ‘He moved fast,’ said the other.

  ‘Still.’ She indicated the damage on the door.

  I studied the room. The consoles had numerous controls while screens all around the walls showed various scenes. This was all unnecessary. There was no need for a designated ‘Coms Centre’ when people possessed cerebral hardware and could step into virtualities. It was the result of some antediluvian thinking and Suzeal’s paranoia. My gaze fell on one of the many screen scenes – most of them showed fighting aboard the station – and I realized with a start that I was watching myself. There I was, observed from above, approaching the sleer and driving it down the valley. As the past episode played out, one of those working a console computer mapped the scene and swung it round, giving the viewer a better angle on the action. Suzeal had been quite right about my ventures down on the planet being entertainment here.

  What to do now?

  I studied the guards, hoping to find some way to deal with them which meant they’d survive, but I could see none. I walked up to the nearest of them, raised my weapon to his head and pressed the trigger once. Even as he staggered back, with a smoking hole through his forehead, I turned to the other and shot him through the visor too. The first hit the floor. The second went over, burning a line of holes along the ceiling. One of the two who were seated leapt up, so I stepped in and slammed the butt of my weapon against his head, felling him, then pressed the barrel against the neck of the other, who’d been about to rise.

  ‘Stay completely still,’ I said.

  He did as instructed, hands frozen above the console, then said, ‘Chameleonware?’

  I looked over his shoulder at the console and realized I understood the thing just as well as I understood all the weapons and the suit I now wore. Without replying, I quickly reversed my weapon and thumped it into the side of his head. He collapsed out of his seat onto the floor. Grabbing his collar, I pulled him clear, sat down and gripped the single ball control, which was all I really needed. One press cleared the screen ahead. I turned off my chameleonware and opened my visor. Another press brought up a menu. Right turn on the control slid the menu over to the next screen along. I found U-comlinks, selected and pressed, and brought up a list on the screen before me. ‘Prador emissary’ sat right at the top of the list and I selected it.

  The screen blanked and at its centre the icon of a Klein bottle began simultaneously filling and emptying itself. I waited, rattling my fingers on the console. The bottle froze for a second then winked out. The lights then came up, revealing a prador, clad in chromed armour intagliated with what looked like a Greek key, squatting before me, yellow eyes gleaming behind its visor. Its mandibles shifted and rattled against each other.

  ‘Who are you?’ enquired a flat accentless voice.

  ‘That’s not something you need to know,’ I replied.

  The prador paused for a long moment, then said, ‘Speak.’

  ‘Tell Vrasan and your other prador here to be prepared for their assault on the Stratogaster station.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I am going to destroy the railgun here.’

  ‘A ruse.’

  ‘Keep watching the station – it will become obvious that it’s not.’ I paused for a second then continued, ‘They should begin their attack as soon as possible – the longer they leave it the more organized Suzeal’s defence will be.’

  ‘Why would you, a human, do this?’

  I thought quickly, knowing some things I couldn’t say. ‘There are those aboard this station who rebel against Suzeal’s rule. They cannot defeat her but want to bring her down.’

  ‘We shall watch,’ said the prador.

  I nodded, clicked down the ball control and banished him. I was sweating. I’d been about to be utterly honest about the escape pods and the refugees, but at the last moment realized the prador would probably have liked all the humans killing each other at the rim, while they waltzed into the hub. Also understanding prador psychology, I knew they could accept the idea of rebels being prepared to give the station to one enemy to be rid of another. With nothing else to do here, I stood – I now had to put into motion Marcus’s plan to destroy the railgun.

  Back out in the Hall of History, I reactivated chameleonware, with an eye on the power bar. I had about an eighth of total power left and not enough for crossing the roof with the ’ware on. If I headed down, I’d need more power for that too. I couldn’t turn the ’ware off either, for groups of soldiers were now, on Suzeal’s orders, searching the building. I climbed up, while watching the power bar steadily diminish. A man rushed out of a door beside me and, as the door swung shut, I darted through the gap before it closed.

  ‘It hurts!’ someone exclaimed.

  Two people lay on the large circular bed: a young man, little more than a boy, and a pubescent girl. They both wore tight strappy costumes of brown leather and brassy metal that did nothing to conceal their nakedness. The youth was writhing but for a moment glanced towards the door. He grunted, having sensed me there but, seeing nothing, coiled up around his pain again. The girl lay flat on her back, eyes rolled up in her head, hands poised above her stomach clenched into fists. The youth clawed at the thrall on the back of his neck – there were scratch marks in the skin all around it.

  ‘Betan!’ he yelled, then slumped, unconscious.

  I
had no doubt this was the result of Bronodec’s nanite. The one hurrying out had doubtless gone to get help, with something he couldn’t explain happening to his bedroom slaves. Noting a power point set in the wall above a side table, I headed over. Checking through the HUD menu gave me the suit’s schematic. Its cable sat coiled in a box on the belt and its universal bayonet slid into the socket beside a microwave emitter that probably powered the bedside lamps and other devices in the room. A charging bar appeared below the discharge bar and rose up to fourteen per cent. I stepped to the side of the table and sat with my back against the wall. A further search of the recharging menu gave me other options and I keyed into microwave emission first. Then I discovered more ways of drawing on emitted radiations and I turned them all on. A warning came up telling me that this option made my chameleonware less effective. I didn’t worry about that just then.

  ‘Betan,’ said the youth, abruptly sitting up.

  He sat there looking around the room, then reached up to his thrall. ‘Yes,’ he said, and dug his fingers in. He wrenched at it, like pulling at a large scab, and tore the thing up to reveal the fibres penetrating his neck. Blood welled out and it obviously hurt, but he kept pulling until the thing snapped away. He tossed it down on the bed.

  ‘Betan?’ he asked again.

  The girl sat up.

  ‘It’s gone,’ she said.

  ‘Pull the fucking thing off,’ he said.

  She reached up tentatively.

  ‘No, don’t do that,’ I said.

  The youth looked around wildly, while the girl seemed numb as if just out of a deep sleep. I debated with myself for a second, then turned off the chameleonware and lowered my visor. The youth leapt off the bed, took a step across the room and grabbed up a stun baton lying on a nearby chair.

  ‘Who are you?’ he asked, all aggression and fear.

  ‘I’m the person who introduced the nanite into the ventilation system which has shut down your thralls. What’s your name?’