by Justin Sloan
There hadn’t been much time for Alice to ensure she looked like Jane, but she saw at one glance that it was close enough. She fell to one knee and coughed on purpose. When the other two looked back, she waved them off, holding up a finger for them to give her a minute.
“You’re sure?” one of them asked.
“Still recovering from the ride,” Alice replied, trying to cough while she spoke, to mask her voice. The women turned and kept going, and she sighed in relief.
A quick “Psst” came from the area where Oliver had taken the real Jane, and a moment later a wrist piece slid out. She’d forgotten about IDs and all that. She checked it, and was pleased to see it stocked and ready for use, with more than just identification. This woman had enough credits to last her a year without working—which was good, because after this, she might need it.
Alice shook her head at what she was doing. But she could justify it in the fact that she was, in a way, saving the woman. That didn’t always make such actions easier, though, when you knew the subject wouldn’t see it in such a positive light.
Slapping the wrist piece over her own, Alice double-timed it into the side room where the two women were just now entering. She managed to slide in right after the one with the prosthetic leg.
Staring at them was the woman who had brought them in here… and Nightshade herself. Alice gulped, suddenly regretting this. While she had wiped off the freckles and taken other steps to closely resemble the new recruit, she still had a feeling Nightshade was above all that, as if she could see into one’s soul.
Reminding herself that Nightshade was just human, too, Alice stood at attention, focusing on her calm so she could get through this.
Nightshade nodded to the other soldier, then walked the line, eyes trained on each of them.
“Show us your IDs,” Nightshade said, when she’d reached the end of the line.
Each woman held up their wrists and projected the images of their IDs, including all of their information. Alice was relieved to see that the woman staring back at her was close enough to the face she had seen in the mirror that morning that Alice herself wasn’t sure she could tell the difference.
Nightshade nodded to the other soldier again. The soldier took out a gray box, fidgeted with it, and then ran it across each of the wrist pieces. At the end, she stopped, leaning in to whisper to Nightshade.
“All authentic, no signs of hacking or tampering.”
“Good.” Nightshade eyed them again. “We in Project Destiny have an enemy on Space Station Horus. I would love to simply welcome you all and let it stop at that, but it’s time we crack down. So I will personally welcome you here, but with a caveat—this isn’t playtime. You might have signed up with hopes of finding out secrets about alien life, but as of now, that is not the case. We are still exploring, still learning about the galaxy. But if you want to be here when we do find alien life—and I believe we will—I need to know whose side you are on.”
“Your side, sir!” the woman beside Alice shouted.
“Yes, let’s certainly hope so.” Nightshade paced, stopping to stare back at them. “You’ll be briefed soon enough, after we get you into training and get your enhancements started. For now, know that several underground groups have partnered against us, and we will make a move shortly. They have a rogue agent who is working with one of the leaders of the criminal world up here, which means there’s no time for delay. I hope you brought your big girl pants, because it’s about to get dirty up here. So… can you all handle that?”
“Sir, yes sir!” the three new recruits yelled.
“Get out of my sight,” Nightshade said, then glared as they marched out.
Back in the false sunrise, a bead of sweat trickled down Alice’s spine. They’d suspected she might try something like this. Might even still be watching her. She was glad she hadn’t brought the earpiece or anything that might give her away, but she would have to make her move soon.
Did this mean they didn’t have a clear picture of Alice? It gave her room to think. They couldn’t have, or they would have put two and two together and come up with Alicia Carter, used her connection with Marick in some way against her.
But now that she knew for sure he was alive, and that they hadn’t tried something like that, she was surer than ever they didn’t have her true identity yet. In spite of having just stood next to one of the most deadly PD soldiers, the leader of the Taipans, she felt a rise in confidence.
And there was more—the woman had said there was a rogue agent working against PD. She didn’t think they meant Intrepid, but who?
Glancing up at the dome as they approached, she felt sure Scorpio and Norwal were there. She would find them, get the information she needed, and get out of there.
She just needed to convince everyone she was Jane Lenz, then find the first opportunity she could to move around on her own. Transportation pods arrived to take them and the other new recruits to the dome, and Alice had to pretend she wasn’t used to this.
“Well?” the woman with the prosthetic asked. Alice racked her brain, going back over the details of the briefing. Gloria, that was it.
“It’s amazing,” Alice replied, looking out over the deck of the station, doing her best to recall the sense of awe she had felt when arriving about a year ago. “I can’t believe it’s possible.”
“Told you the pictures and simulations wouldn’t live up to the real thing,” the other woman said, the one whose name Alice couldn’t remember.
Alice nodded, pretending to be too distracted by it all to listen.
“First chance you get, tell your husband to find a way to get up here faster than a month,” Gloria said, and the other woman nodded. “I don’t know about you, but all this excitement… if I had a husband, I don’t know that I could wait. Some of these guys…” She nodded to a couple of the male recruits. One smiled back.
The other woman leaned forward, lowering her voice. “You think that the enhancements, I don’t know, enhance them in all areas?”
“Like what?” Gloria asked with a chuckle. “Turning them from a thirty-second man to a one-minute man?”
“I was thinking more like making ‘em bigger. But longer-lasting, sure, I’ll take that too.”
“Ladies,” Alice said, “Just because you two don’t have husbands….” She paused, keenly aware of the strange look the two were giving her.
Gloria licked her lips, glanced around, and said, “You just met Cruz’s husband at departure. You hit your head or something?”
Damn.
Alice worked to come up with a response, but couldn’t. Instead, she held her head and said, “I did get a bit lightheaded back there. Maybe the effects of space travel?”
Cruz, as the woman was apparently named, frowned. But Gloria smiled as if that was enough.
“Hey, I feel for you. Swear to the gods, my bladder’s about to burst and I think it’s making my head swim, you know? Like there’s so much piss in there, it’s taken over my whole body. If we don’t arrive soon, I’m asking around for a bottle.”
Were all PD recruits so crass nowadays? Alice didn’t know how long she could put up with these two, and longed to be back with her team.
A horrible thought hit her, an image of her husband with his lost memory, pulling a woman’s shirt off and kissing her neckline, lips moving down. No, she wouldn’t believe it. Even if he had, it wouldn’t have been him. But she had faith in him. At least, she told herself she did a few more times before the pods landed on the fourth floor of the dome, at a landing level on the back.
“This way, recruits,” a man with sergeant insignia barked out. “You’re all the top of what you do, so we won’t be treating you like maggots, but make no mistake—this is an entirely new army you’re part of now!”
“A civilian army,” Gloria said, nudging Alice in the side. “Give me a break.”
“Oorah,” Alice replied, hoping it was the right time to say it.
Gloria chuckled as if that
was funny. Maybe taken ironically? The two fell in with Cruz and the rest, all filing in. They found a man there who handed them training uniforms and directed them to a room for changing behind them. More crude comments from Gloria as the men changed nearby, but Alice ignored it. She wasn’t here to make friends, and the quicker this woman realized that, the better.
Then again, she didn’t want to raise suspicion and have this woman report her. She smiled once or twice to maintain appearances.
When they were ready, they were shown to their barracks—a long room similar to how her husband had described his boot camp lodging. Everyone was given ten minutes to dump their old belongings in a wall locker beside their new racks, and then be on line to move out for their first exercise.
Enhancements, the man explained, would come after lunch. Until then, they were his to push to their limits, so that he could see what they were made of. Alice put her gear away, careful to conceal her own wrist piece within Jane’s, and then spent the rest of her time analyzing the recruits.
It wasn’t a large group—a dozen with the three women and nine men. Nothing like the pictures of her husband’s boot camp platoon, with its ninety or so people. But then again, this wasn’t Marine Corps boot camp. This was an elite group above anything Earth had to offer.
How the hell she was going to survive even this testing phase of training was beyond her.
“Remember, we’re going to ensure your bodies are the most powerful of any military out there!” the sergeant shouted, once they were lined up and ready to go. “But if your minds can’t handle it, you don’t belong here.”
All Alice could think was that she was screwed. The last time she had done a timed run was back at University. Put her in a computer room with these warriors, she’d outperform them any day of the week. But right now, that didn’t mean a damn thing.
“Move out!” the sergeant called, and soon they were jogging around the fourth floor in formation. The whole area had been transformed by a simulation to look like beaches back home, the lights hot as if they were running in the sun. The simulation even had the water in the distance, just far enough out to tease them.
Surprisingly, Alice found herself keeping up. Maybe all of that running about during daring escapes had been doing more for her than she realized! With a new sense of confidence, she held her head up, keeping pace.
This might actually work, and she might not die in the process. What a relief!
25
Stealth: A Dark Corner
Marick stood with Veles and Set at the corner of the main tunnel, waiting. All three had their eyes peeled, senses working double time. They needed to track Taipan communication to find the current location of the Taipan Chambers. They knew it was in the West Wing, but the way it always changed within there made it incredibly difficult to perform what they were about to attempt.
Now that he had a good grasp on how to use the teleporter, it was time he paid the price for it, before being given access to the Heel and the information he wanted. They had set up the return point not far from here, just around the corner where it was dark and even more secluded.
“This is never going to work,” Marick said for the hundredth time since they arrived.
“All we need is the recipe,” Veles said, looking over at the scanner in Set’s hands. “We have a pod, and it can perform the enhancements, if we have the right pieces. Screwing with DNA isn’t rocket science, but it certainly doesn’t work with just peanut butter and bananas.”
“Nothing yet,” Set said. He pressed against his earpiece, in case it wasn’t working.
“And when they kill me and you’re left with nothing?” Marick asked.
“Well, we’ve really lost nothing other than a machine that doesn’t work for us,” Veles said with a grin. “Not the worst situation in the world. When they find it’s useless, they’ll toss it and we’ll find it again, maybe. Or maybe not… it doesn’t matter. The station goes round.”
Marick cursed, glaring. He needed their help, and they needed him if they were going to get a leg up on the competition. Thing was, this was a big leg up. He wasn’t only helping the criminal underground, he was giving them an extreme advantage.
Veles had thought of everything, though, and had a good point. As long as Marick could get in, getting out with the recipe, as they called it, shouldn’t be a problem. With a glance at the rusty old hoverbike, tricked out for special speed, he found himself wondering if he would actually make it. Maybe he would die on the way in.
“You’ll come and find us,” Veles said, giving him a raised eyebrow. “When you have all your answers? Come give us a hearty thank you?”
Marick scoffed. “I’ll be long gone, my man. Long gone.”
“Let’s hope so.”
“If I’m not, I’m dead. Nobody turns on the Taipans like I have… it just doesn’t happen.”
Veles opened his mouth to reply, but froze at a start from Set.
“Now?”
Set nodded, slamming the device in his hands down into the empty slot on the bike, and said, “GO!”
Marick knew when to act, and in a blink he was on the bike, letting it go on autopilot to follow the instructions. They had intercepted the communication between one of the devices and the Taipan Chambers—which meant the others might not be there yet. If Nightshade found out they were capable of that, she wouldn’t stop until every shady individual here was dead.
As the station zoomed past him, he found his mind wandering to Tropical and Pete, and to Trish. They had been nothing but nice to him. Trish had even already helped him break out a criminal. Now he was breaking back in to rob the place?
He hoped the teleportation machine worked, so he wouldn’t have to spend any more time there than necessary.
Turning down a main corridor, he saw a Taipan guard casually walking past. Then he recognized the hand scanner. Marick shut out his conscience, but did his best to move so he wouldn’t hit the man as he leaped, grabbing him. They crashed into the wall with a thud. Marick tore off the man’s helmet, hit him with a punch to the jaw, and watched him crumple.
Bloodhound! Damn. And yet, in a way Marick felt good about that. Bloodhound was kind of a dick sometimes. At least, that’s how he justified it in the moment as he pulled the man around, placed his hand on the scanner, and then stood back as the doors opened. The bike behind him turned back on autopilot, and then he was in, charging past the simulation hallway where he had first met Tropical. He hurried past the training room areas, up the stairs that emerged from the wall, and straight for the enhancement dock.
Halfway there, a door opened.
“Bloodhound?” Tropical asked.
Marick froze, pressed up against the wall, and then started inching over.
“You’re supposed to stay out there,” Tropical said, voice growing close. “You gotta piss, let me know. Yo, Blood?”
“Hurry your sexy ass,” another voice said.
Marick’s eyes went wide. Was that Trish? He did his best not to snort with a laugh. He almost felt like he was back there, worrying what Pete would do when he found out Tropical was, it seemed, banging his sister.
Wiping that thought from his mind, Marick took two more careful steps and made it around the corner just before Tropical could’ve seen him.
“Odd, though,” Tropical said, too close for comfort now. “Get ready for big Trop. I’m bringing the thunderstorm.”
She laughed, and the door closed.
What was the world coming to? Marick moved fast now, connecting the card to one of the pods, and then smiling as it clicked and two canisters came out of the side. As far as he could tell, this was where the recipe was kept, the key to their genetic modifications that New Origins was so proud of. How odd that all of these soldiers let their bodies be mutated so, without even knowing what was being done to them.
But it wasn’t like they had a choice, once they had signed up. Who signs up and then backs out because they’re scared? Not a bunch of Marines
, that’s for sure. Or Army, or Navy, or Air Force… Or the other military people from across the globe who had been accepted into Project Destiny.
Quitting before giving something a chance just wasn’t the way of courage and honor, at least in their eyes.
And now he had the key to the same technology, and the criminal underground of Space Station Horus intended to find some way to use it. He grunted at the thought, but took it nonetheless.
“It has to be done,” he said to himself, and turned.
He stopped. A shadow was on the ground where there hadn’t been one moments ago. He looked up to see Tropical.
“Dammit, I knew I’d heard something.” The man stepped forward, expression full of betrayal, anger, and sorrow. “What got into you, son? What’s going on here?” He stepped back then, eyes wide as his face began to reflect the blue of Marick’s teleporter. “What the hell is this?”
“I have a past,” Marick said, half wishing he hadn’t pressed the button. The way this man looked at him, like a father whose own son has come to kill him… he almost wanted to surrender and be done with the whole affair. But he couldn’t. “We all do, and they took that from us, Trop. Don’t you understand? We can find out who we were, we can live again.”
“I’m a soldier, dammit,” Tropical said. He took a quick step forward, but Marick saw the screen in front of him, saw the numbers rising fast, and knew he’d escape in time. “Sorry, again, Trop. Just… know it’s not for power or anything like that.”
And then the counter reached one hundred percent, and the room vanished, the blue and purple light overwhelming Marick. The smell of eucalyptus, the light blinding until he closed his eyes. A pulling and pushing at the same time, and then a burning that was over almost as fast as it hit.
He was back, kneeling on the ground as he caught his breath and his healing finished keeping him in one piece. The canisters were in his left arm, his right hand on the floor for support.
“You did it,” Veles said, amazed. He helped him up.
“The Taipans saw me leave,” Marick said. “They know….”
