When she regained consciousness, she grabbed at her arm. It was whole again, tender but otherwise normal, and she could move and feel. Even her brain hurt a little less.
Palms on the glass, she cringed. What happened? Sore, but tolerable.
An Asian woman in a white doctor’s coat almost fell out of her chair at the sudden voice in her head. She looked around the room for a moment before realizing it came from Kirsten. This was not the same doctor who asked her to keep still. She waited for the woman to get closer, shivering at the effect of the loudspeaker through the gel.
“You were shot. Your right humerus bone was completely shattered. We had to detach it the rest of the way to allow the nanobots to clean bone fragments out of the muscle and reconnect the nerves and blood vessels. I would not advise you put a lot of stress on it for a few hours, but you should retain normal function.”
Kirsten sagged with relief. This is still my arm. No cyberware.
“You’re almost done in there, Agent Wren. Should be another ten minutes or so. Would you like me to put on some music?”
Kirsten shook her head. How long was I in here? I have to find my partner!
The doctor looked at the terminal before glancing at her. “You should be thrilled we saved the arm. If you didn’t get here so fast… You’ve been in there about two hours. Nanobots are currently regenerating your blood supply and performing some final repairs at the cellular level to grow you some new bone marrow. You may notice mild discomfort in your arm and left femur.”
Kirsten fidgeted, biting her lip while she hung weightless in fluid. “Mild discomfort” translated to the sensation of a series of needles jammed through the bones of her arm and leg, twisted back and forth, and lit on fire. The twinges were too brief to make her want to scream, not that she could with liquid-filled lungs. In a few minutes, the torture subsided to a dull overall sense of warmth.
She pressed herself against the tube as the doctor picked up a robe, a puppy eager to be let out of her crate. The doctor fiddled with the controls, and a patch of cyan light flashed on her face. Her voice saturated the gel yet again.
“Agent, there’s someone here asking to see you. Do you mind if they come in?”
Kirsten sighed. Fuck it. Maybe he’ll be cute. She gave the doc a thumbs up, thought for a second, and sent a message: A s long as it’s not a reporter.
Laughing, the doc nodded at a terminal out of sight. Nina walked in as pumps kicked on and drew the gel through vents in the ground. As usual, Kirsten remained limp and let gravity take her down until she sat on the floor. I’m winding up inside the tank way too often lately. The wonderful warm robe draped over her as she assumed the pose and choked out the gel.
“Well,” she rasped, coughing again. “I guess I know how I got here so fast.”
“Carter was on the line with my boss while you landed, trying to call us off. I had a feeling things wouldn’t go smoothly with Gerard.”
Kirsten’s laugh devolved into more coughing. The doctor handed her honeyed tea, earning an adoring smile. “That’s a bad sign. They know me here well enough to have the tea waiting. Guess I should be happy they’re bad shots.”
“Thank Vernon. If she wasn’t in the line of fire, they wouldn’t have tried to leg you. Why didn’t you wait for approval?”
Hot tea ran down her throat; relaxation radiated from the node of heat forming in her stomach, spreading throughout her body. After a second healthy sip, Kirsten hocked up a wad of phlegm and B-gel and spat it into a waiting teal tray. “Whatever was inside Vernon had a way to hide from me once. I wanted to catch it off guard. I couldn’t take the chance one of her security people would tell her I was coming.” After another long, closed-eye sip of tea, she looked up. “How is Vernon?”
Nina dropped a bag on the comforgel pad next to her. “Your gear. Vernon’s as good as can be expected after projectile vomiting a few gallons of black gunk. She wanted to thank you for saving her life.”
“There’s at least two more. Someone at RedEx and Graeme McCullough at EnMesh Biomed are compromised. Probably whoever made the decision to accept the buyouts.”
“We’re in the process of freezing those transactions now. I do have some good news for you. We found Konstantin.”
Kirsten’s head snapped up. She set the tea down and jumped up, shedding the robe on the way to the autoshower. “Where is the bastard?”
“Paramount City. We’re leaving in fifteen minutes.”
She punched the fast-wash option. “Thanks for not making me beg to be there.”
Nina laughed. “I half-expected I’d have to drag you onto the shuttle.”
Sitting in the passenger seat was strange. Kirsten glanced over at Nina. Not seeing Nicole driving was even more so. She balanced her NetMini in both hands, waiting for the spinning dots to align.
“Damn, how fast are we going? It’s having a problem connecting.”
“Only 418.”
“Wow, it doesn’t feel like it. Where’s all the fancy super-secret government stuff? This looks like a civvie car with a police nav console added on.”
Nina smiled and tapped the wire coming out of the back of her neck. “Need one of these to even know it’s here.”
Kirsten shivered.
Evan’s face blurred in, red-eyed and sniffling. “Mom!”
Nila Assad squeezed into frame. “Dammit, Kirsten, what the hell did you do? The boy’s been going completely batshit for hours.”
Guilt hit her heavy. “Took a couple of bullets, saved someone, killed some demons. You know, my usual Tuesday night.”
“Mommy…” Evan sniffled, unable to say more.
“Is it over? Did you get the bastard?” Nila tried to comfort him.
“The good news is he is not going after Evan, or you, or Shani. You can go home.”
Nila breathed a gasp of relief. Shani’s hand invaded the image from below, waving. She tried to jump up into frame.
“The bad news is he’s got Dorian, and he’s on the damn Moon. I’m going there now.”
Evan glared at her for an instant, but his face softened. Kirsten felt the pang of need even over a VidPhone link.
“I’m sorry, Ev. There’s no time. I gotta stop him before he hurts Dorian.” Dorian could already be gone. Could already just be energy. “I…” She swallowed the lump. “Have to…”
He wiped his face. “It’s okay, Mom. I’m scared, but I trust you.” His attempt at confidence still leaked tears.
Kirsten glanced sideways at the creak of the control sticks in Nina’s hands. The woman had not looked in her direction since the boy appeared. “I’ll get back as fast as I can. Be good to Nila.”
“I will.”
The call ended. Nina’s silence hung heavy in the driver’s seat.
Kirsten sat for a moment before she spoke at her lap. “I adopted him… or… about to adopt him. You could―”
“We’re almost at the starport. You ever fly on a DS4?”
“Sorry. No. Just a DS2.”
“The fours give a better ride. They’re about quadruple the size and can jump. Largest deep-space vessel that can breach atmosphere.”
“Seems like overkill for a Moon hop.” Kirsten stuffed her NetMini back in a pocket.
“Fastest way up there.”
They drifted forward in their seats as the hovercar bled off speed. Kirsten grabbed the ‘oh-shit’ handle and held on for dear life as Nina whipped through a series of turns no human had the reaction time to cope with. Kirsten did not open her eyes until she heard the whine of ground wheels deploying.
The car landed on the pad, twenty yards away from a vessel the size of a three-story building. About fifty yards nose to tail, it had a shape akin to a fighter jet that went on a sumo diet. The front end extended out over a belly-door with a ramp leading into a space capable of holding two DS2s or about a dozen armored vehicles.
Kirsten followed Nina up the ramp, boots clanking, to a narrow metal ladder on the side of the otherwise empty
vehicle bay. A short climb through a narrow vertical shaft led to a hallway on the top floor. Staterooms and bunks were to the right, a small ready room to the left, beyond which the cockpit was visible.
Nina moved to the lounge, past a few personal weapon lockers, and flopped in a seat between two Marines. Kirsten shivered at the sight of them, though these men and women seemed many degrees more welcoming than Gerard’s team. Kirsten forced a pleasant smile as she found a place to sit. Noticing a food reassembler on a small counter, she pointed as the room vibrated.
“Does that thing make coffee?”
aramount City struck Kirsten as underwhelming. Unadorned plastisteel structures clustered together under a massive dome, hiding from the blackness of space. Some appeared like buildings, while most had a look halfway between crashed spaceship and ancient drop pod. She sat next to Nina in the rear row of a six-wheeled open-top transport. A dozen Marines filled the rest of the spaces. She looked around at the squalor. Rag-clad people near the starport, ranging in age from six to sixty, begged tourists for help, food, and money.
A distant gleaming sliver of jade divided the city in half, as tall as the center of the dome. The Senate Chambers, and approximately six square miles of ‘upper class’ living around it, stood in harsh contrast to the outer rim. It seemed the farther away from the center you lived, the poorer you were.
She looked up, past the heavy laser cannon barrel hovering over the passengers. The Earth hung amid the darkness, a striated blue-white marble far larger than anything Kirsten had ever seen in the ‘sky.’ Bleakness spread out before her; the city housing the UCF Senate had the mood of a grey zone, without all the broken buildings.
“Why are there little kids begging at the starport?”
“Their parents refuse to sign on for habitat reassignment,” said one of the Marines.
“You want to force them to move to colonies? Why doesn’t the government at least take care of the kids like on Earth?”
“No one sees them up here,” said Nina, her tone flat. “They look and act in worse shape than they are. The whole thing is a propaganda campaign put on by the MLF.”
Kirsten squinted. “Why would the Martian Liberation Front act on the Moon?”
The Marines shifted, keen on what Nina would say next.
“Their goal is to divest Mars from Earth government. The UCF is part of Earth government. They would like to foment discontent within the UCF to weaken our resolve on Mars.”
With a belabored electronic moan, the rover slowed and pulled into a parking space. The building seemed unremarkable, five stories of tiny, narrow windows that could have been either an apartment or an office.
“I need a few minutes to coordinate with the local infrastructure,” said Nina, as she vaulted out of the rover. “Wait here.”
Kirsten climbed down over a tire that came up to her chin. Just as she let go of the boarding ladder, a fourteen-inch silver orb bot floated up to her. The iris within a glass dome whirred open, letting more green light out. The words “NewsNet: Lunar Edition” circled along the metal around the clear lens.
She held a hand up to shield her eyes from the light, and the orb backed up. The silhouette of a short-haired woman darted around the end of the military rover as the NewsNet’s Lunar correspondent ran up on her, as if trying to figure out where the bot had gone off to. A narrow audio pick up emerged from the top of the orb and angled to point at her.
“Amy Gordon, NewsNet. Can you tell me anything about why a member of the shadowy psionic police corps is on the Moon?”
“Shadowy?” Kirsten blinked, still squinting. “Where do you get that from? I’m assisting in the apprehension of a fugitive, just like any other cop.”
The Marines jumped down, moving to grab the reporter. Her hazel eyes narrowed, daring them to try it.
“Before the government censors the media, what do you have to say about reports psionics are taking over the government?”
Kirsten raised a hand at the Marines, who―much to her surprise―paused. “Look, first of all, psionics are not some kind of evil Devil-sent cult. We are people just like anyone else, with a few extra bells and whistles. Secondly, my organization is not ‘shadowy.’ There are too many closed-minded idiots out there looking for any excuse to lump everyone with mental abilities in the same bucket and label us all dangerous.”
Amy’s face shone with anticipation. Her lack of shrinking away from a psionic’s advance created a twinge of unease in Kirsten and took the defensive tone out of her voice. The vid-bot drifted in a slow panning circle. Its lights were harsh enough to make her squint.
“Are there bad psionics? Of course, they are human. There are bad humans, right? My department is here to deal with them. Ordinary criminals have guns, so society has other people with guns to stand between the nuts and the citizens. We’re no different. Being psionic does not make a person bad, no more than having a weapon immediately turns a person into a crazed murderer.”
The orb drifted closer, close to jabbing Kirsten in the head with the microphone. Ms. Gordon swatted at the orb, causing it to back off. “Paul, back off.”
Kirsten blinked. “You… named your camera bot, ‘Paul?’”
Amy shrugged. “It’s kind of got a personality… seemed like a good name for a little hyperactive bot that keeps generating more work for me. I had no idea you were here until he zoomed off.”
The bot waved at Amy with the mic boom. A little midair wobble came as close as it could get to radiating happiness.
“So are you, right now, doing something to my brain to make me like and trust psionics?”
Kirsten pinched the bridge of her nose. “No, I’m psionic, not religious. I don’t think less of people who disagree with me.”
“Is it true psionics have influenced the Senate?”
“Not to my knowledge, no.”
The reporter raised an eyebrow. “Division Zero does not have a large presence on the Moon, how can you be so certain?”
“Due to Senatorial security protocols, Lunar citizens are required to undergo psionic testing. Anyone with even mild scores is denied access to the government building.”
Amy tilted her head. “You don’t seem too happy about it.”
“Name a single minority group in human history that was ever happy about being the victim of stereotypes.”
“That’s not quite a fair comparison, Agent Wren. Historic minorities could not, by virtue of what they were, infiltrate the minds of others or force them to do things.”
“Miss Gordon,” said Nina, swooping around the back end of the rover amid a fluttering coat. “I’m afraid I must end this interview now.”
“The government can’t keep the citizens in the dark forever… whoever you are.”
Nina folded her arms. “Four.”
Amy leaned toward her. “What’s going on? Why was a psionic brought to the Moon?”
“Three.”
Paul the orb shuddered, gliding backwards.
The Marines moved around Kirsten, converging on the reporter. They seemed calm, almost apologetic.
“Fine, fine.” Amy backed off. A few yards away, she faced the bot. “I’m here at an undisclosed location in Paramount City, where government agents have just ordered me away from where they have brought a psionic to the seat of the United Coalition Front Senate. Are they up to something? Will someone’s brain get scrambled? We’ll just have to wait and see. I’ll be here when the grey matter flies. Coming up later: Meet Lieutenant Alton Lamar. Fifty-seven years ago, the jump drive on his exploration vessel malfunctioned. I’ll be there tonight for the emotional moment when the still-twenty-five year old naval officer is reunited with his eighty-one year old wife and an adult daughter who looks old enough to be his mother. But now, back to Kimberly on Earth with a great, inexpensive way to add some zing to an OmniSoy omelet.”
Kirsten jostled about as the rover got underway. She stared at the reporter, now teasing a future story about the latest way to die in your o
wn kitchen. The green bobbing helmet just past the black headrest in front of her became mesmerizing. Within a minute, the overall melancholy within the rover came to a burdensome, claustrophobic head.
“I wouldn’t have hurt her,” said Nina.
The sound was so sudden Kirsten jumped. “W-what?”
Nina continued to stare forward. “I saw the look on your face. The reporter. I wouldn’t have hurt her. It’s not some big secret, Agent Wren. We just don’t have time to waste.”
“Oh.” Kirsten stared at pale hands upon black uniform-covered knees. Something about the lighting made her feel even whiter. “She was hoping you would. Wanted to get it on vid.”
“We’d cut the feed first.”
Kirsten shivered at the coldness from the woman to her left.
Nina smiled. “Just speaking theoretically. We only kill reporters when they point guns at us.”
Shimmering jade drifted through the near sky on the left; the senatorial tower looked like the only item of color in an otherwise black and white world.
Oh, yay. “Right. So, umm. Where are we going?”
“We have tracked Konstantin Dobrynin through the underground of Paramount. He has infiltrated an abandoned level of a disused defense department installation. Despite there being thirty meters of solid Moon rock between him and the Senate chamber, command is concerned about him being below it.”
“Below it?” Kirsten blinked. “What genius decided to put a military base right under the Senate building?”
“When the UCF was first getting set up on the Moon, it got as bad as Mars is now. ACC everywhere, open war. Paramount was the first settlement, and that base was the first installation. They built it underground because atmo fields were only theoretical back then, and the situation demanded an operational presence faster than it would take to construct a dome. We dug in, and they kept throwing all they could at us. Fortunately, a number of clandestine operations back on Earth caused enough damage to their launch facilities that it slowed them down. We were able to get the advantage on the Moon and they ultimately gave up. That’s probably why they’re fighting so hard on Mars.”
Division Zero: Thrall Page 42
