by Paul Collins
If she were a punter, she would bet that the homicidal THMEs wandering around the OEP were the result of the virus the mole had obtained from the planet Arachnor. If that was the case, and the Sentinels had held Arachnor under interdiction for centuries, then they must know what these creatures were.
Hence the interdiction.
Anneke had a sudden insight. The mole had manufactured these beings, and not just to gain entry to the OEP.
But for now Anneke had two objectives. One, get off the OEP. Two, try not to wonder what these THMEs were before they became monsters.
An eerie sensation warned her someone was standing behind her. She spun around, gun ready, but the passageway was empty. According to her scanner the THMEs were not in her vicinity.
There was a high-pitched blip and the lights suddenly discharged electrical sparks. Her scanner died and two of her guns ceased to function, their lighting fading to black.
‘Spiffle.’ Someone or something had managed to generate an electromagnetic pulse through the ship, overloading electrical systems and immobilising those not shielded, including the device that generated her field spacesuit. Now she needed the old-fashioned kind.
But none of that mattered. What mattered was that she was effectively blind. Without her scanner the creatures could sneak up on her, encircle her, do anything they felt inclined to. She had only one weapon left, which she suspected would have little effect on the creatures.
She had to stay ahead of them.
Be unpredictable, or be dead. They have some intelligence but probably little imagination. They will be thinking in categories, so stay out of categories.
Anneke broke into a run, heading for the main dock where she hoped she would find the platform’s spacesuits. Her training in inducing pain-dampening brain states, sent her hurtling forward, heedless of possible traps. Stay ahead of them. That was her mantra.
Fortunately, her eidetic memory had taken a snapshot of the ship’s layout so she didn’t need to stop and ponder which turns to take. She simply took them.
As she rounded a turn she saw a man waving at her, beckoning her on. He was dressed in battle uniform, but none she had ever seen before. It had an archaic look to it. Then the man faded before her eyes.
What the hell was that? she wondered.
As she ran she became aware of strange noises around her and caught peripheral glimpses of things. She blinked rapidly several times, trying to clear her vision. Maybe the electromagnetic pulse had affected the nanomechanical add-ons to her optic nerves.
Perhaps I’m just going crazy.
Running up a ramp to the next level then dropping down again, Anneke passed an enormous workshop that took up several floors. She reached the main dock, found the locker room, dashed inside, and came to a complete stop. Two dozen engineering spacesuits hung here, all in their cradles, and all of them slashed. A gently curved thinsword lay discarded on the deck. She picked it up, feeling its balance. Perhaps it could help her.
Field suit generators were stacked at one end, but when she checked them she saw the EM pulse had fried their circuitry.
Great. Now what?
Well, she had no choice. She had to get back to her docked ship from inside, bypassing the THME on guard there. Or somehow neutralising it.
‘Leave it to us,’ came a whisper. She turned and saw the same figure she had seen before, the man in battle fatigues. His lips were moving but they did so out of synch with the words. They echoed around her eerily, as if other unseen lips were picking them up, re-uttering them.
‘Who are you?’ Anneke asked. What are you?
The man shook his head. ‘This way,’ he seemed to say, heading down a side passage.
Anneke watched the wraith-like figure stride off. What the hell, I couldn’t be any worse off.
She followed him for twenty minutes, moving through passageways not on her mental snapshot of the OEP’s layout, either too small and insignificant or built since the last update was made.
The figure stopped, cautioned her to silence, and vanished. Anneke crouched, resting on her haunches. Spiffle. Was he going to abandon her and if so, where was she? But the man didn’t desert her. He reappeared, beckoning her forward again. She soon found herself at the galley dump, the THME nowhere in sight.
‘Thank you,’ she told the man.
He smiled and shook his head. She noticed a tiny tattoo on his ear lobe. Before she could say anything further, he vanished, along with the sea of eerie whisperings.
Anneke ran. Three minutes later she was on board her scooter releasing the docking clamps, then drifting away from the OEP.
‘You don’t look so good,’ said the suitcase probe.
Ignoring the device, she set the craft’s coordinates for Arcadia. She wouldn’t go in by ship, preferring to be less blatant, but she would worry about that when she got there. The trip would take two weeks at top speed.
She programmed the course computer then warmed up her suspension tube. Might as well sleep through the next fourteen days. It would be less painful, and the ship’s medkit could do a few repairs. Fact is, she realised, looking at herself in a mirror, I need a renovator. What a mess.
When the tube was ready she limped across to it, undressed, and crawled inside. The lid closed above her and a pale crimson fluid poured in. She dimly heard the suitcase call out. It said something about bedbugs not biting, whatever the hell bedbugs were. Maybe listening devices. She shut down her brain activity, allowing the nanotech implants to take over and maintain her body in a state of suspended animation. She could be awake within fifteen seconds in an emergency, though it would strain her system. She would no longer breathe and her heart would beat once a minute. The fluid around her, together with tiny nanotech devices inside her cells and floating about within her bodily fluids, provided energy and cell maintenance to heal her and keep her alive. The crimson suspension fluid was fitted with artificial haemoglobin, storing more oxygen than biological haemoglobin.
As she drifted off she thought of the tattoo on her helper’s earlobe, the tattoo of the Imperial Guard, who had died a thousand years ago when the Old Empire had finally collapsed after the Last Great Battle. A world map with two olive branches at its base. Ancient symbols of unity and peace.
One guard, or maybe more, was still there, wandering about. A ghost maybe? A lonely consciousness trapped inside that metal mausoleum? What was he doing? Whose side was he on? If he was on Anneke’s side, whose side was she on?
Who knew ‥ ?
Anneke took a small room in a rundown hotel not far from Constantine Park, on Arcadia. She had done what she could to disguise herself, visiting a renovator on Kalida IV, the nearest world to Arcadia with a jump-gate. He had given her a quick patch and a temporary disguise, although it would wear off.
That was all she had needed.
She was now on Arcadia, her weaponry and field generator replaced, and on the hunt for the mole. The thinsword was a bonus. The edge was as sharp as flaked obsidian, only a few molecules thick. Behind it was a denser but equally thin nanomaterial, a hybrid of diamandoid, ceramic and depleted leached uranium. Stronger and lighter than an ancient Samurai sword, thinner than a human hair.
Of course, it didn’t take long to find the mole. The entire floating city was abuzz with the talk of the Quesadan takeover, though few had any details. Happily, that did not stop the citizens of Arcadia making up rumours to cover what they did not know.
Getting close to the mole would be the problem. Getting past his alien bodyguard, a being called the Envoy, might prove impossible.
On the other hand, RIM agents were trained to do the impossible.
Luckily, full-scale war between Quesada and Myoto seemed about to erupt. Undoubtedly that would cause confusion and chaos and would aid Anneke. She was not sure how he had achieved this, but the mole was now in charge of a faction, and would be preoccupied with keeping the peace.
When she hit on her plan she was blown away by its audacity and stu
pidity. Still, if she timed it right it might work. She needed a dark night, a wild battle between Quesada and Myoto, and a freighter-load of luck. Intel from inside Myoto would help as well.
All these came together five nights later. Just to complicate matters, RIM arrived in the form of a squad of agents led by young Captain Arvakur. For a time Anneke feared Myoto might be put off, though it had legal right to retaliate against Quesada, and RIM could not officially intervene. Nevertheless, loopholes in the old laws protected innocent bystanders and private property, though these were seldom invoked and usually dealt with afterwards on a purely compensatory basis.
Anneke felt bad about Arvakur, hoping he would not get caught in the middle of events. She liked him, and was hurt that he might think her a murderer and someone who had toyed with him. Perhaps one day she could explain the whole thing to him. Was RIM using the Myoto/Quesada conflict as a cover to come looking for her? Most definitely.
On the night in question, the three moons of the planet above which Arcadia floated were obscured by thick high-level cloud. Although the city could have been lit artificially, the general policy was to respect the natural cycle of the world they sat above. No doubt the darkness also inspired the reprisal move by Myoto.
Near midnight, Anneke activated her disguise and wove through the shadows towards the Block, the headquarters of Quesada she had penetrated months ago. The same one in which she had planted a number of devices, what agents called rainy-day bugs and bombs. You never knew when you might need them, and tonight she would need them.
If her intel was right, Myoto was intending to launch an attack on the Block just before 2 am. That gave Anneke a couple of hours to get inside and find the mole. If all went well, the Myoto attack and her own would aid her escape.
She stayed in the shadows, using her cloak’s camouflage mode till she was near the main rear entrance into the Block. Then she turned the cloak off, stepped into full view and headed up the path, past wary guards who turned their visors towards her. Such brazenness was risky, but she had no time to infiltrate the Block by other means.
The Quesadan security troopers eyed the disguised Anneke with fear and distaste. They glanced nervously at the thinsword with their mixed vision, but made no comment. Holographic icons danced in the air around their view of Anneke as databanks were activated. However, whatever Quesada had on Anneke was balanced by Oracle. Its trawl programs in planetary nets around the galaxy removed unwanted records of RIM field agents.
Seconds later she was inside.
As she passed a mirrored wall, the cowled figure of the Envoy stared back at her. It had been her guess that the dread of the guards for the Envoy, a common topic of conversation around Arcadia, would mean that she would face little resistance in entering the Block.
She had been right.
Now to cause confusion. She set off her first device. A moment later she heard the dull sound of an explosion and the floor vibrated briefly.
Security personnel charged past her, heading towards the site of the explosion. With luck, the guards would figure this was a Myotan attack, but when two hours had passed and nothing more occurred, she guessed they would relax their security. At which point the real Myotan attack would take place.
Her former study of the Block told her exactly where the mole should be lodged this time of night. She headed up that way as more guards poured down from the rooftop garrison, passing her on the ramps. None accosted her. Indeed, most averted their eyes, as if the Envoy was fast becoming a figure of superstition within Quesada.
Anneke found the mole’s quarters, or rather the suite of rooms assigned to the Quesadan CEO, formerly Lob Lotang. Playing her role to the full she walked in without knocking. She knew aliens did not knock. Knocking was a habit for species with a sense of privacy.
She felt a moment of uncertainty. The mole seemed to be waiting for her.
‘Well, how did it go? Is she dead?’
Anneke composed herself, nodding briefly. She hoped aliens at least nodded. Apparently they did because the mole, alias Mr Brown, seemed satisfied with the response.
‘Solid, Envoy. Rock solid. I’ll have more work for you soon.’ He glanced at a security schematic. ‘What was that explosion?’
Anneke brought up her dart gun and fired. Two darts stitched themselves into Maximus’s neck. He cried out, turned, and fell, an arm outstretched towards her in a gesture of accusation.
She quickly bound him, injected a nano-worm using a diffusion injector that left no mark or sensation, and then scanned the room for sensors. The knockout dose was small, not enough to cause a blip on any pulse, heartbeat, or neuro monitor. He would not be out for more than two minutes, tops.
It turned out to be less.
‘You don’t move like my Envoy. You’re not him. And I’m still breathing, so you’re not Myotan. That leaves only one possibility. Anneke Longshadow. Always a pleasure.’
Anneke deactivated her holographic head cloaker and breathed in a lungful of fresh unfiltered air. Then she cloaked herself as the alien envoy again. One never knew who was watching.
‘Nice to see you, too, Mr Brown, or whatever you’re calling yourself today.’
‘Brown will do.’ He eyed her for several long moments. ‘You just keep popping up, don’t you? Every time I think you’re dead, you’re not. I’m starting to believe those rumours about you having nine lives. Or is it ninety-nine?’
‘Flattery will get you absolutely nowhere.’ She checked her watch. It was after one o’clock. Forty minutes till the attack.
‘Oh, I wouldn’t count on the Myotan attack if I were you.’
Anneke reacted, only slightly. She saw the mole picked up on it and cursed herself.
‘Well then, my backup plan better do instead,’ she said smoothly.
‘I could be wrong,’ Maximus continued, ‘but I think you don’t have one. My sources suggest the Myotans decided to call it off until the RIM agents leave. By the way, have they anything to do with you?’
‘RIM agents are everything to do with me. I am a loyal RIM agent.’
‘So we wait for whatever will not happen?’
Anneke swallowed. Brown had an uncanny way of hitting her exposed nerves. But he could have been guessing about the attack. It made sense. The Myotans were going to attack at some point and any self-respecting RIM agent worth her name would no doubt try to take advantage of it. Why else would she be looking at her watch?
‘We’ll wait.’
‘Suits me.’
She locked the doors, keeping a gun on the mole the whole time. ‘One move,’ said Anneke, her voice filtered by the hologram field image surrounding her head, ‘and well, you know the drill. This is a spraygun. It fires absorbent nanocapsules. It’s normally used for fires but it can also suck every little bit of oxygen from your body, leaving you insulated against flame but dead as well.’
‘Did you like my pets on the platform?’
‘Like all hyper-bright people, you surround yourself with stupid helpers.’
‘How did you escape? ”
‘I ran fast.’
He pondered that. ‘Possible, but unlikely. How –’
‘Turn away, shut up.’
‘Why?’ asked Maximus, spreading his hands. ‘Can’t you –’
The thinsword slashed out, stopping against his hand. Maximus froze.
Anneke smiled. ‘I said don’t move.’
‘I thought you meant don’t move in a hostile manner.’
‘Brown, or whatever your real name is, you are a hostile manner on two legs.’
‘You nicked my hand with that thing. I’m bleeding.’
‘Get used to bleeding, you are going to do a lot more of it soon,’ she said. ‘Now shut up, turn around and don’t move. Being forced to wait with you does not mean I have to talk to you or even look at you.’
Can’t hurt him too much. I need him alive to clear me. Can antagonise him, though.
Wiping the drops of blood from her blad
e on her trouser leg, she then glanced around. The desk looked like it was worth checking. It probably had traps set for people trying to get into the drawers the proper way.
She slashed open the desk top with the thinsword, the blade cutting through the genuine Earth-grown wood as if it were Styrofoam. She pocketed several items, including his micro e-pad.
‘Great e-pad, Brown. I’ve always wanted one just like it.’
Anneke had the satisfaction of seeing the mole’s shoulders twitch as she spoke. So, the coordinates are in here. Thanks for telling me so easily.
A scrawled remark on an e-sheet made her stop and read it again. She looked at Maximus. ‘So you found the coordinates.’ And hopefully no self-destruct because you haven’t copied them anywhere.
He said nothing. Probably mad at himself for twitching when she’d mentioned the e-pad.
‘You know where the second set is?’
Maximus neither moved nor spoke. Even that told her something. With a psych profile like his, he would never pass over a chance to gloat unless the stakes were very high.
‘So, you don’t know. That puts me one set ahead of you. Actually, no. Make that two sets, now that I have your e-pad. Hope it’s more encrypted than your last one.’
Anneke was buying insurance. She was fairly sure that he only had the first set. If he thought that she had the second lot, he might be slower to pull the trigger if things went bad later.
She continued to rummage in the ruins of his desk. At ten minutes to two there was a commotion in the building, then the sounds of pandemonium. Anneke relaxed visibly and immediately set off the other charges. Nothing like a good dose of confusion. She hung a pendant around Maximus’s neck, placing it out of sight beneath his tunic.
‘One move, one word, and I’ll detonate it,’ she told him.
