Risk Analysis (Draft 04 -- Reading Script)

by David Collins-Rivera

  * * *

  I wasn't laying there for even an hour, but already had a terrible crick in my neck from the one-two punch of Elaki's attack from above, and having curled up on the mushy couch cushions. The nerveblock had crapped-out at some point. I was awake now because a message notice was flashing in my retinals.

  It was a call from Shady Lady. I answered audio-only via the bonecons, sub-vocalizing. It was Chris, and he sounded excited.

  "We just picked up another of those strange transmissions. John and Stinna have managed a triangulation. If you move fast, you might be able to get a look at him."

  "Really? Right now?" I was so tired, I spoke acidly, and without thinking. It was a tone of voice that usually got me into trouble, but he didn't seem to care.

  "Chop-chop! C'mon! If someone else is spying here, UH wants to know about it. We need evidence. That's a clause in the contract."

  I muttered something unprofessional, but got to my feet. I was still in the same clothes (stripping to my undies with Floy in the other room had seemed weird), and found my shoes.

  "Is it still transmitting?"

  "Yeah! Right now! Hurry!"

  "Where?"

  In answer, he popped a floor map up into my eye-view, with a set of directions marked out as a dotted red line. The interface with my ring was jittery, and would likely add to my headache if I looked at it too long. I dismissed the map, then set off through the station at a lope.

  "I know where that is," I remarked. "Spoke Plaza. It's by Pillar Five, near some elevator banks to the Hub. What is that exactly, a storage room?"

  "No, it looks like a public fresher."

  "Okay, I'll let you know when I get there."

  I cut the line, but immediately made another call.

  "Branden," I greeted hurriedly when he picked up again, voice-only. "I've gotten a tip that we might have a spy aboard the station."

  "Wha...?"

  Clearly only half awake, he coughed in a phlegmy manner, then had me repeat it.

  "What kind of spy?"

  "Maybe one connected to our investigation. I don't know, but whoever it is, they're making contact with someone outside the station right at this moment. You want in?"

  "Of course! Where do we meet?"

  I mentioned Spoke Plaza, and he said he'd be there in just a few minutes. Then he asked where I'd heard about it.

  "I can't say, so don't ask."

  "Someone in R&D? A reliable source?"

  "Possibly, yeah. It's worth a look either way, but checking it out alone seemed like a bad idea."

  He agreed.

  "We should have backup, ourselves, Ejoq. I'm calling in Team. That'll make Maelbrott smile."

  "But if it turns out to be nothing..." I started to protest.

  "Then it's nothing. No harm done. We all go home."

  He put me on hold while he made the call. I flagged down an automated tik-tik cab, and gave it directions. I didn't take too many cabs because they cost money, while the trams were free. I was rarely in that much of a hurry, but this situation felt pretty rare. The machine buzzed along, swerving around people and other vehicles. It even rolled by the tram, I having apparently just missed it; that would have been a five minute wait for the next one. Brand came back on the line after a moment.

  "Something's up: they can't raise a unit of Team guards assigned to that location. They're scrambling Tactical Operations. Watch yourself and stay clear. TacOps doesn't fool around."

  I came upon Pillar Five suddenly. The cab reduced speed as it entered Spoke Plaza, then pulled over with a jerk. It announced the destination and associated charge for the ride that would be deducted from my hard credit account. It's calm, friendly voice faded behind as I stalked away.

  On the Wayfarer line of Multipurpose space stations, the wide ring that made up the bulk of the vessel was connected to its fat Hub through six long supporting pillars. At the base of each, where it met the ring, was a large open space designed to mitigate traffic problems around the elevators. These spaces housed shopping centers, industrial neighborhoods, and parks. Pillar Five came down upon Spoke Plaza. Essentially a public park, it sported ornamental vegetation, charming benches, two matching water fountains, and even a small playground for kids (though I'd seen very few children on Mylag Vernier).

  The area outside the park was fairly jumbled with small kiosks and numerous tiny administrative annexes. There were also maintenance facilities, and a couple of warehouse-sized storerooms. I didn't see any public freshers right off, but did find another of the station directories mounted on a pedestal in the center. I queried for the closest toilets, and it showed me three locations all around the plaza.

  I called Chris, up on the ship.

  "I'm here, but a Team patrol assigned to this location has gone silent. They're sending in more right now, and looking for trouble. Which fresher is it?"

  "21J"

  "That means nothing to me! What's it near?"

  "Uh...there's an office marked Welding And Bonding Supervisor right next to it...wait! The signal just stopped. Who ever it is might be on the move..."

  I cut the line when I spied Branden jumping out of a personal roller across the park. I waved to him. The place had enough people coming and going to be a distraction.

  I spotted the Welding Supervisor's office just as a someone wearing a full-body clean suit stepped out of a small door right next to it. A big guy. He had on a filter mask and didn't look our way. Actually, the mask looked to be pulled down over his chin, which was clever, since it still adequately hid his features, without him being fully covered up in public for no apparent reason.

  He didn't seem to have caught on to being followed. I nodded at the retreating form to Branden, who was still across the way. He spotted the man turning down a side alley that led over to Port Road, and we both set off.

  A large black roller buzzed by, bearing an illuminated Team TacOps logo on the side flashing amber and red. Branden tried to flag them down, but they were already braking. I was closer to the alley than he, and got there first.

  I looked around the corner. The stocky figure was just walking away, easy as you please. I waited for my boss, as he jogged over.

  "Can you grab some of those guys?" I asked, pointing at the black roller. An armed squad was piling out.

  "They won't listen to me. They're concerned about their own. But I'll call for more help, as we go."

  He set off slowly. The man ahead of us was now about twenty meters off, and had never once looked back. Other people were strolling through the alleyway as well, some chatting, some trudging along, all of them oblivious to this. Brand muttered into his wrist for several moments, listened to a silent reply, and then moved his head close to mine as we walked.

  "They found two soldiers dead in a fresher back there."

  "Oh man! Just keep this guy in sight, and let the shoot-em-ups take him down."

  "Right. A second unit is moving to cut him off...yeah, there they are now," he said, as a brace of armored figures, holding stubby firearms, turned the corner ahead of the big, clean-suited man. Several people were between him and the soldiers, so they didn't spot him immediately. He must have seen them, though, because he slowed to a stop, then turned right around and started walking back our way. His head was down, and hidden behind the low hood and filter mask.

  The man took about ten steps, then seemed to notice us as well, because his stride changed to smaller, faster steps. He was tall and kind of husky. He didn't alter pace again, but just kept moving, eyes to the deck.

  When the guy was about five meters away, Branden stepped out ahead, to intercept.

  "Excuse me, sir, but..."

  The figure's hand sort-of flicked up.

  A flame or spark sort-of jetted out from a dark thing in his gloved palm.

  Branden's head sort-of exploded.

  Blood and other stuff, and Brand himself, flew back, and I went down under his twitching form.

  Then there was more shooting,
and lots of shouts, and someone else fell down, right there next to me.

  I turned to look, and the man in the clean suit was staring directly into my eyes.

  Except it wasn't a man...or even a stranger.

  I pushed Branden away, and clumsily scrambled upright, the horror of recognition lending desperate energy.

  Laydin's wide back was a mess of blood and flesh and fabric, and her vague lips were working, though I could barely hear the words. She looked sad and surprised all at once, and her breath gurgled out from a mouth with no clear delineation.

  "Deus meus ad te veniat...Deus meus...Deus..."

  Her expression never changed, even as the words, and her life, faded away.

  OOOOOOOOOO

  A thin man with red hair sat on the Corporate side of the table, a few seats down from me. Noticing him for the first time, I realized I'd been wrong: I actually did know someone in the room -- or, at least, I'd seen him once before. He'd been standing next to VP Bailey while she gave us a hostile motivational speech back on Mylag Vernier. The guy hadn't spoken a word then, but he cleared his throat now, and raised a finger. He wore a perfectly-tailored suit in a muted blue with some greenish threads, that showed up my own off-the-rack choice as the cheap, last-minute acquisition it was. Admiral Dusane gestured to him.

  "If I may? With everything that's come to light about this operation, my colleagues and I have come to believe that Mr. Dosantos has not engaged in any kind of industrial spying. He did lie on his application and résumé, regarding how he arrived in 216-11B, however his extraordinary circumstances rather allows for that: he was unable to legally reveal himself as a United Humanity sub-contractor, due to the nature of the assignment. And the hostilities shown to his ship made him fear for his safety if the truth were to come out."

  "Those hostilities were answered by this man, which led directly to the destruction of one of your ships," the admiral put in with a critical, probing tone.

  "We believe Mr. Dosantos acted within the confines of international law, regarding the use of commercial armaments. His ship attempted to identify itself, but had communications jammed from the station. That was a direct violation of our own protocol. We're...still investigating that part, but it implies that priorities were in place that were not those of the Montaro Group in any way. While the fight is entirely regrettable, the actions of Mr. Dosantos and his crewmates may well have prevented a significant security breach."

  "Let me get this straight," the admiral asked, sounding incredulous, "there was a foreign operative ring working in high-level positions within the most classified research facility in your entire nation?"

  "Yes," the man replied, completely unphased. "The initial breach seems to have occurred during the contract period of a previous management team, all members of which are under investigation at this time. Frankly, we had no idea of this breakdown in security. Had things played out even slightly differently, our technology could be in the hands of radical extremists this very minute."

  "He could have been jumping out specifically to meet those extremists."

  "That was the other guy, Admiral," I put in, and she looked over at me like I'd been invisible, and just reappeared out of thin air. "You have my sworn testimony to that effect. I am the likely cause of the misjump. If we'd arrived at the original coordinates, I believe we'd have been met by enemy forces."

  "He means competitive forces, of course," the thin guy injected. "The Montaro Group has no enemies. The Alliance Of Interstellar Nations, on the other hand, does recognize certain rogue states as official enemies. Our employee risked harm in order to prevent a classified project from falling into the hands of one such."

  Admiral Dusane stared at the man, speechless for a long moment. Finally, and with shocked exasperation, she said, "This man absconded with your technology, and you're actually praising him? And you think he did us a favor?!"

  OOOOOOOOOO

  twenty-two

  * * *

  Branden wasn't dead, but he might as well have been.

  Traumatic brain injury, extensive facial and cranial damage, and severe respiratory distress due to major sinus and esophageal problems. They were keeping his functions active and stable until he could be transferred to another location with top-end specialists, but he'd need extensive surgery and genetic reconstruction of neural, bone, and other tissues. It was too soon to say how much of his memory, personality, or humanity would be left, but if he was going to make it at all, it would be a long, steep climb. Either way, his service to the Company was at an end (and greatly appreciated, CPS09 Admiral Maelbrott had written in a classified memo that CPS08 Amanda Kesselior cc'd to me). Oh, what an honor.

  Of course, I couldn't explain how I'd known about the transmission, so I said that Branden had contacted me. My crewmates, up in Shady Lady modified comm records to show that that's exactly how it happened.

  I managed a hurried call to them, wedged between TacOps closing off the alley, and Team investigators arriving on the scene. I thumbnailed what happened, too stunned to be upset, really, and John and Stinna started editing the course of events immediately. One call, lasting only ninety seconds, and perceived reality bent to my will.

  It was dreamlike -- all of it. In the sense that nightmares are dreamlike. In the sense that shock and violence are dreamlike. That is to say, not at all.

  "I guess he had a network of informants," I told the officers. "He kept everyone compartmentalized. I never knew any of them, or if they even existed at all."

  "But you say he mentioned other people sometimes?"

  "Obliquely...he'd refer to information he received. I don't know where he got last night's tip."

  Explaining my relationship to Laydin was another matter entirely.

  "As far as she could have known," I supplied, talking as if it just occurred to me at that moment, "I was just employed in R&D. I mean, she asked what I did on-station more than once, but I never thought much about it. I didn't answer her questions, anyway. She must have known who I was from the start, and where I was working."

  "Why did you break up with her?" Amanda Kesselior asked, sitting in on one of the debrief sessions.

  "Honestly? She annoyed me. We didn't agree on anything. And she appeared to feel the same way. In retrospect, I guess she manipulated the relationship so that I'd dump her. She must have realized I wasn't going to give up any information. And maybe I never had access to what she was after."

  "What was she after?"

  "You tell me. You're the expert. Or so you say."

  They asked the same questions again and again, often rephrasing things. I gave them the same answers.

  Then they brought in another crew, and started over from the top. I was tired, but not that tired, and stuck to the story.

  Finally, some hatchet-faced guy arrived, with a ghoulish looking assistant who never spoke, and this pair implied that bad things could happen if I didn't cooperate fully. Their act was a little hammy, so I knew the straw-grasping was nearly at an end.

  By late midshift the next day, Team was finished with my interview, such as it was, and they told me to go get some rest. I was to report to Eight Kesselior (who now had an office of her own on-station) in ten hours time. We had to make plans for the future, I was told. I shuddered at the we part of that statement, more than anything else.

  I was righteously exhausted, but much too wired to lay down.

  Walking back from Team's office, which was now housed in the old Station Security HQ, I eschewed the trams and the cabs. I stumbled along, stopping occasionally when I got fatigued. I even went out of my way, a little, and bought a coffee from the kiosk. Actually I bought two. One I drank, one I poured out, and left in the notch in the wall. No message, just a tiny gesture, in honor of a man who deserved much better.

  The apartment still didn't seem inviting.

  Somehow, I knew that if I went home, I'd fall asleep, and I was afraid of sleep. I needed a shower and change, though, so I bought a new flight su
it, underwear, and some of Kwon's cheap toiletries at a market stall, then went to the rec center, where the smackball court was located. The showers there were blissfully empty, and no one else made use of them the whole time. It was like a gift.

  After this, I went to R&D.

  Despite the delays, and against all expectations, the renovators had somehow finished most of their work on the offices the previous day. These were all big and glassy now, and smelled like fresh paint. The Team Weaponry kids were still moving everything over from our partitioned space in the back when I walked in. I got the sort of greetings I had earned, with muttered hellos and how-are-yas, and insolent glances. Ghazza was seeing to something across the bay, but spotted me up there. She waved, and we met in the center of the big room.

  "Detained again, they said! And now released again?! Ejoq, what's going on? Did it have anything to do with what happened in Spoke Plaza? The rumor mill has been working hard. I need to know!"

  "No, you really don't," I said, stiffly. "Ask me nothing, Ghaz. It's all classified, and I don't want to think about it, anyway."

  "Team investigators came by and questioned everyone about you, and your habits. Just like last time. Well, maybe a little less than last time, but when I asked what was going on, they said what you just did. Okay. Fine. Whatever. But I need you totally involved here. We're ready to ramp things up, and everyone has to be available and committed."

  I just looked at her in shock. I couldn't help it.

  "I've been the most productive member of this Sub-D since I came aboard, and you know it! Don't go playing the tyrant now -- that's Jake's job. There are things in play I can't talk about, just like there are aspects of the project here that you can't talk about. We all have our jobs to do; I just have more than one, right now."

  "Stop being so defensive! I'm not lording it over you, I'm just saying that, with these offices finished now, and every group having, at least, worked out a gameplan, time, resources, and personnel will all be strained. If you have other priorities, you need to get a handle on them, or else the pressure will bury you."