Killswitch: A Cassandra Kresnov Novel

by Joel Shepherd

  "Yes, sir," said Ijaz, with a delighted salute as she turned to leave. Vanessa returned it, and noticed a woman nearby raising an eyebrow ... presumably at the "sir," Vanessa reckoned, but damned if she was going to allow "ma'am" to breed in the CDF, as if an officer's gender was an issue of the slightest significance for privates to worry about ... and she realised that there were quite a few milling suits in the hallway, most of them breaking off their bewildered conversations to stare at her. She ignored them and walked to meet the approaching dark figure halfway.

  An reversed direction, slowing his lengthier stride to match hers.

  "Hi, Ari."

  "Hi, Ricey. You look like shit."

  "Yeah, well I feel like I've been defecated from some orifice or other. How's Sandy?"

  "She's fine. Your, um, beret's not on ... quite the right angle."

  "Oh fuck it, I think either I wasn't standing up straight, or the mirror was crooked, or the ground was sloping on some strange angle when I put it on ..." An gave one corner a decisive tug as they walked. "You're sure it's not just my head that's crooked?"

  Ahead, the hall opened into a broad, circular atrium with a domed skylight overhead. There was an important-looking eight-pointed star on the floor, and two soldiers presenting a calm front to a pair of frustrated suits who wanted to use the elevator. Several S-2s stood and watched, halfway between concern and bemusement.

  "You spoke to Krishnaswali?" Vanessa asked as they entered the atrium and turned left. Corporal Chang gave her a mildly aggrieved look over the heads of the troublesome suits. Vanessa spared an ironic smile, and gave a thumbs up. Chang repressed a smile of his own.

  "Um, yeah, he wiped me off his shoe as he came past," Ari said mildly. "Didn't even offer a handkerchief." Ari, Vanessa reflected, was even more obtuse than she was. She could definitely see why Sandy liked him so much, whatever the downside of his ideology and profession ... and, more to the point, found him so attractive. She shared the sentiment herself ... or mostly. Except that somehow, with An, she found herself bantering in a comfort zone that felt much like the now regrettably-rare lunches with cousins Pierre and Margarite-the French side of her family, the side she clicked with. The men she liked to sleep with she preferred big, strong and conveniently silent. No, the only smart, bewildering, intriguing people she generally wanted to sleep with were women ...

  "Yeah, well," she sighed, "you'll have to excuse him, you're not catching him on his best day."

  "Oh right, it's a weekday, I forgot. He's pleased you came along?"

  "Oh, ecstatic," Vanessa said drily. "Your idea?"

  "Why do you always assume that I'm the sole source of your daily misery?"

  "Experience."

  "Funny, that's what Sandy says."

  They turned right at the corridor that ran along the building side, sunny windows overlooking lush garden grounds along the left wall, office doors to the right. A pair of larger, more important doors at the far end, guarded by Privates Mohammed (that was Mohammed number four, on Vanessa's mental list-the one whose mother was a concert-level tabla player) and Kravchenko. Both saluted as she approached.

  "Oh, knock off the salutes, guys," Vanessa told them as she returned it, "it's too much effort."

  "But the General's inside and he'd kill us, Major," Kravchenko replied, keeping her face straight with difficulty. Inside, a waiting room was lined with pictures of important people around the walls. A frustrated-looking secretary sat in his chair by the next main door, terminal headset hung upon the dead monitor-in total lockdown, nothing worked.

  "What?" Vanessa asked indignantly as she caught Ari giving her one of his very curious, sideways looks. They paused before the main doors to Secretary Grey's office.

  "Sandy says how popular you are with your guys," said An. "I think I can see why."

  Vanessa made a face. "They don't love me on the training track, I'll tell you that."

  She pushed the doors open, and they stepped into a broad room with an oval meeting table, surrounded by chairs. Before the broad windows, Secretary of State Grey and General Krishnaswali were exchanging pleasantries ... unpleasantly, Vanessa noted with little surprise. She stopped behind a chair, both hands upon its back to stop the room from spinning. Damn Ibrahim. Why couldn't he have let her stay in bed?

  Secretary Grey's head snapped across to stare at them as they entered. Krishnaswali stood poker-straight before him, immaculate in his dark green uniform. Like Vanessa, he wore only a sidearm at the hip. Unlike Vanessa, his uniform collar and shoulders were decorated with the additional gold pins of rank.

  "Oh, wonderful," Secretary Grey snarled upon sighting An, "Director Ibrahim's personal attack dog. At least now I have no illusions about what this whole thing's about. You tell the Director that he'd damn well better get used to having his authority challenged, and just because he resorts to these kinds of dictatorial pressure tactics, I'm fucked if I'm about to stop it just for him!"

  "Well ..." An raised his eyebrows in mild bewilderment, and scratched at his thick hair. Vanessa thought she must have worn much the same expression last Christmas, when her six-year-old nephew Yves had accused her of treachery for misleading him all those years about Santa Claus. In her light headed state, she found herself suddenly struggling to repress a grin. "If you feel that way, Mr. Secretary," Ari continued, "maybe you'd better tell him yourself."

  Not surprisingly, Grey seemed infuriated by An's manner. He was a tall man, with a curiously unformed face that seemed to lack either sharp edges or soft curves. His eyes were dark and deep, almost puppyish, and his ears stood out sharply from beneath dark, wavy hair. A devotee of the Union Party's conservative left wing, he'd long been regarded by many as the weakest link in President Neiland's Administration ... but political logic meant she couldn't ditch him without a leftist revolt. Vanessa hated political logic. And recalled Sandy's favourite Tanushan comic/commentator, Rami Rahim, saying in a recent spiel how he'd gone to have lunch with Secretary Benjamin Grey, and "then an empty limousine pulled up, and Secretary Grey got out."

  "I've had it," Grey exclaimed, with the air of a man who'd reached his limit. He strode forward several steps to confront Ari directly. Ari's gaze was distinctly dubious. "I'm all out of being polite with you people. The CDF and CSA are supposed to be assets of the State Department, and I get nothing from you but obstruction and suspicion. Especially from you ... Jesus Christ, what the hell was Ibrahim thinking even admitting the likes of you into the CSA? Let alone making you his personal right hand ... you've planned this all along, haven't you? Concocted some evidence to give Ibrahim an excuse to crack down on the one department in this entire Administration whose services Callay can least afford to be without at this moment!"

  "Well, then," An said offhandedly, "maybe if you'd kept better tabs on the activities of your people, you wouldn't have let, um, junior Assistant Director Samarang source a bunch of illegal weaponry through customs using official authorisations." Grey stared, blinking rapidly. "He's in custody now," An explained. "He confessed to the shipments but claims he didn't know they'd be used to assault the summit.

  "Now. . ." he raised a finger, "... maybe it's just me, but I think it's, um, rather curious that Samarang's assistant, Enrico Kalaji, tried to disappear yesterday when I paid him a visit ... ran real fast down the corridor and jumped from a low balcony, actually. And it's a shame that I lost him, because it would have been, um, pretty interesting to hear him explain exactly who in the State Department gave him the order to bug All Sudasarno's cruiser, and how it was that the crazed GI who killed Admiral Duong somehow had access to that bug, and used it to find Commander Kresnov ... who, incidentally, was trying to hide from exactly that GI. And those she suspected were helping her."

  Secretary Grey just stared at him, blankly. Ari looked more closely, as if peering through a window to check if the lights were on inside.

  "I could go over it more slowly if you didn't follow," he offered.

  "The bottom line, Mr. Sec
retary," Krishnaswali cut in sombrely, "is that we need to comprehensively search the entire State Department database so that we can trace the leads, and hopefully find out if this GI is receiving inside help. Agent Chandaram will be here shortly, he can explain the procedures to you better than I can. But it's imperative that we have your utmost cooperation on this matter. Will you give it?"

  Sandy leaped from the flyer's rear ramp the moment the landing gear touched the pads, and jogged quickly across the wet pad with a borrowed raincoat held above her head, boots splashing on rapidly accumulating puddles in the downpour. The raincoat also had the benefit of blocking all possible view from the snooping super-lense imagers the media liked to use around an action scene-it would be better for all concerned, she knew, if the fewest necessary people knew she was here. Inside the rooftop doors, she took a moment to shake off the raincoat, and hand it to Private Ijaz, as the other two CDF soldiers she'd shared the ride with did the same. Ijaz added them to his pile beside the rain-streaked glass doors, to be dispensed among the next departing group.

  "This one came in damn fast, huh?" Sandy commented, shades pocketed as she gazed out at the sheeting rain across the Parliament complex. Beyond the majestic central dome, lightning forked and slashed across the black sky.

  "Sure did, sir," said Ijaz, who was plainly far more interested to see her than the newly arrived storm. "And it's barely even midday, usually in summer they don't arrive until at least midafternoon."

  "Yeah, well, everything's been pretty crazy lately. Why should the weather be different?" She brushed off her jacket and pants, and tried on her shades once more. "What d'you think? On or off?"

  "Don't know who you'd be fooling in this building, Commander."

  Sandy considered that, then nodded agreement and tucked the sunglasses into a pocket. "True enough. Much traffic inside? I still can't use uplinks."

  "The President's here," Ijaz offered. "I'm not sure where though ... somewhere on the north side, I think, she wasn't allowed full access and wasn't very pleased about it."

  "I'll find her," said Sandy. "I'll just follow the loudest screams."

  Ijaz grinned. And said, as she made to descend the stairs, "Commander, it's real good to see you again."

  Which pleased her enormously. "It's real good to see you too, Private." And departed before she could succumb to the temptation for sexual innuendo that even in the CDF, she wasn't supposed to make with enlisted personnel ...

  She strode along the broad lower hall, brushing at rain-wet hair and noting that most offices were empty as she passed ... probably most State Department staff had gathered elsewhere to pass the time. At the circular atrium, Corporal Chang directed her northward, and found a spare headset so that she could listen in to operational chatter. She continued on, past busy CSA agents in suits who mostly didn't notice her identity as they exchanged notes and compared comp-slate codes and building schematics as they swept the entire State Department wing, floor by floor, room by room.

  She found Vanessa in an open, north side meeting room that looked more like an exclusive VIP's club than anything else-a series of booth-style tables and comfortable leather bench seats, all of decoratively carved wood with trimmings and wall paintings that looked distinctly South Asian and Arabic by inspiration. The tall north wall windows overlooked green lawns and gardens. Vanessa stood before the glass-walled booths on the east side, firmly confronting a very important looking suit who loomed over her in evident displeasure.

  "... I'm afraid you're going to have to call and say you'll be late," Vanessa was telling him as Sandy approached.

  "I am not making a call that gets filtered through your monitoring system," the man insisted loudly. Sandy recognised the face-the Foreign Minister of Arkasoy, no less, several hundred light years from home and not at all happy that his schedule had been interrupted. "My world's security will not allow me to make any official transmission through the filtering software of any foreign security agency."

  "I'm sorry, Mr. Atkins, but a lockdown is a lockdown. I believe we'll be finished in a few hours, maybe less."

  "I'm not a part of your damned security crisis," Foreign Minister Atkins snapped. Vanessa had to tilt her head well back to look him in the eye, coming barely up to his armpit as she did. "I'm a visiting foreign dignitary on official business with a diplomatic visa, I've nothing to do with your internal security matters!"

  "I'm sorry, sir," Vanessa said flatly, "but if you're in this building, you do." Atkins' own security agents were waiting patiently nearby, seeming quite unsurprised at Vanessa's stubbornness. Doubtless they'd explained it to their VIP several times. Equally doubtless their VIP hadn't cared to listen. Sandy waited between table booths, casting a glance around. She recognised several more important faces amongst bored, frustrated guests, plus personal security and various assistants. Waiters in spotless white tunics hurried to and from the kitchen, bringing drinks and snacks, valiantly attempting to keep irritated guests from exploding by placating them with sustenance. Through the old-fashioned blinds across the windowed booth behind Vanessa, Sandy saw President Neiland herself, seated at a table, chin glumly on fist as Agent Chandaram from Investigations attempted to explain the situation to her. Nearby, several dark-suited Alpha Team agents kept careful watch over the proceedings.

  God help them if there was a security emergency here, Sandy thought. So many overlapping security operatives, it would be a wonder if they didn't all kill each other in the crossfire.

  "I'm sorry, sir," Vanessa answered Minister Atkins' latest complaint, "but Callayan security procedures take precedence on Callay. There's nothing I can do."

  Atkins swore beneath his breath, and swung about to storm back to his booth seat. And paused, frowning hard at Sandy, with evident recognition. And swung back around to stare at Vanessa, as if wondering if she'd seen. As if thinking a dangerous escapee was about to be arrested. Sandy wondered who he'd been talking to.

  Vanessa met Sandy's gaze, and smiled, tiredly. "Hey-ya." Sandy smiled back, walked up and gave her friend a warm hug, because who really gave a flying fuck about all the people watching, anyway?

  Vanessa returned it. "You know," she said against Sandy's shoulder, "I could get used to you as a brunette. In fact, I've been kinda wondering if I should go blonde myself. . ."

  "No, no, no," Sandy said adamantly. "It's not you."

  "Says your personal committee of one."

  "So I'm getting conservative in my old age. Come, sit." She took Vanessa's arm, and guided her gently to the nearest booth, pointing to Lieutenant Sharma to take charge of any future VIP tantrums. Sharma nodded an acknowledgement with a smile, and Vanessa took a seat gratefully, Sandy sliding in beside her with most of the room's eyes fixed firmly upon the backs of their heads.

  "How's the head?" Sandy murmured, leaning close so that the many pairs of enhanced eardrums behind them would be most unlikely to hear.

  "S'fine," Vanessa murmured back. "This latest generation of neuro- peps are just wonderful ... you know, they respond to enhanced brainwave activity? The more you think, the better you feel. It's actually good to be active, 'cause I don't feel so bad, now."

  She sounded, Sandy reckoned, slightly dreamy. Which struck her as funny, somehow, and she resisted the temptation to hug her again. It was just so nice to see her and to have her to talk to once more.

  Vanessa frowned slightly, gazing at her from barely a hand's breadth away. "What about you? That damn GI could have had you, from what I heard."

  "Worse-Sudasarno and an elevator full of civilians." She sighed, and hung her head. Vanessa's frown grew deeper.

  "Bothered you, did she?" she asked. Vanessa's ability to read her emotions always amazed her. It was a totally different relationship from hers with Ari. Ari always seemed surprised and amazed at her thoughts, an amazement tinged with fascination. Vanessa was rarely amazed. She empathised.

  "I don't know," Sandy murmured. And shook her head, faintly. "I'd always thought complexity led to intel
ligence. I mean, that's why humans are humans and bunbuns are bunbuns."

  "You leave Jean-Pierre alone."

  Sandy smiled. "But logically-our brains are more complex, thus we have morality, right? I mean, morality is a higher intellectual function, surely-that's why the old fear of a humanity overrun and enslaved by machine intelligence hasn't happened, right? Humans have created machines significantly smarter than themselves ..."

  "If you do say so yourself," Vanessa interjected.

  "... but humans haven't been enslaved," Sandy continued, "because the intellect required to do the enslaving also entails a sufficiently advanced consciousness to be subject to moral doubts and questions. And enslaving humans is unconscionable."

  Vanessa made a face. "Sandy ... I've been a corporate number cruncher, and I've been a head-kicking grunt. Neither profession is exactly philosophical, my tiny little mind is way beneath this at the moment ...

  "I'm saying that I'd always thought GIs were capable of more," Sandy explained, her gaze earnest. Vanessa looked tired. But she tried, if just to please her. "I'd always insisted that even the lower-des GIs could be so much more than just soldiers if they tried. If they were given the opportunity, and a reason to care. I mean, look at Rhian- just two years here and suddenly she's become all chic and sophisticated. Just the other day she was telling me she wanted to adopt a child someday ..."

  "Really?" Vanessa perked up immediately. And smiled, picturing that. "Wow. That's fantastic, what did you tell her?"

  "Vanessa, please, I need you to listen to this. I want to know if I'm nuts or what." Vanessa sighed, and raised a conciliatory hand. "So more complexity means more morality, right? And, I mean, the thing that makes me really different from Rhian is the brain structure, on a neurological level ... I don't understand most of it, I'm not a technician. There're people who speculate that the technology is so fucking advanced it probably isn't even hurrah ..."