Shooting the Rift - eARC

by Alex Stewart

  “Everyone seems to think so,” I said, finding myself curiously reluctant to lie to her outright. “But if I am, I’m obviously not a very good one.”

  “Don’t play games, Si. Not with me.” She shrugged, which had an interesting effect on her embonpoint. Though the body armor I’d usually seen her in had done it few favors, she had quite a full figure, which even the standard-issue fatigues she was wearing couldn’t entirely conceal. “I’m the closest thing you’ve got here to a friend.”

  “Which is why they sent you in here to talk to me, isn’t it?” I asked, facing the realization I’d been shoving to the back of my head since she walked through the door.

  “Of course it is,” she said briskly, “and before you ask, of course we’re being monitored.”

  “I knew that already,” I said. I could detect the datastream from the handheld in her pocket, and poked at it from force of habit, but the genetic code lock kept me out as effectively as ever.

  “Of course you did,” she agreed, a simple statement, devoid of sarcasm or judgment.

  “Good.” I felt vaguely wrong-footed. “So is this just a social call, or . . .” I cocked my head interrogatively, reluctant to put what I was certain her real purpose was into words. It could hardly have escaped Wymes’s notice, or at least the people he worked for, that the two of us had hit it off, and leverage like that would be too good not to exploit. However she felt about me, though, Jas was a League soldier first and foremost: she’d already proved that by reporting my family connection to the Commonwealth navy to her superiors as soon as I let it slip, and that was the side she’d come down on if her loyalties were divided.

  “They asked me to come see you,” she admitted, then hesitated. “But I would have tried anyway.” I found myself believing her. “I really don’t want to see you executed.”

  “Neither do I. But it won’t come to that,” I assured her, wishing I was as certain about that as I sounded. “Clio will get the Guild back on side.”

  “And if she doesn’t?” Jas asked, in a tone which somehow managed to substitute “when” for “if.”

  “I’ll still be okay,” I said, blithely, “as soon as that idiot Wymes realizes I’m not really a spy.”

  “Not much of a plan, is it?” she asked, and I shook my head in rueful acknowledgement.

  “Only one I’ve got, though.”

  “Then get a better one,” Jas urged. “While you still can.”

  “Which would be?” I asked, pretty sure I already knew the answer.

  “Defect,” Jas said. “You don’t owe the Commonwealth anything, you said so yourself, and now the Guild have cut you off at the knees too. But there’ll always be a place in the League for people with your talents.”

  “There will?” I asked. I’d been anticipating an appeal to co-operate in exchange for a life sentence instead of a firing squad, but this substantially raised the stakes. Simply turning my coat hadn’t even occurred to me.

  “Definitely.” She nodded. “There’s a deal on the table, as a Guilder would say, and you’ve got twelve hours to think it over. After that, the interrogators make a start on you. Believe me, you don’t want that to happen.”

  “What kind of a deal?” I asked, intrigued in spite of myself.

  “Immunity. League citizenship. Enough of a stipend to live on, if you don’t spend too lavishly.” She grinned. “And an ensign’s commission, if you still want to put on a Navy uniform. Working on intelligence analysis.”

  “It’s tempting,” I hedged, while the realization slowly sunk in that I could get out of this. Easily. All I had to do was betray Mother and Tinkie, and live with that on my conscience if they died as a result. “Anything else?”

  “Only this.” She leaned across and kissed me, long and slow, and I found myself responding in kind, our tongues tangling, while my biomonitor went quietly crazy trying to classify her range of transgenic tweaks in terms it understood. The contrast with Carenza’s drunken fumblings could hardly have been more marked, and I’m not ashamed to admit that I rather lost track of the time for a few moments. As our bodies touched, yielding against one another, I found the reality of the contact far exceeded anything I could have imagined.

  “Quite an incentive,” I agreed, as we finally came up for air.

  “I’m not saying it would be easy,” she cautioned, moving away a few inches, “but at least we’d have a chance to be together for a while. See how we get on when we can behave like normal people.”

  “I’d like that,” I admitted.

  “So would I.” She stood, with what I hoped was genuine reluctance, and headed for the door. “Think about it. Do the right thing.”

  “I will,” I said, wondering what the right thing was. She reached into her pocket, triggering the locking code from her handheld, which I recorded out of habit. The datastream seemed strangely clear all of a sudden, no more complex than Plubek’s had been, and sudden understanding punched me in the sternum, almost as hard as Wymes had done. Our little game of tonsil hockey had given me access to her genetic code, through the biomonitor I’d barely noticed activating in the heat of the moment, and I could use that to crack her handheld, or anything encoded by it. If I was quick enough . . .

  “Be seeing you,” she said, pausing in the doorway for a final glance back in my direction. “I hope.”

  “Me too.” I said, smiling, and gazing into her eyes, playing for time as I frantically stripped out datanomes from the sequence I'd constructed to get into Plubek's handheld, and melded what was left with the strips of her genecode my biomonitor had recorded. It was a long shot at best, I reminded myself, but it was the only one I had . . .

  Jas turned away, and the door thunked to behind her. I could still detect the compacted datacloud around her handheld, however, and, crossing my fingers, tried meshing into it, sneaking in along the pulse she triggered to relock the door. To my surprise and relief it worked, and I suddenly found myself with full access, and the weird sensation of having stumbled through a door I'd just leaned on expecting it to be barred on the other side.

  There was no time to explore all the data encoded there, so I simply grabbed whatever was immediately adjacent, and dumped it into my ‘sphere.

  Only to find I’d hit the jackpot: locking codes for all the areas of the base Jas was authorized to enter. Which was, of course, by no means all of it, some sections remaining classified well above a Naval Infantry private’s clearance level, but since her right of access included my cell, more than good enough for me.

  Of course, even if I could open the door whenever I felt like it, that wouldn’t get me very far. I needed a proper plan of action if I was going to get out of here, and find some way of warning the Commonwealth of the impending invasion of Rockhall.

  But I had a map of the base, and a fighting chance at last. I sat on the bed, and started to work something out, trying not to wonder if I should just take Jas up on her offer instead.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  In which I go for a shower, and change my clothes.

  Despite a growing sense of urgency with every passing minute, I forced myself to take my time. I was only going to get one shot at this, and if I screwed it up every trooper in the base was going to get a shot at me instead, so a bit of careful planning seemed in order. Not to mention the fact that the longer I stayed put, the more it would appear that I’d simply given up, and was on the verge of accepting Jas’s offer to skip off together into a rosy future as a citizen of the League. Which, if I’m honest, I couldn’t help seriously considering, especially as my body kept sparking with the tactile memory of hers pressed against it; which, in turn, wasn’t exactly an aid to concentration.

  After studying the map carefully, my first thought was to head for the riftcom at the heart of the base, and try to get a message to Aunt Jenny that way. I’d even plotted out a route, before the obvious flaws in that idea began to occur to me. For one thing, I had no idea how to encode a message for transmission, and for an
other, even if I somehow managed to figure it out or coerce an operator to do the job for me, the message would only get as far as Iceball before someone at the other end realized what it was and reported it, instead of sending it on. The only riftcom network any good to me would be the Guild one, and to access that I’d have to get to Clio. In theory, as my Guild advocate, she’d be visiting me in my cell at some point, but I was sure Wymes or one of his minions would be stalling her as long as possible, in the hope of getting me to crack before she could intervene.

  Which meant I’d have to go to her.

  That, of course, raised a whole new set of problems, not the least of which would be having to admit to her that Remington had been right. I couldn’t be entirely sure how she’d react to that, but I strongly suspected it wouldn’t be with a merry laugh at how easily I’d fooled her. She’d probably give up any idea of getting me readmitted to the Guild, and refuse to take the message, before calling the guards and getting me dragged back here to meet the interrogators Jas had warned me about.

  But I couldn’t see any other way of getting the message out, so I’d just have to take the chance.

  After biding my time for several hours, I hoped I’d been quiet enough for any guards in the vicinity to have written me off as harmless, taking the edge off their vigilance. I’d certainly done all I could to foster that impression, accepting the meal I’d been given with a quiet word of thanks, and doing my best to look subdued and apprehensive—which, given what I was about to do, required less acting than you might think.

  I’d paid careful attention to my surroundings when I arrived here with Wymes, so I was pretty confident I could find my way out again even without the aid of the map I’d purloined from the node I’d cracked, and I was able to visualize the corridor outside without too much difficulty. My cell was about halfway along a relatively narrow passage, lined with identical doors, and sealed at both ends by other, thicker ones. The one we’d come in by had a guard station on the other side of it, and beyond that was a lower security area, in which the detainees were able to associate in mess halls and recreation rooms, and do dull but useful jobs to help keep the base ticking over. I hadn’t noticed anyone else in the corridor while I was being led in here; it was possible it had been cleared on purpose, but I hadn’t heard much ambient noise from outside since my arrival, so I’d just have to take the chance that it was generally just as empty.

  Unable to put it off any longer, as about half of the twelve hour deadline I’d been given had already expired, I made my final preparations, stripping down to my undershorts, and grabbing a towel from my kitbag. This was probably the single most stupid idea I’d had since deciding to cheat in the Academy entrance exam, but, on the other hand, it was so spectacularly dumb no one could possibly be expecting me to try it. I hoped.

  I let Jas’s access code float in my datasphere for a moment, then, holding my breath, melded it with her genetic key and directed it at the door. I’d more than half expected nothing to happen, but the lock clicked obligingly open, and I stepped out into the corridor as if I had every right to be there. To my relief, no one else was around to challenge me, and I closed and locked the cell door again, just in case anyone decided to check. The passageway was being monitored, of course, but, armed with Jas’s security clearance, I was able to mesh with the data recorders through the ceiling-mounted cameras, and replace the live feed with pictures of an empty corridor taken a few minutes before. By the time the delayed footage caught up with me leaving the cell, it would have gone back to the live feed, with no one any the wiser—just so long as no one had been looking at a screen before I managed to switch the images.

  So far, so good. Now for the tricky bit. I approached the door barring the end of the corridor, the flow of data through the guard station console bright in the corner of my ‘sphere. This was the make-or-break moment. I sent out a tentative tendril, and meshed with it, rummaging through the files I found there; as I’d expected, my own name popped up almost at once. It didn’t take long for my sneakware to wriggle through the security protocols protecting it, and I snagged a copy, more for my own amusement than anything else. According to the paperwork I was a skilled and dangerous field agent, in possession of highly sensitive information, and only to be seen by a short list of specific individuals, all of whom, apart from Jas, had security clearances so high they were practically in the stratosphere. Even the guards had standing instructions not to engage me in conversation, and to report everything I said. My estimation of Wymes’s level of paranoia rose a couple more notches.

  Once I was in there, though, it didn’t take me long to amend the records. I was now a minor felon, one of Ertica’s crew, being segregated from the others for my own protection after agreeing to testify against my former shipmates on the smuggling charge they faced. That done, I skipped to the duty roster, and breathed a silent prayer of thanks to the Lady. As I’d hoped, the shift change had been the same as the one the guards in the cavern had followed, which was why I’d picked now to make my move; none of the ones currently on duty had seen me arrive, or brought me my meal. If they hadn’t done any more than a cursory check of the paperwork after clocking on, I just might just get away with this.

  Only one way to find out, though, and waiting wouldn’t make that any easier. I took a deep breath, and tripped the door lock.

  “Thanks,” I said, turning my head to address the empty corridor behind me as I stepped through, and closing it as I did so. “See you later.” With any luck the woman at the guard station would assume I was talking to one of her colleagues, who had just opened it for me. And why wouldn’t she? Prisoners didn’t have handhelds, or a genetic code authorizing them to open locks.

  “And you are?” Her eyes travelled slowly over my exposed skin, clearly enjoying the trip. I smiled, in a friendly manner, trying to look as though I was returning the complement.

  “Si Forrester, from the Poison 4. What’s left of it. Transferred in here earlier today on health grounds.”

  “Really.” She pulled up the file on her console, and scanned it. I tried to keep the tension from my face. If she was going to smell a rat, now would be the time. She glanced up from the screen. “What are you doing out here?”

  “Need a shower,” I said, holding up the towel as evidence. “Next level down, right?”

  “Up,” she said, lulled by the deliberate slip, as I’d intended. If you want to get someone to take you at face value, it never hurts to let them feel slightly superior. “Next to the laundry.”

  “Up. Right. Thanks.” I leaned in, pretending to take a look at the floor plan on her screen, and tried to look flirtatious. “How soon do you get off?”

  “It depends on who I’m with.” She smiled, more in amusement at my effrontery than because she was tempted. “But you’re not my type.”

  “My loss I’m sure,” I said, stepping into the elevator, and punching the icon for the next floor up.

  The corridor there was crowded, as I’d hoped, and I blended in nicely with the dozen or so other seminude inmates heading for the showers at the far end. A premonitory waft of warmth and steam was seeping out into the passageway, and I found myself tempted to take advantage of the facility for a few minutes after all—but the clock was still ticking, and I couldn’t afford to waste a second. Accordingly I turned left, just before reaching the showers, and found myself in the laundry area.

  This was another part of the plan I just had to take on trust—although it was marked on the map I’d got floating in one corner of my datasphere, that hadn’t told me precisely which part of the process went on in that room. I’d been hoping it was storage for the freshly laundered garments, but instead I was met with the unmistakable reek of an unfeasible number of recently worn ones, stuffed into laundry bags, and awaiting cleaning. On the plus side, though, there was no one around to challenge me.

  I rummaged through a couple of the bags before anyone could enter, finding a set of fatigues more or less my size, and not t
oo malodorous. I have to admit that my skin crawled a little as I put them on, but I soon got used to the faintly clammy feeling of someone else’s sweat, and I supposed that, on the plus side, looking a little rumpled would help me to blend in a bit more easily.

  I walked casually back into the corridor, and regained the elevator, without attracting the notice of anyone. There was, of course, a security lockout on the panel, preventing any unauthorized access to the entrance level, but I cracked that easily enough with Jas’s code, and arrived in a lobby where a couple of armed guards were mooching around looking bored, while a third manned a console a bit bigger and more impressive than the one I’d passed through downstairs.

  “Log out, please.” He barely so much as glanced at me, more interested in the images of scantily clad young men being projected by his handheld. He and Carenza would probably have got on like a house on fire.

  “Be seeing you,” I said, trying to inject a more nasal, League-sounding twang into my voice, and inputting Jas’s code once again. The system tried to flag it as having already been used to leave, of course, but I was ready for that, and slipped in an error message confirmation which headed it off from tripping the alarm.

  Then I was outside, in one of the main transport arteries, watching the sleds hurtle by.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  In which I find transport, and some new allies.

  Not wanting to attract undue attention to myself, I didn’t waste any time looking around, but strolled unhurriedly away in a random direction, looking as casual as possible. I wasn’t the only pedestrian in sight, but most of the traffic around me was sled-borne, and I’d need to get hold of one somehow if I was to get to the internment area and talk to Clio before somebody noticed I’d gone and sparked a manhunt.