by Greg Rucka
Once through the gauntlet, she headed across the lobby to the main desk, black-clad Core-Mantis security guards watching her advance every step of the way. Jo liked almost everything about the lobby, thinking that it was tasteful, very open, and generally welcoming. High windows allowed the sunlight in without condemning everyone inside to bake come the heat of summer. The floor, which she had expected to be of marble, was actually composed of tiles of Italian glass, and it gave the space a color and sense of vibrancy markedly different from any of the other hypercorp offices she had ever visited.
The only thing she didn’t like about the lobby was the massive portrait of Shane Eddy, which seemed to cover most of one of the side walls. It was done in oil paints, or at least in something that was supposed to give the impression of an oil painting, almost classic in its styling. In it, Eddy posed with the CMO flag, standing at Tranquility Base, Earthrise visible in the background. As if to offset, or perhaps apologize, for the garishness of the piece, a stylized sculpture of the CMO logo hung from the opposite wall, almost to the same scale as the portrait.
Jo liked the sculpture, though something about it struck her as surprisingly feminine.
The young man working the front desk was very polite, very handsome, and didn’t look that much older than Jo.
“May I help you?” he asked her in English.
“I do hope so,” Jo said. “I’d like to speak with one of your employees, Portia de Carcareas.”
The young man brought up the building directory on his terminal, saying, “Is she expecting you?”
“I’d be a little surprised if she was.”
The man grinned, then abruptly changed it to a frown. “I can’t seem to find a Carcareas in the directory. Perhaps I’m misspelling it?”
Jo spelled it out for him, and he tried again, gaining the same result.
“There’s no Carcareas listed, I’m afraid.” He smiled up at her, apologetic. “Are you sure you have the right office?”
“Actually, I’m not.” Jo smiled right back at him. “That’s part of my problem, I don’t know which office she works out of.”
“I’m not certain I can help you, then. It’s against Core-Mantis OmniGlobal policy to give out information concerning personnel.”
“Security,” Jo said, commiserating.
“You know how it is.”
“I do.” She leaned forward slightly, making certain that, in doing so, at least three of the surveillance cameras she’d noted in the lobby could capture some really good pictures of her face. “Could you try this for me then? Contact your head of security for the building, and let them know that Joanna Dark is here, and that she’d very much like to arrange a meeting with Portia de Carcareas.”
“That’s … that’s very irregular.”
“Tell me about it,” Jo said, and then crossed the lobby to the sitting area, taking a place on one of the four couches there. There were magazines, all of them issues of the CMO in-house publication, Meritorious, and she contented herself for almost ten minutes by leafing her way through them. All were filled with the standard hypercorp propaganda, though in one issue Jo discovered a photo spread documenting Shane Eddy’s most recent journey to the Nepal Himalaya. It was, according to the accompanying article, the fifth time Eddy had achieved the summit of Mount Everest, and this time, he’d done it without the aid of Sherpas, using only CMO-produced clothing and gear. Jo spent some time examining the photographs, trying to determine if they were fakes or not.
She was still undecided about them when she heard the clacking of heels on the tile, approaching her. Jo kept her attention on the magazine, making the very active decision to appear as nonthreatening as possible.
“You are Joanna Dark?”
Jo closed the magazine, setting it aside and looking up to see a tall and slender woman addressing her. She was African, tall and bald, with flawless skin so dark it seemed that her body turned to shadow inside her black CMO security uniform.
“Yes, I am,” Jo said.
The woman studied her, as if unsure what to say next. She’d approached her alone, but Jo noted that the number of CMO guards in the lobby had increased, albeit subtly, as if preparing for a shift change. For the most part, the guards were all doing a good job of pretending to pay her no attention.
The woman said, “I’m Colonel Ainia Tachi-Amosa, commanding officer of the Fourth Division, Xiphos Company. I’m the regional director of security, Miss Dark.”
“I’m honored.”
The woman arched an eyebrow as if doubting Jo’s sincerity. “Why are you looking for Miss Carcareas, Miss Dark?”
“I have some questions for her.”
“And what is the nature of these inquiries, please?”
By way of an answer, Jo made a deliberate display of showing Ainia Tachi-Amosa her profile, first her left, then her right.
“Right face,” Jo said. “Wrong person.”
Colonel Tachi-Amosa stared at her, and Jo thought she looked confused for a moment, but then the woman nodded slightly. “Are you here as an agent of the Carrington Institute, Miss Dark? Or are you acting on your own accord?”
“Both, actually.”
The colonel considered that, then said, “Perhaps you would be willing to discuss this in my office? You might be more comfortable.”
Jo hesitated, conflicted. There was nothing overtly hostile about Colonel Tachi-Amosa, nothing that was striking her as an immediate threat, but going deeper into Core-Mantis hadn’t been part of her plan. If her doppelganger was, in fact, a CMO agent working in disguise, it was conceivably a very dangerous thing for Jo to do.
The colonel waited, then added, “You were comprehensively scanned when you entered the building, Miss Dark. I know you are unarmed. I also know that your ribs must be giving you quite a bit of discomfort. My offer is sincere. We can speak more freely in my office, and in more comfort.”
“I have a cab waiting,” Jo said. “It has my bag in it.”
“I can send someone to fetch it.”
“There’s a pistol in the bag, a P9P, and a datathief.”
The colonel did the move with her eyebrow again, letting it rise, then fall, before saying, “You’re very blunt, Miss Dark. I appreciate the candor. I will have the bag held for you at the desk here, with my word that it will not be opened.”
Jo thought about that, thought that, once again, she was potentially being very foolish.
Then again, she told herself, this is what you came here for, to talk. You’d be a fool to turn your back on the offer.
Jo took a breath, then got to her feet. Her ribs positively hummed with pain, but she kept it off her face.
“Lead on,” she said.
Most of Joanna’s contact with Core-Mantis in the past had been peripheral, occurring at a distance. The closest she’d actually ever come to disrupting one of their operations had been during the mission in Los Angeles, and even then, it had been practically incidental. It wasn’t because Core-Mantis didn’t pose a threat—they were a hypercorp, and as far as Jo was concerned, that was enough to prove villainous intent. But compared to dataDyne, they were bush league, or had been until the last week.
Walking with Colonel Tachi-Amosa through the building, followed at a respectful distance by two uniformed guards, Jo could see that things were changing. There was a charge in the air, a palpable sense of energy and anticipation that seemed to flow out of each and every office they passed, that seemed to rise from every employee she saw. Twice while passing closed doors, Jo heard laughter coming from within, and it sounded genuine, and that both bewildered and surprised her.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d heard someone at the Institute laughing.
They reached Tachi-Amosa’s office, the colonel dismissing the guards as she led Jo inside, directing her to a seat. It wasn’t a small office, but, like the lobby, effort had been put into its design and layout, so that it felt both brighter and more spacious than it actually was. There was the r
equisite desk, relatively clean and not so large as to be ostentatious, and a compact seating area off to one side with a couch and easy chairs. Bookshelves covered one wall, cloth hardcovers with glossy jackets, and hanging opposite was a hi-res satellite map of Mexico. A second door was positioned in the wall near the desk, closed, and Jo guessed that being a colonel rated having your own bathroom. Behind the desk was a large window-monitor, showing multiple screens displaying all manner of data, including the ubiquitous stock ticker and talking-head newsfeed.
The colonel moved to her desk, pressing a key on the control surface, and the monitors faded away, the tint of the window increasing slightly. She pressed a second button, and for an instant, Jo heard an almost inaudible ascending whine, and then that sound, too, disappeared.
“Countermeasures,” the colonel told her. “I hate eavesdroppers, and I don’t want you to worry that this conversation is being overheard.”
“You don’t?” Jo didn’t bother trying to not look puzzled. She had expected that everything she said or did, if not in the building then certainly in the colonel’s office, would be placed on record somehow, someplace. “Why not?”
“Two reasons, honestly. The first is that it’s unnecessary. If it’s important, I’ll remember it. The second is that I’d rather the official record be vague on this meeting.” Tachi-Amosa made a general sweeping gesture with one hand, toward the seating area. “Make yourself comfortable. Have you eaten? Would you like something to drink?”
Jo shook her head, lowering herself into one of the easy chairs, and trying to figure out why Colonel Ainia Tachi-Amosa, commanding officer of the Fourth Division, Xiphos Company, was being so nice to her. The colonel watched as she sat, her expression neutral, then moved to take the chair opposite, so the two of them could speak facing each other.
“Now, Miss Dark,” she said. “Why don’t you tell me what you really want?”
“I want to speak to Portia de Carcareas.”
“Why her, specifically?”
“Because I’ve only ever known the name of one other person who worked for CMO, and she’s dead now.”
“Did you kill her?”
Jo shook her head. The woman in question had taken her own life, and had done so out of despair and guilt. The guilt had come from being forced to betray the Institute. The despair had come from the realization that it would never end. CMO had been responsible for both.
They look pretty on the outside, she told herself. But they’re as bad as dataDyne, and don’t you forget that, Joanna.
“You guys did,” Jo said.
Colonel Tachi-Amosa frowned. “We don’t kill our own.”
“I didn’t say she was one of your own, colonel. I said she worked for you. Not by choice.”
That earned a slight nod of understanding. “Espionage is not my arena.”
“But counterespionage is?”
“Partly, yes.”
“Is that why we’re talking in your office, off the record?”
“In part. In part because I’m curious what your intentions are.” The colonel leaned her long body forward, resting her arms on her thighs. “I’ve seen the intelligence, Miss Dark, I know the favors you’ve been doing for Core-Mantis. But you say you’re still working for the Carrington Institute. Does that mean the things you’ve been doing, you’ve been doing at Daniel Carrington’s direction?”
Oh bloody hell, Joanna thought. She doesn’t know. She doesn’t know it wasn’t me who killed Bricker and Matsuo.
“I don’t take orders very well,” Jo said by way of an answer, and because it was the truth.
“I see.”
The colonel straightened in her seat, watching Jo closely for several seconds, clearly thinking. Then she looked away, toward the map of Mexico, running the palm of her right hand across the shiny plane of her bald head. Finally, she sighed, apparently resolved, and faced Jo once more.
“I am not upper echelon, Miss Dark,” Colonel Tachi-Amosa said, as if admitting to a personal shortcoming. “I do not have the authority to negotiate terms, or to give you any guarantees regarding your future with Core-Mantis OmniGlobal whatsoever. I can—and am more than willing to—protect you from Carrington if he attempts a retrieval. But I simply do not have the power to negotiate things like ongoing personal security, position, salary, or benefits.”
She paused, gauging Joanna’s reaction, and Jo did her very damnedest to keep her expression serious, even trying to appear somber.
She thinks I’m defecting, Jo thought. My injuries, she thinks I sustained them escaping the Institute.
“Maybe you should get somebody who can do those things, Colonel,” Jo said.
“Senior management is unavailable at the moment.” The colonel smiled thinly. “Ironically, as a result of your activities over the last week. They’re all in Crete, overseeing the dismantling of Zentek and the impending takeover of BYI.”
“Then get Carcareas over here and let me talk to her.”
“Miss Carcareas is unavailable right now.”
“I want to talk to her,” Jo said. “She’s the one I’ll deal with, nobody else.”
“We are trying to reach her, Miss Dark, I assure you,” the colonel said quickly. “But it may take some time before she can get here.”
Using the arms of the chair to assist her, Jo got to her feet, and the colonel hastily followed suit. She could see the worry on the other woman’s face, the fear that she was going to lose Jo.
“I want your private number,” Jo told the colonel. “The one for your ring-ring, not for the office, your private one.”
“Miss Dark, I’m concerned for your safety if you leave this building. If Carrington makes an attempt—”
“Then I’ll deal with it the way I dealt with it before,” Jo snapped.
“Your injuries—”
“Are nothing compared to the other guy’s.”
The colonel paused, and Jo thought she saw the hint of a smile before she rattled of a fifteen-digit string of numbers. Jo repeated the sequence back, as quickly as it had come, and earned another arching of an eyebrow.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” Jo said, once she was sure she had the colonel’s ring-ring number committed to memory. “I’m going to call you in twelve hours. You’re going to answer. I’m going to tell you where Portia de Carcareas is to meet me, and I’m going to tell you when. You’ll tell her. She’ll meet me. Then, and only then, will I open my negotiations with Core-Mantis OmniGlobal.”
Colonel Tachi-Amosa frowned again, but nodded her acceptance of the terms. “I can’t convince you to stay here? At least to let us give you some medical attention?”
“Not unless you want to try doing it by force,” Jo said. “But I don’t think your superiors would like that very much, do you?”
“No,” the colonel said. “No, they would not. Not given everything you’ve done for us already. They would view it as discourteous.”
“So would I.”
“I’ll escort you out.”
“Please.”
The colonel led her to the door, back through the corridors and down once more to the lobby. She retrieved Jo’s pack from where it had been held at the front desk, made a display of opening it for her and then setting out the contents, so Jo could make certain that nothing had been taken from it, that nothing had been added. Then Colonel Tachi-Amosa walked Jo the rest of the way out of the building, leaving her only as Joanna passed through the doors, wishing her a good day, and saying that she thought Jo was making the right choice.
“Welcome to Core-Mantis,” the colonel said. “Welcome to the family.”
SecureChat: Private Room 10029.29291.2992
>>FLASHBLANK ENGAGED … INTRUSION LOCKOUT ENGAGED … CONNECTING.
>>ED_V_CODER is LOGGED ON …
>>CHRYSALIS BLOSSOM is LOGGED ON …
>>ED_V_CODER: Hey, I need some more help. Got a minute?
>>CHRYSALIS BLOSSOM: Why is it all we ever talk about is work? :-p
>>CHRYSALIS BLOSSOM: Arthur throwing another tantrum? ;)
>>ED_V_CODER: It’s the damned compiler again, I think. Every time it looks like I have the behavioral systems on line, the compiler dumps garbage code into the mix and Arthur blue-screens me. I’m at crunch-time now, CB, I’m on no sleep and pretty much all of the caffeine in Paris, and I’ve set myself up for a massive fall
>>ED_V_CODER: I **really** need some help!!!
>>CHRYSALIS BLOSSOM: Why not ask Cassandra?
>>ED_V_CODER: Can’t. I’m good at this stuff, but next to her? I might as well be hand-coding websites, or writing in C+. She handed over some of her notes last time I saw her, and I *know* I should understand them and maybe--maybe!--I’m getting half of it. I’m not stoopid, but I’ve got nothing on this, I just can’t track it to keep up
>>CHRYSALIS BLOSSOM: She’s really that good, huh?
>>ED_V_CODER: Yes. She *really* is.
>>CHRYSALIS BLOSSOM: Then you should *really* tell her, don’t you think? If she’s the razor you say she is, she can solve the problem
>>ED_V_CODER: Can’t do that. Not if I want to keep my job.
>>CHRYSALIS BLOSSOM: C’mon, she’s not gonna fire you because you’re stuck on something that maybe she’s the only person in the world who understands it
>>ED_V_CODER: Maybe not for that.…
>>CHRYSALIS BLOSSOM: oh damn, baby, what’d you do?
>>ED_V_CODER: I had to demo for her yesterday, and I ended up coding a key-word module
>>CHRYSALIS BLOSSOM: You didn’t!
>>ED_V_CODER: and then inserting it into the baseline to make it look like he was doing things that she totally expects
>>CHRYSALIS BLOSSOM: OK slow down
>>ED_V_CODER: him to be doing and that according to our timeline he *should* be doing but that for some damn reason I can’t *make* him do!
>>CHRYSALIS BLOSSOM: …
