Apaza promised to work on something that wouldn’t look like an information packet, but Gomez hoped they wouldn’t need that. She felt safe enough with the packet going out as the ship was destroyed.
Otherwise, she believed the information would reach the Moon one way or another.
But as she walked down the cobblestone that someone believed a good idea in place of an actual sidewalk, she found herself regretting not using all of the tricks that Apaza had designed.
Gomez didn’t feel good about this meeting, and she finally figured out why.
Most of the people she had passed as she got closer to the industrial park looked the same.
They didn’t dress the same—they wore everything from overalls to kimonos, short skirts to long dresses covered in ruffles. But they were the same height and their skin color was a neutral tannish brown, their eyes a bit wide and their noses small.
Even the children looked similar.
If they weren’t clones, then they were heavily enhanced.
She tried not to stare at them, feeling a bit dumpy and out of place as she moved.
She left the edge of the commercial area—filled with hotels and restaurants and a few shops—and crossed a green space. Five people worked on their hands and knees, plants in containers beside them, switching out the dying flowers with hardier looking ones.
The ground they had dug up was black and rich. She could even smell the heavy scent of wet dirt.
As she approached the industrial park, the cobblestone spread in three different directions—directly ahead, and off to her left and right. The paths that went left and right butted up against a fence made of the same material.
The fence was at least a meter taller than she was, and appeared to be so solid that she wasn’t sure how anyone could break through it.
It did look easy to climb, but she would wager that there was some kind of protective field around it.
The path she was on led to an unmanned gate. She flattened her palm against the lock, letting her badge flare.
“Judita Gomez,” she said. “I have an appointment.”
She had made that the night before with their personnel office, just like she would have done if she were applying for a job here.
A calm settled over her.
She had missed this kind of risk, missed those moments when she went alone into a place where she had never been and a future that remained entirely unknown.
The gate swung open just enough to let her slip through. Then it eased closed behind her.
Building Fourteen, said an automated voice in her links as a map appeared below her left eye.
Building Fourteen was only a few meters left of the entrance, which made sense. Most strangers would come into the industrial park to either interview for a job or start their first day on the job.
If Gomez had to guess, the buildings to her right housed other services geared toward guests.
The cobblestone continued here, reminding her that Hétique City was a company town, and that the cloning factory had come before any official city government.
Plants, similar to the ones being replaced outside the gate, glistened in the sunlight. Since the rain clouds passed, the sun had come out very bright. Hétique held a similar position in relation to its sun that Earth had in relation to its, but Gomez couldn’t remember ever feeling this hot and sticky on Earth.
Nor could she remember the sun ever seeming to be so bright, the light so vibrant.
But it had been a long time since she had been to Earth, and even longer since she had gone into a human-only city with that same feeling of possible danger that she often had on the Frontier.
The map illuminated her way around some stone benches and a lovely little gazebo. A couple sat inside, having a serious conversation, almost as if they had been planted there as advertising for how wonderful and peaceful this park could be.
Gomez glanced at them, and let the details reach her—more tannish brown skin, wide eyes, and long, thin forms. She realized, after a moment, that two people she had assumed were some kind of couple might have actually been brother and sister—or clones with their gender modified.
Gomez shivered. She hated thinking about the way that human beings could be manipulated for profit.
Building Fourteen was wide and rectangular, with a low roof. Greenery that she couldn’t identify hung down from the gutters, and she wondered if, from above, this building looked more like a hill than an actual building.
The walls were recessed just enough that she had to walk through vines to get to the door.
It swung open as she appeared.
Judita Gomez, proceed one meter to your right, then turn left.
She followed the instructions as they were sent through her links. She felt better than she had in weeks, as if she had done this before.
And technically, she had, every single time she approached an alien government in the Frontier when someone in that government insisted she come alone.
Regulations stated she should never go alone, but, as she had told Nuuyoma when he took over the Stanley, regulations on the Frontier were merely suggestions.
Another door swung open, and this time she entered a sitting area. The temperature had cooled here, and the air was drier. Her damp skin left her feeling colder than the temperature gauge she’d called up in her right eye told her she should be.
“Marshal Gomez.” The voice belonged to a man, but Gomez didn’t see anyone.
A hologram appeared before her, deliberately clear at first so that she knew she was speaking to someone who wasn’t bothering to be in the room.
“To what do we owe this pleasure?” the man asked.
He was thin, like the men she had seen outside, but his skin was several shades darker. His eyes were a light green, making them almost disappear on his face.
“I’m here to discuss a position,” she said.
“We haven’t advertised a position,” he said.
“Of course you haven’t,” she said. “You never advertise positions. And yet, I heard from a reliable source that you need trained law enforcement.”
She had heard that—or rather Apaza had found it deep inside the files that Gomez had found on her database. Anyone interested in working in facilities like this one needed ties to law enforcement.
“Who told you that?” the man asked.
She smiled. “If I told you that, then I might get my source in trouble. Confirm or deny that you’re looking for trained law enforcement. I’m hoping to ease into retirement with a cushier job than I’m used to, and if there are no jobs here, then I’ll move to my next stop.”
The hologram winked out and yet another door opened.
“Come on in, Marshal.” The same voice came out of that open door, only this time the voice seemed a little richer. The actual person, apparently, sat inside that room.
Gomez walked inside, and realized that no one sat here. Tables stood to one side, mostly housing screens so that someone could fill out documents or look up information. Gigantic white pillows were pushed against one wall; apparently they were what a person used if she chose to sit.
The floor was covered in thick, green, shag carpet, and the walls matched. The wood trim was dark, making the white pillows the only things in the room that seemed bright.
A man stood in the center of all of it. He was barefoot and wore thin pants that seemed suited to the humid weather outside. His shirt was white and loose. He was younger than she expected, and looked nothing like the people she had seen outside.
His skin was darker—more coffee than tan—and his face wider, his eyes closer together, his mouth broad and curled in a smile. Somehow the combination was charming rather than off-putting.
He waved. “We don’t shake hands here,” he said. “We’re a little conscious of where we leave our DNA.”
Then he laughed, as if he had made a joke. Maybe he thought he had.
“I’m Ashraf Guan. I handle initial hiring here, an
d I’ll be honest. I’m interested and intrigued. Interested in you as a possible employee, intrigued that you found us.”
That last had a bit of an edge, as if he didn’t expect anyone to find them.
Gomez decided to put him at ease. “I use old databases because I’m with the FSS. I’m not sure if the notification I saw is gone now, but I can send it to you, if you would like.”
“Please do,” he said.
She was prepared for this moment. She had the notice, along with enough of the database so that he could identify where it had come from.
She had had Apaza go over everything to make certain that sending this little piece of the Dragon’s database did not give anyone here a way into the ship’s systems.
“My last few years on the Frontier have been difficult ones.” Gomez could truthfully say things like that because all years on the Frontier were difficult. If Guan looked at her service record, he would see that she had handled crisis after crisis.
His eyes had glazed just a little: obviously, he was examining the notification she had sent him.
“I’m not getting younger,” she said. “I think I would like to stop traveling and settle for a while.”
Then he focused on her. “You can retire now. You don’t have to do any work. Why apply for another job?”
Gomez smiled, prepared for that, as well. “My friends accuse me of being addicted to adrenalin. They might be right. I liked the challenge of my job with the FSS, but it’s starting to wear on me. I still need that occasional adrenaline hit, but I don’t think I need to constantly risk my life to do it.”
“I’m not sure what you expect here,” Guan said. “We are never threatened from outside. We have guards. What we use law enforcement for is training.”
She felt a surge of victory. She had gotten him to admit they had placed that notice.
“I’ll be honest,” she said, “I doubt I would make a good security guard. That’s boredom punctuated by terror, and usually better suited to bots and androids—at least in the early phases.”
Guan inclined his head toward her. “Indeed.”
“What kind of training do you use law enforcement for?” she asked.
He walked to the giant pillows, grabbed two, and flung them onto the floor. “Would you care to sit, Marshal?”
She wasn’t sure of the etiquette here. But he had phrased that as a question, so she decided to answer it honestly.
“I think I prefer to stand at the moment,” she said. “I don’t sit much. My job requires me to keep moving, and that’s how I’m the most comfortable.”
“Even on your ship?” he asked.
He sank, cross-legged, onto one of the pillows. If she were a standard job applicant, that change in his position would have made her feel uncomfortable. It didn’t. She had dealt in situations stranger than this every single day of her career.
“Especially on my ship,” she said. “I have to remain in shape for onsite situations. Sometimes I end up running several kilometers, sometimes I have to carry twice my weight. A good thirty percent of the time, my job is physically demanding, and I can’t use enhancements for that.”
He placed his palms on the edges of the pillow behind him. “Fascinating. I had no idea.”
His tone made it sound like he wasn’t fascinated at all.
“Sit,” he said. “You’re making me uncomfortable.”
“Oh,” she said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that.”
But she had. She needed to see how this place worked, and he was giving her hints of it. The indirect way he had of speaking made it clear that the people who ran this factory did not like to reveal anything easily.
She sat down, keeping her back straight.
“We used to be a military facility,” he said, “but military uses for clones have declined in the past century. The factories that work best with the Human branch of the Alliance Military are housed in a different region of Alliance space.”
Nice way to tell her that where they were was none of her business. She nodded, mostly to encourage him to continue.
“Here, our needs are different. The more established parts of the Alliance have internal problems that we tend to.” He said that as if she should understand what he meant.
She waited. When he wasn’t going to say more, she opened her hands slightly.
“Modern Alliance history is a bit beyond me,” she said. “I’ve been on the Frontier for the better part of my life. I’m afraid you’ll have to be a little more specific.”
“Criminals,” he said with just a bit of irritation. He didn’t like her. It was becoming obvious. She wasn’t at all the kind of person he was used to. “We have a lot of trouble with the Black Fleet operating at the fringes of the Alliance and, yes, within the Frontier—”
She wanted to correct him. The Black Fleet did not operate within the real Frontier. They operated in parts of known space that had rejected Alliance membership, thinking they’d be better off.
In her opinion, they weren’t, but she didn’t say that.
“Here in the Alliance, in the human-dominated regions, we have another problem. Very savvy crime families who have learned how to operate on the edges of the law in the areas they’re based in, and yet they manage to break the laws in other areas. When someone connected to those families get caught, the families disavow them.”
Gomez folded her hands together. She hadn’t heard of this problem, but it didn’t surprise her. Humans had worked on the fringes of society from the beginning of time.
“We have to make cases against them, but first, we need to know exactly what they’re doing. These organizations have existed for such a long time that outsiders can’t get in, and those that do get in aren’t trusted.”
Gomez nodded, again to encourage him to continue.
“Which is where we come in. We embed into the operation, and eventually, we make our operative live.”
“Embed,” she repeated. His vagueness made it difficult to follow him. She thought about that for a moment. Embed, using clones. Who remained inactive until they were needed.
“Yes, Marshal.” Something in his tone told her that he thought her a bit slow. “We—”
“Where do you get the DNA?” she asked.
He smiled. “We don’t shake hands here for a reason.”
She smiled back, even though she didn’t want to. In other words, he wasn’t going to tell her.
“And you need people like me to train these possible embeds—what, exactly? What law enforcement needs?”
“Something like that,” he said, letting her know now that he was being vague. “It depends on the group we’re infiltrating, and the age of our embed.”
She felt herself grow cold. “You use young embeds, then?” she asked, remembering TwoZero and Thirds.
“Yes, sometimes we do,” he said, and there was a challenge in his voice. If she didn’t like that, he was inviting her to leave.
“I see,” she said. She put her hands on her knees. “I have to ask, given what’s happened on the Moon, whether or not these crime family clones are clones of nightmares like PierLuigi Frémont.”
Guan raised his chin slightly. He had obviously expected that question. It made her stomach jump, made her wonder if he knew why she was here after all.
“Generally,” he said, “we use the DNA of relatives who are not known to be involved in operations—children, cousins, friends of friends—people whom our crime families haven’t seen in decades or more. Sometimes we embed a cloned member of one family with another family that has an association with the crime family. It’s very complicated.”
“You didn’t answer my question,” she said.
“We try not to use DNA of anyone famous,” he said, “and we certainly try to avoid anyone who might be uncontrollable.”
“Like a mass murderer,” she said.
“Like a mass murderer,” he agreed.
“Sounds like you’re speaking from experience,” she sai
d.
“I have no idea what happened here before I arrived,” he said. “But I can tell you that in the twenty years I’ve been working here, we’ve never cloned any notorious criminals.”
“Good to know,” she said, making her voice sound warm. “Because I would have no idea how to train one of those individuals.”
“You would need training first,” Guan said. “You wouldn’t start here. We would decide if we think you’re suited to work here, and if you are, we would send you to one of our operations elsewhere.”
Gomez noted that he didn’t say where. He was being deliberately cagey about that.
“Then you would return here—if they felt your skill set was best used here. Otherwise, we have facilities all over the Alliance to which you might be better suited. Your physical condition alone might be enough to recommend you to our military facilities. At those facilities, they try not to enhance the clones. They try to develop their own innate strengths and weaknesses. Enhancements can be stripped from someone. Innate strengths cannot.”
Oh, but they can, Gomez thought, but didn’t say. It wasn’t relevant to this conversation.
“If you would like,” Guan said, “I can help you fill out a transfer application. We can choose where you would do your training, not necessary the place, but the climate.”
Her feelings of triumph were leaving. She realized just from his attitude that she would get no farther than this room, and he would oversee anything she did. She couldn’t even access systems using her codes and claim she had done so accidentally, as Apaza had wanted her to do.
“How long would the training last?” Gomez asked, casting around for a reason to say no. “As I mentioned, I’m looking to settle down.”
“We generally do not bring anyone into this facility without five years of experience in our business. I’m not sure how the military operations work. They might be more amenable to someone with your experience. Maybe…a year or two before you get your posting? But don’t quote me on that.”
Gomez allowed herself a heavy sigh. “I wish your notification had mentioned that. I had used a good part of my leave to come here. I thought there were opportunities.”
Starbase Human Page 16
