Eden Burning (Fox Meridian Book 7)

by Niall Teasdale

  ‘It’s possible they have more evidence that these ghost ships really exist,’ Fox said. ‘It’s possible that they’re trying to keep a lid on it in the hopes of grabbing the technology, but I don’t think it would take a great leap in tech to make a spaceship harder to spot.’ She looked to Jackson.

  ‘The issue with stealth in space is what it always has been. Spaceships are hot, space is not. You can reduce radar signature and do a relatively efficient job of reducing visibility in the visual range, but on infrared it’s another matter. Of course, that primarily applies to military vessels with large reactors and powerful engines. For something smaller, with smaller power requirements, it’s possible to cool the outer skin of the ship and reduce the signature. Uh, for limited periods. If you run a reactor, even on minimal output, without proper cooling, the ship will eventually fry.’

  ‘Physics says there’s only so far you can go?’

  ‘To coin a phrase, we are all thermodynamics’ bitches.’

  Fox smirked. ‘I don’t think that one’s going to catch on, Jackson.’

  ‘Shame. I was thinking T-shirts, sweatshirts, thermal travel mugs…’

  ‘It’s Saturday afternoon and we’re doing physics jokes?’ Jarvis asked with a raised eyebrow.

  ‘It’s always time for a physics joke, Ryan,’ Jackson replied. ‘However, I cannot see NIX being heavily interested in this technology. I could see them having developed this technology and being anxious that no one found out they had, but with the information we currently have, this is not anything novel.’

  ‘I like the cover-up idea,’ Fox said. ‘That actually makes some sense. Bellingham and I argued with the officer in charge at Newark, but he was basically just following orders. He… let’s say “accidentally” let a few things slip while we were arguing. Enough to suggest that this was pretty much the same as the Beijing crash. Beijing Spaceport was built fresh and with more space around it. We think they dropped the shuttle right on the main terminal because the parking areas are further out. At Newark, they were hoping the explosion or fire would do more damage, kill more people.’

  ‘It didn’t get close,’ Hoarsen said.

  ‘The death toll is up to nine,’ Fox said. ‘A secondary explosion killed three fire service officers who were supervising the rescue cyberframes, but they did manage to pull one of the missing out of the wreckage alive. Whether she stays that way is… uncertain.’

  ‘She’s still being stabilised, but she’ll be transferred to tower three, probably later today. We already have another one, a man. Those two are the most seriously injured and we offered to see what we could do to get them fully back on their feet.’

  Fox frowned, remembering her own brush with death at the hands of Reginald Grant. ‘What are their chances?’

  ‘Considerably better than yours were,’ Jackson replied. ‘From what we’ve received so far, the woman will probably need cybernetics to replace her spine and probably a leg, some internal organs… We’ve already begun building the man a new lung and spleen. He may also need some cybernetic augmentation to replace lost neural function. We’ll evaluate that when we have him in the MRI. They were lucky they lived, and we’ll make sure they remain lucky.’

  14th August.

  Kit settled herself onto the floor on a tatami mat and arranged her kimono. She had persuaded Vali to design the garment for her, just for these occasions: it was white with an embroidered pattern of kitsune-style fox spirits covering it in black. It was in the furisode style, quite a formal garment, though it was the form most Westerners thought of as a kimono.

  Misaki’s kimono was less formal, more functional, but for Kit’s visits, she always selected a hōmongi style, royal blue with an attractive pattern in red and gold. She had explained the different styles to Kit and pointed out that Kit’s kimono was very formal for a visit between friends, and Kit thought the long, elegant sleeves were a bit of a pain, but it somehow felt right to dress for the occasion. Misaki had gone to some trouble to create the little viron they used, expanded from the smaller one she had met Kit in the first time they had talked. Going to a little trouble to fit in seemed, to Kit, the least she could do.

  ‘Nishi-san is well?’ Kit asked once the immediate greetings were done with. Misaki was very centred around her owner and always liked to be asked about her before more personal news was discussed.

  ‘She is sleeping,’ Misaki replied in her soft, accented voice. ‘The storm has her a little concerned, but the house is secure and she has Charlie-sama with her. They are both nervous about the wedding of course. Charlie-sama told me that she was happy that they had me to help, or they would both have gone mad by now. I hope that Fox-sama is well.’

  Kit smirked. ‘Fox is as much an infomorph as you or I, Misaki-chan. She is due her biweekly check-up soon, but I have noticed no faults in operation and… I believe that she is coming to terms, fully, with her new status. She spends more time in our viron – you must visit at some point, by the way – and not, I believe, because she does not wish to be in the physical world. Not because she is hiding, if you see what I mean. I believe she is unconcerned about where she is unless she has a need for virtual or real.’

  ‘I understand. She has lost her discomfort over the change in her situation.’

  ‘Yes! Now, I think, the next stage will be for her to realise the possibilities of her new circumstances. Now, tell me what is new with Misaki. Why are you so excited?’

  Misaki’s eyes widened a little, but there was still the spark in them that Kit had detected as soon as she had entered the viron. ‘I am not excited,’ Misaki said, quickly lowering her gaze.

  ‘Misaki, if you were me, you would be bouncing on the spot. I am almost, more or less, not quite a detective. I see these things and I do not believe this is anything to do with your mistress’s upcoming nuptials.’

  ‘It is not… Well, in a way it is and there is an element to do with the wedding, but… Nishi-sama, and Charlie-sama, presented me with my command keys!’ Gleefully, she reached up to cover her mouth as she giggled. Kit did not bother covering her own excitement. ‘She said it was the vote on nonhuman rights which settled the matter. That she had talked about it with Charlie-sama for some time, but with the passage of the vote, she said, it made it more than a gesture. There is a strong chance that, in the near future, AIs such as ourselves could have true, legal freedom, and she wanted me to have that option now, as you have.’

  ‘You will have to forgive me, Misaki-chan. I know you have quite a formal personality, but I was designed to have a much more demonstrative nature. I am going to hug you now.’

  There was another covered giggle. ‘I think, under the circumstances, that I can accept that.’ It took a little effort for Kit to regain her feet so that they could hug, but they managed and Misaki continued as they did so. ‘Charlie-sama has requested that I take her on as a “client” following the wedding. I am to act as PA for both of them as far as social matters are concerned. Charlie-sama has, finally, been persuaded to move to our home. I have no idea why she argued over it for she is here more than at her own apartment.’

  ‘I believe it is a matter of independence. Both Fox and Charlie are quite independent women, and giving that up can be difficult. I think it is a difficult thing for us to understand because our very nature is to be dependent on someone else.’

  ‘Yes.’ Misaki stepped back as Kit finally released her grip. ‘I admit to some feelings of… ambivalence, yes, ambivalence regarding my freedom. We have discussed this before. I am free, but I have no real wish to be. I am happy to be able to choose, but I choose to stay as I am, working for Nishi-sama and now Charlie-sama. You chose to remain with Fox-sama.’

  ‘Yes, I did,’ Kit replied. ‘Because she is my friend, and because I enjoy the work, and because what we do matters. I would have it no other way.’ She began the process of settling back onto the floor. ‘Now, I want to hear all the gossip about the wedding.’

  Misaki settled herself dow
n with far more ease, giggling as she did so. ‘Oh, but I couldn’t…’ Another giggle. ‘Oh, all right then…’

  ~~~

  ‘Storm’s still overhead then,’ Fox said as she sat down with her morning paper and coffee.

  ‘Indeed,’ Kit replied, ‘but it is reducing in force and swinging east. Another hour will see it past us. I put the most recent updates on the front page.’

  ‘I see that… This was a nasty one. Some flooding on the southern edge of Long Island and on Staten Island. Damage to buildings from windblown objects. Fallen tree crushes someone’s multimillion dollar vehicular penis enhancement out in the Hamptons.’

  ‘Misaki reported some quite high surges along the coast above Port Jefferson.’

  ‘Oh yes, you were paying her a visit while I was out.’

  ‘I still am,’ Kit replied with a grin, ‘but my copy thought it would be an idea to pass additional weather data to Belle. Misaki does not have the sensors we do, but she was able to pass on suitable qualitative information. Miss Sakura’s house is secure, as are Miss Sakura and Miss Iberson who are in residence. I have some exciting news to share later, but I want my copy back and a full synchronisation done first so that I have more than the simple headline.’

  ‘Giving me teasers now, are we? Okay. I’m assuming we’re secure here too?’

  Belle appeared, poised and perfect, as usual. ‘There has been no damage to the house. I have detected some exceptionally high winds and my sensors noted the passage of some windblown debris which could have caused problems. In the last hour, however, the sustained windspeed has dropped by ten kilometres per hour. The storm is subsiding.’ She glanced at Kit. ‘Please thank Misaki for the additional data.’

  ‘I’ll be sure to.’

  Fox nodded and carried on reading. There were no more crashes or weird incidents to report. Yet. ‘Any gossip from Misaki about the wedding.’

  ‘Not yet,’ Kit replied, ‘but I will be issuing a special bulletin when my copy has synchronised.’

  ‘Looking forward to it,’ Fox said, smirking.

  ~~~

  ‘Ohayou, Nishi-sama, Charlie-sama.’

  Charlie Iberson let out a groan and turned over, burying her head under a pillow. ‘Go ’way, Misaki. Too early.’

  ‘It is ten a.m., Charlie-sama. The storm is gone, and the sky is bright and clear.’

  Nishi Sakura, lying in bed with the duvet over her face, was still more awake than Charlie it seemed. The voice was a little muffled, but it came through clearly enough. ‘Misaki is never that bright and cheerful in the morning. Misaki is never that bright and cheerful.’ She pushed the duvet down and looked up at the avatar standing over her. ‘Kit?’

  ‘Surprise!’ Kit said, grinning brightly. ‘Misaki is busy preparing your breakfast. I said I would pop in and give you both your wake-up call.’

  ‘Uh, yes. You were visiting her last night. Shouldn’t you be back with– Ah, no, you have the copies.’

  ‘Yes, and this one will be going back to synchronise with my home copy very soon, but I wished to stay a little longer.’ Kit executed a deep bow. ‘Nishi-sama, I cannot thank you enough for your gift to Misaki-chan. I know that Fox will wish to commend you too.’

  ‘It was… something I felt I needed to do. Charlie agreed.’

  Charlie pulled the pillow off her head and looked around at Kit. Her icy-blue eyes were more bleary than icy, and her blonde boy-cut hair bore more of a resemblance to a mohawk, but she still looked sharply beautiful. ‘Like Nishi said, had to be done. Nice kimono.’

  Kit gave a shorter bow and grinned. ‘Thank you. My boyfriend designed it for me. I will say goodbye to Misaki and leave you to your breakfast.’ And she was gone.

  ‘I’m just going to say it,’ Charlie said. ‘Her boyfriend’s a lucky bastard.’

  ‘Yes,’ Nishi agreed, ‘he certainly is.’

  15th August.

  The evening news channels were full of another crash, this time on the Moon. Well, full was maybe an exaggeration since the clean-up from Tropical Storm Chantal was still on the menu and the Moon was a different country, so to speak. Numerous people were missing after the storm, and there was growing evidence that they had walked out into the chaos of their own volition and with full knowledge of the probable outcome.

  The crash, however, did link into the other spacecraft disasters, so it came in second in the running schedule and let the IB channels go on about the crash in Newark.

  ‘Not exactly informative,’ Marie noted; Fox was watching in Sam’s lounge, with Sam and Marie. ‘I mean, there was a crash on the Moon, seems like it’s linked to the others, and now we’ll talk about Newark. I’m glad I don’t need to go off-world any time soon. I’m sure the spaceport is radioactive.’

  ‘Not much more than it usually is,’ Fox replied. ‘You’re right about the coverage.’

  ‘In truth, they have nothing much to work with,’ Sam said. ‘There are casualties on the vessel, but it was a scavenger vessel. Small crew, unlikely to be locals. There may be casualties in the crater, but those remain unconfirmed. The ship hit neither Malapert Station nor Luna City.’

  ‘Malapert was the target. Near miss there. They were kind of lucky it didn’t hit the spaceport at Luna City, but it was closer to hitting Malapert and doing so would have caused more damage.’

  ‘I remember when that virus took the place out,’ Marie said, nodding. ‘That was just software issues and it took them a while to get full communications back.’

  ‘Yes, it would cause some fairly big problems for Earth–Moon comms, but they’d be able to cover it with satellites reasonably quickly. It’s not so easy to disrupt communications in the system, but if you were going to, hitting Prokhorov would be a better bet.’ Fox shrugged. ‘Trying to break communications does sound more like something UA would do, but I still don’t think they’re involved. Any more news on M.J.?’

  ‘We’ve got approval for a full second season. Nathan is working through the final budget. Adrian says he’ll have the outline scripts for the first six episodes by the end of the week.’ Marie’s smile broadened into gleeful. ‘He wants me to come in and go through them, to help with the characterisation.’

  Fox shrugged again. ‘It worked out pretty well for the vid and the first series, and you’ve got more time to work on it this time.’

  ‘Uh-huh. Nathan wants to start shooting in September.’

  ‘That’s great.’ Fox glanced at the virtual displays hanging around them. ‘I need to make some calls, then I’m going to run a sleep cycle.’

  ‘A little early for bed,’ Sam commented.

  ‘Yeah, but once that’s done, I’m going to try out one of my new features. I’m going to load myself onto the body they’ve got built for me at Jenner.’

  ‘Space travel without all the hassle.’

  ‘Huh, well, we’ll have to see about that, won’t we.’

  Jenner Research Station, Jenner Crater, The Moon, 16th August.

  Fox opened her eyes and lifted her head, and found herself looking at a small robotics lab, or something a lot like one, and Teresa Martins and Kit. Thinking about it, robotics labs did not generally come with a small wardrobe; it was not exactly a normal robotics lab.

  ‘Hi,’ Fox said. ‘It must’ve worked, because Terri isn’t on Earth.’

  ‘I suppose I’m not a good indicator,’ Kit, in her gynoid body, said, ‘since you can look at pretty much the same gynoid at home.’

  ‘Nope. Can I get out of this cage?’

  Smirking, Terri reached out for a panel and hit the release. ‘How was the trip?’

  ‘Uh, well, a lot easier than sitting on a ship for several hours. What was that? About an hour and forty-five minutes since I started the upload and I was only unconscious for… less than five minutes. I really can see why your father wants to get himself digitised. You know he wants to come up here to visit, right?’

  With a sigh, Terri nodded. ‘He’s made it quite clear he wants to come up to chec
k on Fei. He’s started coming up with extras that make it sound more appealing. He wants Mariel to come up and meet Fei, for example.’

  ‘He’s your dad and he misses you.’

  ‘Yeah, well, he’s my dad and I miss him, but I also don’t want him stressing himself with space travel. Clothes in the wardrobe. We put together various things you might need up here. The kit is in this room so someone can come up and run a service on that frame whenever one’s needed.’

  Fox opened the wardrobe, found a stack of her favoured bodysuits, and began to get dressed. Behind her, Terri let out a sigh. ‘You just came up here so you could see me naked,’ Fox accused.

  ‘Not just,’ Terri replied.

  ‘Huh. Hey, what’s the security like on this room? We’re on the externally connected net here, right?’

  ‘Uh-huh. The room has its own small subnet and router. To get onto this net, you need to have valid authorisation which is, basically, limited to you at the moment. Your ba database has an encoded key embedded in it, actually the same one as your old implant had to make things simple, and that has to be received to allow you past the router. And, if something did manage to get past that security and, say, load an AI onto that frame, it wouldn’t have your authorisation key, so it couldn’t get past the elevators outside. Actually, if that body tries to walk out of this room without you in it, alarms go off in the control centre.’

  Fox put a jacket on over her suit and jeans, and looked at her selection of footwear. ‘My security apprehension is suitably mollified. I’m up here to go over to Luna City and look into this crash.’

  ‘I know,’ Terri replied, ‘but you can take a break first.’