The Chiral Protocol – A Military Science Fiction Thriller: Biogenesis War Book 2 (The Biogenesis War)

by L. L. Richman

  Addy nodded. “Which means that we have a drug lord’s lackey sealed inside a ship somewhere, deathly ill. Whatever medical nano she has on board won’t do much more than provide palliative care.”

  Valenti looked over at Gabe. “Go. We need to know the location of that ship. I don’t care how you do it, but get it, and get it fast.”

  When Gabe stood, Thad looked over at Valenti, a question in his eyes. At her nod, he rose and followed Gabe out the door.

  * * *

  The man seated inside the interrogation room was pale with Nordic features. His ID token stated he was one Hans Jurgens, and he looked it, too—although Gabe seriously doubted that was the man’s true identity.

  Jurgens had white skin, white hair, and icy blue eyes. Those eyes stared across the table at Gabe with a practiced indifference.

  Thad loomed just behind Jurgens, arms crossed, a silent threat. Two Unit soldiers completed the ensemble. They stood on either side of the door, hands on their weapons.

  “Let’s try this one more time,” Gabe said as his gaze moved from Thad back to Jurgens.

  The man’s eyes had been roaming the room in quiet assessment. As Gabe spoke, they shifted to meet his, a bold, self-assured confidence in their depths.

  “You recently acquired a vial filled with an unknown substance,” Gabe said. “Did the person who sold it to you tell you it’s an experimental drug? Maybe something a pharmaceutical company would kill to get their hands on?”

  The man’s mouth curved in a faint smirk, his eyes reflecting amusement at Gabe’s efforts.

  He turned away, expression bored as he picked an invisible piece of lint off his suit jacket with fingers that were so thin, they were almost stick-like. “I’m afraid I have no idea what you’re talking about. I don’t do drugs.”

  “I know you don’t,” Gabe said readily.

  At the man’s look of surprise, he added, “Your reputation precedes you. I understand you have a properties manager who does the dirty work for you.”

  When the man merely stared back at him, Gabe leaned forward. “Let me tell you what I think happened. Feel free to step in at any time and correct me if I get it wrong. Your properties manager brokered a deal with some local, two-bit thief. The man or woman probably told her the substance had been stolen from the CID, and that maybe, just maybe, this item was something so lucrative, pharmaceutical companies everywhere were fighting to get hold of it. How’m I doing so far?”

  Jurgens’s smirk broadened. “You should take up writing fiction, Agent Alvarez. You weave a fanciful tale. Please, go on. Your story amuses me.”

  Gabe folded his hands on the table. “Let’s see if you find this next bit just as entertaining, then. Whatever that thief told your properties manager was wrong, and it has likely already cost the woman her life.”

  This evoked a reaction. The prisoner’s smirk was replaced by the briefest flash of concern before the mask slid back into place.

  He shrugged. “For argument’s sake, and because I do find you entertaining, let’s assume for one minute that this fictional tale you’re weaving were true. Why would you assume this equally fictional properties manager of mine would be dead? What would have killed her?”

  Gabe smiled. He leaned back, flattening his hands against the table. “You see? Now we’re getting somewhere.”

  He lifted a hand, and the holo embedded in the wall lit up. Floating within the holo was a scene that depicted a ship, emblazoned with the Royal Ceriban Cruise Lines logo, floating in the black against a sea of asteroids.

  Jurgens laughed. “A cruise liner? What does this have to do with some vial you’ve evidently misplaced?”

  “Do you have any idea how many people on average are on board one of those Royal Ceriban yachts?” Gabe asked. “Upwards of fourteen thousand. The people on board this particular ship are all dead—they just don’t know it yet. And it’s all because of that vial.”

  Alarm crossed Jurgens’s face. “That sounds… unpleasant.”

  “Oh, it’s worse than that.”

  Gabe turned from the holo to stare at the man. “The vial in your possession isn’t some designer drug that pharmaceutical companies are fighting to obtain. Is that what those Akkadians you were meeting on Mercer told you? That they represented an Akkadian drug company who would pay top credits to get their hands on it?”

  He leaned across the table, closing the distance between them. Lowering his voice, he said, “That vial contains something nations will go to war over. A very deadly biochemical weapon. And you were about to sell it to them.”

  Gabe paused, his gaze drilling into the man. “And that, Mister Jurgens,” he added softly, “is treason.”

  “Now hold on.” The man’s eyes grew icy with anger. “I’m no traitor to the Alliance.”

  “Prove it,” Gabe shot back. “Give us the information we need to reach your properties manager before the Akkadians do. Because I can guarantee they’re as eager to get their hands on that vial as we are.”

  The man shifted in his seat, his eyes tracking from the holo to Thad and then back to Gabe. “You said my manager is likely already dead. Why?”

  Gabe nodded to the holo. “The people dying on that yacht are proof that the person who sold you that vial opened it before handing it over. And once that seal has been broken, the experts tell me the vial itself is compromised. If your manager wasn’t wearing full protective gear when she handled it, she would have been exposed. And, in this situation, exposure means death.”

  Jurgens swallowed hard, his adam’s apple bobbing as he processed the information. Gabe waited him out, content to let the man’s imagination run wild.

  “You said they were dead, but they don’t know it yet,” he recalled with a nod toward the holo. “What did you mean by that?”

  “The vial contains a pathogen that begins innocently enough, but can evolve into something reminiscent of Sargon Fever.”

  The man’s face leached of what little color it had as he murmured, “She was a good, loyal person.” He straightened. “If I cooperate fully, I want a commuted sentence.”

  Thad’s voice rumbled from behind him. “How about you cooperate, and we let you live, hoss?”

  The man’s eyes cut to the Marine’s and then just as quickly shifted back to Gabe. “I’ll be turning state’s evidence against Akkadia. You said it yourself, they’re the real enemy here. I’ll be helping you keep something dangerous out of their hands.” His expression turned crafty. “You said this was a biochemical weapon. What if I could identify the location the Akkadians intend to target?”

  Gabe’s wire pinged.

  {Tell them he’ll get ten instead of life,} Cutter’s voice sounded in his head. {That’s the best we’re prepared to offer, but the deal goes off the table if he doesn’t hand the intel over within the next five minutes. And if the properties manager isn’t where he sends us, we will try him for treason.}

  Gabe relayed the information.

  The other man’s eyes turned flinty for a brief moment. “Five, and you’ve got a deal.”

  {We accept.}

  Gabe reluctantly nodded. “Deal.”

  Jurgens’ act of casual disdain fell away like a discarded suit. In a crisp, businesslike voice, he asked, “What do you need to know?”

  “Ship’s location and tail number. Any security overrides that we might need to defeat to gain access to that vessel. A personal message telling her that our visit is sanctioned by you.” Gabe’s delivery was rapid-fire and precise.

  The drug lord held up both hands. “Wait. You said she was dead. Why would you need a message?”

  “She may not be dead quite yet,” Gabe conceded. “She may even still be conscious enough to trigger anti-piracy protocols if we try to board. The ironic thing is that the only hope she might remotely have of surviving is to let us get our hands on that vial so we can begin working on an antigen.”

  Jurgens ran thin fingers through his white-blond hair. “Stars and flares, who would have
ever thought I’d be working with the feds,” he muttered. “Okay, here’s what you’ll need to bypass that ship’s systems….”

  Gabe looked over at Thad, making sure the Marine recorded everything Jurgens said. When the man was done, Thad nodded and slipped from the room.

  Gabe turned back to Jurgens. “You say you think you know who they’re targeting?” he asked.

  The captive’s demeanor had turned uncharacteristically solemn, almost as if he’d truly meant it when he said he was no traitor. “I’m pretty damn sure—and it’s not a who, it’s a what. There’s been a lot of chatter on the darkside splinternet lately about a summit that’s being held in Hawking next week.”

  {Hold,} the director’s voice cut in. {I’m coming in.}

  “Hang on,” Gabe told Jurgens. “Someone wants to join us.”

  The man lapsed into silence, his eyes on his interlaced fingers as they waited for the director.

  He gave Cutter a nod that was almost respectful when he entered.

  “You mentioned a summit,” Cutter said. “What kind of summit, exactly?”

  Jurgens smiled thinly. “The one where five different Coalition nations are meeting to discuss defense strategies.” He looked from Cutter to Gabe and then back. “I stay far away from that kind of thing, but people talk. And that summit’s name has come up a lot in sectors of the splinternet that Akkadia has been known to frequent.”

  {Dammit. We have security from every one of those nations crawling all over the venue. There’s no possible way Akkadia could get into it,} the director told Gabe.

  {But if he’s right….} Gabe let his mental words trail off.

  “I can see the doubt in your eyes, Director Cutter,” Jurgens said. He leaned forward, expression earnest. “I know you have no reason to believe a man who purportedly deals in illicit drugs. But I can assure you, the criminal underworld would not thrive under Akkadian rule. They wouldn’t want this any more than you do.”

  Gabe angled the man a sidelong glance. “I’ve heard the way they deal with criminals is a bit harsh.”

  Jurgens grimaced. “I’ll take due process over totalitarian rule any day.”

  Cutter tapped his forefinger against the table. “If this information pans out, you just earned your reduced sentence, Mister Jurgens.”

  He spared Gabe a swift look. {Finish up here and meet me in the situation room. We have a mission to plan.}

  FARADAY TATTOO

  ‘Rosen’ Base

  Undisclosed location

  Sam’s confrontation with Bijin and the steel in Marceau’s tone when he’d ordered her to answer the doctor had left her shaken. Things quieted a bit after that, Marceau spiriting Bijin away, and the other two doctors migrating to their respective workstations.

  Sam wandered past the inactive units until one of them lit up as it connected to her ID token.

  I guess this is my spot, then.

  She looked around at the nearly empty room and then down at the unit that sat quiescent, awaiting her command. She reached into the display’s holographic interface, tapping on the icon that represented the vial she had been assigned.

  As the file unpacked its data stores, Sam’s gaze strayed to the hand she’d used to activate it. Encircling her ring finger was an elaborate, platinum-hued tattoo. She ran the fingers of her other hand over the tattoo’s surface, debating what action she should take next.

  The tattoo wasn’t what it seemed; it was a precaution she’d acquired not long after being held at knifepoint by an Akkadian assassin, nine months ago. The experience had made her realize she knew next to nothing about self-defense. She decided that needed to change.

  Not long after, she found the perfect person to ask about it.

  Elodie Cyr had come to Ceriba for some training and had stopped by to spar with the team. Sam had flagged her down afterward and asked her advice. The special agent had given her a few pointers, but possibly the most useful thing she’d given Sam wasn’t a skill; it was a tool.

  “This is a breadcrumb app,” Ell had said, holding up a small, silver cylinder, the kind nano was often stored in. “It’s a two-stage program linked to your ID token. When activated, its single purpose is to send your location to protective services. It inserts under a Faraday tattoo, and is best worn like a ring around your finger.” She reached for Sam’s hand and began to apply it.

  Fascinated, Sam bent forward and watched as a small swarm of nano assembly bots began to weave an intricate Celtic knot around her third finger. “Can I assume, because of its name, that the tattoo provides some sort of shielding to keep the app from being detected by scans?”

  Ell nodded. “Jewelry will likely be confiscated, but this will pass as decorative body art.” She tapped the cylinder. “Stage two is the app will use the formation material to duplicate itself. It gets embedded into the mastoid process, that knobby bone right behind your ear.”

  Sam brought her hand up, studying the tattoo the bots were building. “How does it work?”

  Ell smiled. “It’s essentially a soldier with one directive, a single-minded purpose that it will strive to execute over and over again. Once activated, it will behave like a caged animal, tirelessly seeking its way out.”

  “That sounds a bit aggressive,” Sam said doubtfully.

  Ell nodded. “That’s the point. If you’ve been taken, time is a critical factor. There are certain channels, like Guard, that the military always monitors. Protective services has isolated channels they watch as well. This app knows them all. It will piggyback off any signal—no matter how weak—jump networks, burrow into any node. It’s a chameleon, able to grow and change and disguise itself, adapting to whatever system it infiltrates. Hell, it’ll use a coffee machine, if it’s connected to a network. It’ll do whatever it takes to reach one of those channels. And it will continue to do so until protective services sends a cease code.”

  Sam flexed her hand. “So how do I use it?”

  Ell smiled. “That’s the easy part. Press the tattoo between the thumb and first finger of your opposite hand, and then set it against that bone behind your ear so that it can access the material it needs to replicate.” She mimed the action. “The two-step process ensures it’s not accidentally activated, and the gestures are natural enough to pass the sniff test.”

  “Sniff test?” Sam repeated.

  “An action that’s believable and won’t out you to your captors.”

  Sam nodded her understanding. “And then what?”

  Ell gave her a fierce grin. “And then you start touching things. Get your hands on every piece of equipment you can find, every lift button, every printer, every door control. It’ll only take a few seconds for the breadcrumb to drop a copy of itself onto whatever structure you touch. It’ll breach with nanofilament, and if there’s a chink in their armor, this thing’ll find it.”

  Sam pulled herself from the memory and looked once more around the room that had begun to feel more like a prison than a lab.

  The way Doctor Bijin had reacted when she explained that the chiral pairs were entangled at a quantum level was wrong. She’d never seen an officer who served in the Alliance military respond in such a way; certainly not any of the Navy doctors she knew.

  Marceau’s behavior in the hallway, the network with limited connectivity, the manner in which she’d arrived—each fact taken individually might not be enough to convince her. But the body of evidence had built to a point she could no longer ignore.

  Sam was convinced this was no advanced research base. Not one run by the Alliance, at any rate.

  And isn’t that ironic. They used the threat of my kidnapping…to kidnap me.

  Her decision made, she pressed the tattoo between her thumb and forefinger to activate it, and then casually brought her hand up as if to massage the back of her neck. The action brought the tattoo into physical contact with the small, bony mastoid process behind her right ear.

  The store of nano formation material inserted just beneath her skin reac
ted instantly to the app. She felt a small pull as the formation material found its way from her skull into the ring. It wasn’t much, but it would be enough to do the job.

  “Excuse me,” a voice said from behind her.

  Sam jumped, and turned to find one of the other scientists, his eyes widening in alarm.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  She brushed off his apology. “It’s fine. What can I do for you?”

  He waved awkwardly to his station. “Well, I was hoping you could help me identify the substance in the vial I was assigned. I’m unfamiliar with the description on the label, and thought you might have heard of it.”

  “Sure,” she said readily, following him over to his station.

  He gestured her over to the holo, which she noted had a security-wrap of light-bending nano applied to the image it projected.

  Interesting. Unless someone comes up directly behind us, no one will be able to see what we’re working on.

  On the heels of that thought came a less pleasant one.

  Of course, they’re probably monitoring us remotely, too.

  Her musings stumbled to a halt when she caught sight of the file the scientist had on display.

  Chemical notation of molecular chains hung suspended beside space-filling models, surface representations, and ribbon diagrams. In a separate window floated a 3D reconstruction of the vial itself, the hazardous materials icon clearly shown on its label.

  It was to this that the scientist pointed. “I’ve not heard of this…adamantium…before. Do you know what it is?”

  Sam blinked in shock. “I…excuse me?” She leaned in and took another careful look at the vial’s image. “May I?” she asked, and the scientist nodded.

  She minimized the image and pulled up the other samples. A quick glance to her left showed the third researcher industriously working at her station, studying a substance known as naquadah.

  “I…uhm….” Sam cleared her throat.

  Thinking furiously, she darted a look back at her own workstation and pulled up the information on the vial she’d been assigned, labeled thyrium.