Silent Order_Image Hand

by Jonathan Moeller

  “Agreed,” said Eighty. “Do you want to hold off on taking a look around the RSCFMA?”

  “Let’s just call it the Slovell Center,” said March. “RSCFMA is a mouthful. And I do want to have a look around.”

  With that, he strode towards the sprawling building, climbed the shallow marble steps, and pushed through the glass doors and into the lobby. It was a cavernous space, with a polished floor and high walls, three levels of balconies rising overhead. Banners hung from the railings of the highest balcony. One was another advertisement for the upcoming film festival. A second was a stylized painting of some kind. March wasn’t sure, but he thought it showed the muses inspiring a young filmmaker in his work. Naturally, in Raetian style, all the stylized figures were naked.

  A third banner showed Roger Slovell himself.

  March paused for a moment to look at the image. It was a black and white photograph, showing Slovell gazing into the lens with an expression that was probably supposed to appear profound, but March thought it made Slovell seem constipated. Slovell wore a black turtleneck with a white scarf draped rakishly around his shoulders, his gray hair swept back, a trimmed beard on his thin face.

  “Looks pretentious, doesn’t it?” said Cassandra’s voice in his ear. “He looks like he should be hanging out at the coffee shop, asking the graduate students if they’d like to come back to his apartment for a ‘private’ photography session.”

  March snorted and headed towards the receptionist’s desk. The desk was just as opulent as the rest of the building, built of polished wood with acres of workspace. A woman with graying blond hair sat at the desk, scowling at March as he approached. She looked like an older version of the women who had handled the customs lines on Raetia Station. Probably she had come from the same clone template.

  “She’s a Harwell,” said Eighty in response to March’s unspoken question. “Felicia Harwell was the most efficient clerk in the history of the Falcon Republic, and three hundred years ago she was chosen as the new template for military clerks.” He snorted. “Though I always thought the Harwells were too officious and pompous.”

  “Can I help you, sir?” said the receptionist, her disdain plain.

  “Hi,” said March. “I’m a new student, and I was told to go to the intro-level cinematography lab. I thought it was on the top floor, but I got turned around, and…”

  “An intro-level student?” sniffed the receptionist, her disdain intensifying. Evidently, she did not waste her time with mere students. “The labs on the top floor are for Mr. Slovell’s students only. Intro-level students use the lab in the basement.”

  “Thanks,” said March. “You’ve been very helpful.”

  Her glare didn’t waver. March walked off, heading for the stairs.

  “God, I don’t miss the Harwells,” said Eighty. “Make a single mistake in your paperwork, and they’ll chase you down like an asteroid falling into a gravity well.”

  “Jack,” said Cassandra. “I’m getting better readings now. The quantum effect is definitely coming from beneath the building.”

  “The basement, then,” said March. “I’m supposed to head for the intro-level lab anyway.”

  He reached the stairwell behind the receptionist’s desk and opened the door. The stairs, he was amused to note, weren’t nearly as elegant as the lobby and the outside of the building, just bare concrete and steel railings. March peered over the railing and saw that the stairwell descended three floors.

  “Cassandra?” he said. “How far down should I go?”

  “Third subbasement,” she said. “Um…Mr. Eighty, could you bring up the map?”

  “That’s the utility level,” said Eighty. “That would link into the electrical, sewer, and water systems for the arcology.”

  “Acknowledged,” said March.

  He descended to the bottom of the stairs, watching for security cameras or traps. The downside of cinder block walls, he reflected, was that it was difficult to conceal the power conduits and mounts for security cameras and other defenses. The upside was that it made March’s job easier. He came to the end of the stairs without incident and examined the door to the subbasement. No alarms, no traps, no cameras, and the door was secured with a simple steel lock. An ancient bit of technology, to be sure, but still effective at keeping out most intruders.

  Other than Alpha Operatives of the Silent Order.

  “Entering now,” said March. He went to one knee before the door, produced a lockpick gun from the inside pocket of his coat, and lined it up against the lock. “Might have to be quiet for a while.”

  “Okay,” said Cassandra. “But the quantum distortion effect is about thirty to sixty meters directly in front of you.”

  “Got it,” said March.

  The lockpick gun caught on the fifth try, and March turned it to unlock the door. Beyond he saw a narrow concrete corridor, illuminated by bulbs in steel cages attached to the ceiling. The dim lights threw harsh shadows against the walls. A dull thrum filled the air, the sound of laboring air handlers. The arcology had climate control and air filtration systems, but the Slovell Center would have its own HVAC equipment to ease the load on the tower’s machinery.

  March eased down the corridor, his shoes making no sound against the dusty floor. The corridor ended in a door that stood half open, and March suspected it would lead into a large room designed to hold air handlers. Except only a dim light came from inside the room, and he didn’t hear the rattle of any equipment. If Slovell had donated the money to construct this building, likely he had influence over the architects and the builders. And given his pattern of behavior on Calaskar, perhaps he had wanted a secret room in the Slovell Center, a place where he could amuse himself with aspiring actresses.

  He walked to the door, peered around the steel frame, and blinked in surprise.

  The room beyond had indeed been designed for an air handler, and a flight of a dozen metal stairs descended from the door to the floor. Most of the floor space in the room was taken up by a dozen small movie sets. One looked like the bridge of a starship. Another resembled a classroom, and a third looked like the harem of a Kezredite sultan. A long table in the center of the room held high-end cameras and computer equipment. The table also had an extensive inventory of contraceptives and pharmaceutical enhancers for both men and women.

  It wasn’t hard to guess what kind of movies Slovell shot down here.

  For that matter, it wasn’t the sort of place March expected to find a relic of the Great Elder Ones, especially since it was only secured by a single door with a mechanical lock. But Cassandra’s Eclipse device would not lie, and perhaps the protection he enjoyed from the Falcons had made Slovell complacent.

  March took the stairs in silence, his eyes flicking over the central table, his ears straining for any sounds of footsteps. If the relic was simply lying out in the open, March would take it and flee at once. He would never have a better opportunity. Or maybe…

  A voice, harsh and angry, came to his ears.

  March took cover, ducking behind a sofa in a set that looked like a luxury apartment. The sofa gave off a suspicious smell, but it would block March from sight.

  “I understand that,” said a strident voice. “But I can’t see why we cannot wait a month or two.”

  March peered around the edge of the sofa, and Roger Slovell came into sight.

  He looked just as he did on the banner upstairs, though slightly paunchier. The lines in his face were deeper, and his mouth was pressed into a hard line. There was a harsh glitter in his dark eyes, a hunger, a restlessness. March had seen something similar in the eyes of drug addicts who had gone too long without their last hit.

  Behind Slovell walked a muscular young man in typical Raetian clothes – black pants, a black T-shirt, a leather jacket. His hair was long and shaggy, hanging down the back of his neck, which was not current Raetian fashion.

  His left hand was made of dull gray metal, and it was identical to March’s left hand.
r />   Which meant the young man had grown his hair long to cover the hive implant at the base of his skull.

  He was an Iron Hand, what March himself had once been, one of the elite agents and commandos of the Final Consciousness.

  And that, in turn, meant the situation was far more dangerous than March had thought. The Final Consciousness did not have that many Iron Hands, and the Machinists only committed them to missions of importance.

  Whatever Slovell was doing here, whatever was going on with the strange radiation weapon, the Final Consciousness considered it vital enough to send an Iron Hand, perhaps more than one, to help Slovell.

  Though given the way that the Iron Hand was scowling at Slovell, perhaps the Iron Hands had been sent to babysit him.

  “Yes, yes, I understand,” said Slovell. He stopped by the table with the computer equipment and the contraceptives and started to pace back and forth. The Iron Hand remained motionless, his eyes flicking around the vast room. March understood that the Iron Hand would remain watchful and vigilant.

  Even eleven years after leaving the Final Consciousness, March still had that impulse. It had saved his life multiple times.

  “I said I understand,” said Slovell, irritation seeping into his voice. “I think…”

  He fell silent, a mixture of annoyance and fear going over his face. March couldn’t hear the other end of the conversation, but to judge from Slovell’s posture and scowl, it sounded as if someone was giving him orders.

  “I’ll see to it personally,” said Slovell at last. “Yes, printed copies. Religious literature only. Copies of the catechism of the Royal Calaskaran Church. Those are easy enough to obtain. We’ll need legitimate copies, obviously. And custom-written pamphlets, of course. Denouncing me by name and proclaiming judgment on the Falcon Republic for its terrible wickedness. The idiots will eat it right up. Yes. Ten thousand copies.”

  Why the devil did Slovell want ten thousand copies of the catechism of the Royal Calaskaran Church? Maybe he planned a book burning or intended to use them as props in one of his movies. Though come to think of it, the other end of Slovell’s phone call had ordered him to do it. Was Slovell talking to someone from the Final Consciousness? A Machinist agent like the late Simon Lorre, someone who would have the authority to command him?

  “No, I’ll order the print run from one of my companies,” said Slovell. “It won’t be traceable. Is it really necessary to…”

  He fell silent again, his scowl intensifying.

  “Very well,” Slovell said. “I’ll see it done. I…”

  He blinked, grimaced at his phone, and shoved it into the holster at his belt. It seemed that the other end of the conversation had hung up.

  “Do we have instructions, Mr. Slovell?” said the Iron Hand, his voice flat and cold.

  “Yes,” said Slovell, glaring at the Iron Hand. The Iron Hand remained unimpressed. Slovell wasn’t fat, but he had the physique of someone who spent more time using drugs than eating healthy meals. Even without his cybernetic limb, the Iron Hand could have broken him in half. “Come along. And cover your hand. It draws too much attention.”

  The Iron Hand just stared at him, and Slovell flinched. Then the Machinist commando reached into his coat pocket, drew out a leather glove, and donned it one finger at a time. Slovell let out an exasperated sound, whirled, and stalked away.

  The Iron Hand permitted himself a single brief smirk and followed.

  March waited until they climbed up the stairs and vanished into the utility hallway. He counted to a hundred, but no one else moved, and he heard nothing. March eased back to his feet and walked down the central aisle, heading towards the far end of the room.

  “Did you get all that?” murmured March.

  “Yeah,” said Cassandra. “Why would Slovell want a lot of Calaskaran religious literature?”

  “Hell if I know,” said March. “Maybe he’s going to set it on fire or something and claim it’s a profound artistic statement.” He walked past the table of computers and cameras and drugs and spotted a door in the far wall. “How close am I to the quantum distortion effect?”

  “It’s right in front of you,” said Cassandra.

  March considered the door.

  Slovell hadn’t gotten entirely lax with his security, because this door was far more impressive.

  It looked as if it had come from a bank vault, and it wasn’t made of steel but of military-grade starship armor alloy, and it would shrug off bullets and even plasma fire with ease. It would be easier to blast through the concrete wall than the door. For that matter, the door’s lock was a sophisticated electronic system with an alphanumeric keypad. March recognized the design from a Mercatorian company that specialized in bank vaults. There was absolutely no way March could get through that door without heavy equipment.

  “You’re not opening up that thing, are you?” said Eighty.

  “No,” said March. “And the whole thing’s wired up with alarms. See there, there, and there?” He pointed at the keypad and panels built into the door itself. “If I attempt to force it, the alarm will go off. Not that I could force it. We’ll need to come back with the proper equipment.” He thought for a moment. “And there might be other defenses. No camera that I can see, but that was an Iron Hand with Slovell. He might have guards behind the door.”

  “We’d better get back to the office and talk to the boss,” said Eighty. “We’ve found a lot more than we expected.”

  “Yeah,” said March. He turned and headed across the room, making for the stairs that Slovell and the Iron Hand had just used. “Hang on. I’m coming back out.”

  He took the stairs in silence and peered through the door, just in case Slovell had hung back to make a phone call. But the utility corridor was deserted. March hurried through it, took the stairs back to the lobby, and headed for the front doors. The receptionist gave him another icy look, and March offered a bland smile in return. He didn’t like how the woman had taken notice of him. If she remembered him, that could cause problems.

  But she said nothing, and March strolled through the glass doors and down the shallow stairs to the sidewalk, back beneath the artificial sunlight and simulated sky of the University of Raetia’s Northgate City branch.

  “I’m out,” said March.

  “Turn right and head along the sidewalk at a walking pace,” said Eighty. “We’ll pick you up shortly.”

  March nodded and ambled to the right, keeping an unconcerned pace. He glanced back at the Slovell Center, but no one followed him. A moment later Eighty’s car pulled up to the curb. March climbed in and Eighty drove off.

  “You’ve got the video?” said March.

  “Yup,” said Eighty, patting his phone. “We can review it later. I assume the next step is to plan a raid on that sealed room in the Center’s basement?”

  “Yeah,” said March. “Maybe we’ll have better luck coming in from the utility tunnels below it.” He shook his head. “It will be a hard target. No cameras down there, but cameras everywhere in the lobby. Let’s head back to your office and make sure Winter gets the video and our updates, and then we’ll drive past Slovell’s other studio. I want to make sure that he doesn’t have another quantum device there.”

  “Do you think he has two?” said Cassandra, tapping commands into her tablet.

  “Doubtful,” said March. “His main business, I suspect, has to make a profit. But at the University, he can do whatever he wants in the Slovell Center. If he has a secret Machinist weapon, it will make more sense to hide it there.”

  Cassandra snorted. “Based on those sets and drugs you saw in the basement, I think we can guess what Slovell does in the basement.”

  March grunted. “No comment.”

  He thought about what he had seen while Eighty returned to the rampway and spiraled his way down to the slums outside of Arcology Twelve, the lewd billboards continuing their gyrations on the walls and ceilings of the huge tunnel. Part of his mind continued its vigilance, watchi
ng for any attackers. The rest of his thoughts considered the next steps. Eighty focused on driving, and Cassandra kept tapping commands into her tablet.

  They returned to the slums below the arcology, and March glanced to the side as Eighty drove through an intersection. They had a green light, but a flicker of motion caught his eye.

  A van shot out of an alley between two buildings, heading right for the car, the tires squealing against the street.

  “Look out!” shouted March.

  Eighty reacted at once, slamming on the brakes and twisting the wheel.

  The van would have hit them broadside, smashing in the driver’s side doors, but Eighty had reacted in time. Instead, the van hit the front of the car, and the vehicle went into a skid, jumping the curb and smashing tail-first into the wall of an apartment building. The trunk crumpled like an accordion, and the car’s windows exploded. The impact threw March forward, and the seat belt sawed into his waist and neck.

  He heard Cassandra screaming, saw blood on Eighty’s face from where his head had bounced off the doorframe.

  March turned his head just in time to see the van’s doors open and men with guns emerge from the vehicle and start forward.

  This hadn’t been a car accident.

  It was an assassination.

  Chapter 5: Street Fighting

  “Down!” snapped March, clawing at the glove compartment.

  He wasn’t sure if the others had heard him.

  Five men with pistols walked towards the car. The smart thing to do, March knew, would be to pump the car full of bullets. But the impact might have killed March, Eighty, and Cassandra, or injured them badly enough that they couldn’t resist, and their attackers were coming to check.

  Cassandra ducked behind the seat. Eighty dropped behind the steering wheel, grabbing for his gun. March ripped the glove compartment open with his left hand, grabbed his pistol, and raised the weapon.