Breakaway: A Cassandra Kresnov Novel (v1.1)

by Joel Shepherd

  She took the main lift down. It was security-coded and off-limits to non-official passengers. She'd barely stepped into the broad underground tower carpark when an incoming transmission registered in her inner ear.

  "So how'd the meeting with Dali go?" Ari asked her as she accessed the signal. It only surprised her a little-Ibrahim was evidently keeping Ari up to date, or at least giving Ari the resources to let him keep himself up to date. Her unscheduled meeting had evidently attracted attention.

  "You're hopping frequencies again," she said evasively, heading off along lines of sleek groundcars toward the motorcycle park, "this isn't the same encryption as last time."

  `Just um ... fiddling. Habit of mine ... anyway, you let me take you to lunch, and we'll discuss the latest machinations of these dastardly League folk." Typically abrupt, in that increasingly familiar Ari Ruben styleand not taking evasion for an answer.

  "What ... now?" She'd been thinking it wiser to head back home to Santiello, considering the very obvious SIB vehicle that had tracked her all the way over.

  "Sure, if you insist."

  "Ari ..." she sighed, not bothering with silent formulation as the carpark was empty this far down, ". . . well, for one thing, I'm kind of busy, there's this thing called planetary security that's been on my mind lately, and ..."

  "Oh that ... look, it's a big galaxy, what's one more planet ...

  "... and, secondly, the SIB has me locked down pretty solid right now. I don't know if I can get out without shooting, and that doesn't seem a good idea at the moment."

  "Now that's ... that's a big pity, because I was thinking maybe tandoori prawns with fetta cheese, maybe a makani fruit shake and apricot icecream ... homemade fresh, not that synth stuff ... "

  "Who the hell ... ? Who's been telling you my favourites?" And then, because there was only one logical answer ... "Bloody Vanessa. How much did that weasel charge you?"

  "No, I can't tell you that ... Just, well, there may have been the promise of sexual favours, but I can't. . . "

  "Hers or yours?"

  "I don't know whether to feel pleased or insulted ... look, you're hungry, right? O f course you are, you've been working h a r d all morning, I mean getting shot at must r e a l l y work u p an a p p e t i t e , so I think you r e a l l y ought to ... "

  "You have absolutely no respect for SIB surveillance, do you?"

  "Surveillance? No, you're wrong, I have equally as much respect for SIB surveillance as I do for the rest of the SIBs wonderful abilities ... punctuation is their strong point, you know, I find their punctuation abilities highly admirable. I was considering taking a course in it myself nothing makes modern law enforcement work in this city like punctuation. You know that's how Izerovski got to where she is today? Her inverted commas are just ... pure genius, you read one of her reports ... her use of the semi-colon also, I find, has a certain post-romanticised colour about it ...

  Sandy lost control of a grin, shaking her head in disbelief. "If I keep saying no often enough, is there any chance you'll shut up and leave me alone?"

  " Um ... oh, I guess there's a very small chance, I mean, if you had another spare hour to waste in conversation you might get lucky. You know though, really, Cassandra, I hear from your SWAT team that you're not the type to play hard to get, so I'd actually thought my chances weren't all that . . . "

  "Thank you, Ari," Sandy interrupted dryly. "Do you have a location in mind, and do you have any simple, non-violent suggestions for beating an SIB tail?"

  "Well, sometimes I find that if you produce a small, red rubber ball, and you throw it to them so that it bounces around, it holds than so mesmerised that you'll be able to sneak around without ... "

  "I can feel my vaunted GI's patience slipping, Ari ..." And broke off as something arrived on an adjoining frequency ... seriously encrypted, bound up in the main body of Ari's code. She received, check-scanned, and opened it. SIB transmission defensive barrier, she recognised it immediately, the kind that ... oh.

  "I haven't just sent that to you. If asked, you made it yourself"

  "I'm a network genius, I have this stuff just lying around you know."

  "Of course you do. Here's the address . . . " More code followed, easily decipherable. "Try not to get lost, please be on time, and for godsake, wear something appropriate or they won't let you in, okay?"

  "I'm wearing what I've got on, Ari ..."

  "What have you got on? Describe it to me, if you please, in long and lingering detail ... "

  "Goodbye, Ari, I'll see you there."

  The Prabati SE-12 was the GSA's one concession to a somewhat liberal interpretation of Tanusha's finance and tax laws. It had not been cheap, Tanushan technology rarely was. But motorbikes generally came with hefty taxation duties that put them nearly in price range as lower model aircars. CSA employees, however, received exemptions for transport. Getting her listed as an official, tax-privileged CSA employee had been "exercise in creative legality number one."

  Number two had been the loan the CSA had taken out in the name of April Cassidy. Number three had been using the technically illegitimate credit she'd brought with her from Rita Prime as collateral against the loan in their own internal books ... which would be reviewed, at some point, by independent auditors.

  Whose eyebrows, Sandy thought as she climbed onto the smoothly humming, angular machine, would be raised very high indeed. It wasn't like the credit was hot. She'd earned it on Rita Prime as a software engineer, her employment for Boushun Information in Guangban was a matter of basic record that anyone could check. But that identity had been fake, as had her entire existence as a Federation citizen, which rendered the money ... well, that was the question CSA lawyers were pondering over right now. Legally earned by an illegal entity, now given legal sanctuary under emergency privilege by the separate laws of a second world within the Federation ...

  Great fun for lawyers. They were bound to set at least five new precedents that she knew of. She pulled on her helmet-a brief display of control graphics across the visor-and gave the throttle a thunderous twist. In the meantime, the bike was great fun. And most importantly, it operated outside the central Tanushan traffic control. Which today was going to come in very handy.

  She cruised to the express up-ramp, a long, winding rotation of ferrocrete incline-and a long way up for motorbikes. Traffic planners insisted on reserving all the convenient parking spaces for "civilised" transport, meaning anything that had four wheels and locked permanently into the central traffic control system. The exit gate deducted an automatic fee as she cruised up the final off-ramp and into bright sunshine and busy streets. Traffic Central showed approaching cars from both directions, possible opening windows, and course projections, counting down the seconds. Motorbikes made the automated systems nervous, if that was possible, with regulatory overkill the inevitable result. She uplinked into the system and scanned the surrounding network as the traffic passed. Cut through several layers of obscuring code traffic ... and found the SIB tracer program rather quickly.

  Traffic broke and she cruised out onto the main road, smoothly accelerating up to seventy kph, at which point the buffers immediately cut the throttle. Watched an external picture of the regional traffic grid, tracing her own position at seventy along the road. Sure enough, there was another vehicle following almost immediately-with nonetoo-subtle timing-barely a block behind. She isolated the SIB trace code as she cruised, and began analysing. Two minutes and another district later, she decided that she really didn't need Ari's little piece of code after all. There were things that League military code-workers knew that SIB code-workers had evidently yet to suspect.

  At the next set of traffic lights, she drew up alongside the car ahead, ignoring protests from central. A simple hack-and-rearrange transferred what the SIB's code had recognised as her bike onto the car alongside. The lights went green and she let the car pull ahead before following for three blocks. A bend took her momentarily out of view from the car behind
... she indicated, and turned a quick left across oncoming traffic-central squawked, but then the traffic was intervening, and the SIB car went past down the road, unaware as it trailed the wrong signature. Another ten seconds would doubtless reveal their mistake, and send everyone scrambling back to the main central control map to refind her location-ludicrous that they should keep their tracer program separate from central codings. It was a crude security measure at best, and it rendered that system entirely vulnerable to this kind of simple manipulation, if one had the key to get in.

  But a search of central would reveal her position once more in short order ... and so, at the next cross-street, she indicated right, and pulled the bike up onto the sidewalk instead. Street sensors immediately lost contact with the bike's CPU, and both she and the Prabati abruptly vanished from the central grid. She cruised slowly along the sidewalk, wary of unsuspecting pedestrians, and musing that it could really be so easy. Info-addicts, they never thought of non-data-related solutions. No fancy code in existence was any use against a well placed bullet, bomb or axe. Or a motorcycle rider with the temerity to dare ride her bike along the footpath for a block or two.

  She uplinked mentally to CSA Central while she was at it, and asked for an operational cover. Those codes were something the SIB had not yet found a way to legally confiscate, and ten seconds later her bike was registered as a four-wheeled family sedan. Basic procedure for any CSA operative, disguising your presence on the main traffic network. Impossible to do while being watched, but a brief moment out of view ... She ducked out between a pair of leafy suburban trees, bumped down onto the road, turned a corner and accelerated once more along the straight, past a school crossing and pleasant neighbourhood storefronts. She'd have to watch her movements now-any behaviour not in keeping with her new identity, meaning any deviation from central control, could be noted by SIB monitors as suspicious, and suggestive of a car that was not in fact a car. But that aside, she was entirely, laughably, in the clear. For today.

  Ari's eating spot was in Zaiko District, forty kilometres eastward from Santiello, toward the ocean. A broad bend in the river stretched away to her left as Sandy climbed the last in the flight of broad stone steps beneath one of Zaiko's numerous office towers. Too many, she thought, gazing over the wide span of water as she walked, listening to the busy noise of tourists and markets along the riverfront below. River cruisers lined the near bend of shore, stretching up to the bridge that spanned the river behind. Beyond this right-angled elbow in the river's flow, the water ran directly away, its full length awash with pleasure cruisers and smaller craft until it vanished around another bend perhaps a kilometre further along.

  The walk was crowded here above the riverfront, yet not so crowded as the milling hordes that spilled about the stalls, shops, ticket sellers and varied entertainers along the riverbank walk below, and the many cruisers bobbing against their restraints in the water beyond. She held to the left along the railing, with a good view over those below, and soon spotted the many outdoor tables in a cordoned area ahead, set apart from the walkway pedestrians by pot plants and leafy fronds.

  Ari pulled his roguish dark glasses down his nose to look her up and down as she pulled out a chair and sat.

  "Hello." With a genuine smile. "You're looking well." Sandy restrained a smile, thankful that cargo pants passed for loosely casual in Tanusha-the pockets were a convenience, and she was too much the soldier to avoid convenience for style. The T-shirt and jacket, though, were NOT Tanushan-feminine, nor the running shoes. She only hoped her drab, practical self did not prove too much of a giveaway among the saris, dresses, suits and varied artistic fusions passing here along the walkway, or the riverfront below.

  "I apologise for the absence of cleavage. I'll do better next time."

  "You look fantastic, I've had girlfriends who'd be jealous that it takes you so little effort."

  "I don't make an effort, that'd be unfair on the competition, considering my advantage."

  "Which advantage?"

  "Custom design, as opposed to mostly random genetics." Resting chin on hands, elbows on the table to contemplate the view of choppy water and passing boats. Bright sunlight glinted in a million refractions. Cooking smells wafted up from below on the breeze-a barbecue at a tourist food stall. Perfume from the neighbouring flower box. Boat engines thrummed above a wash of churning water, dulled beneath the surrounding echo of traffic, particularly heavy here in one of Tanusha's most built-up commercial districts. "Nice view, you come here a lot?"

  "This cafe? Never been here before in my life. Tanusha's like that, seems silly to eat at the same place twice when there's so much around that's yet to be sampled."

  Sandy gave him a long, considering look. He looked quite flash, she thought, by her own neophyte fashion reckoning. A dark, casual shirt with just a few buttons at the collar, a heavier jacket shouldered upon the back of his chair. Bare arms lithe, with an athletic quantity of muscle that hinted at a similar build beneath, a sealed synthetic bandage about the lower half of his left forearm-apparently healing as fast as medical engineering had led her to expect it would. The sunglasses were hardly regulation.

  "You hungry? I've taken the, um, liberty of ordering for both of us-there's a bit of a rush. I hope you like tandoori chicken and salad, they had the prawns but it was going to take too long."

  "Chicken's wonderful. What's the rush?"

  "Aha." He held up a portending finger. "I've got you a present." And dug into the jacket draped over the back of his chair. Sandy glanced carefully about ... about half the neighbouring tables were filled. In this section of seating and the ones alongside, the air was filled with conversation and clinking cutlery. Still really too early for lunch, but some of these business types had probably missed breakfast. It would no doubt get totally crowded in another hour.

  Ari placed a leather-bound binder on the table beside the plant frond arrangement. It looked familiar. Sandy frowned and picked it up. It flicked open to reveal her CSA badge-shield, ID signature, photo, everything. She read the seal with her own auto-scan ... it uplinked and came back clean from CSA HQ itself. It was genuine.

  "Happy Holi, Christmas, Ramadan or whatever's closest," Ari offered.

  "Devali, I think."

  "That too. I'll give you the other item later." Her gun, he meant. She turned her frown upon him.

  "Where did you get this?"

  "Admin, where does anyone get ID from?" Popped a complimentary fruit piece into his mouth.

  "Who authorised it?" With forced patience.

  Ari shrugged. "I did," he said around the mouthful. "I need you. It's just for show, you understand, you're technically suspended ... It's just that overriding imperatives have led me to exercise my discretionary powers to more fully utilise your abilities ..." With a sardonic smile at his own use of bureaucratic jargon. ". . . in which case you'll need the badge to get you places and operate in the field, obviously." Sandy stared at him, utterly unblinking. Ari stopped chewing. "What?"

  "What if the SIB find out?"

  "Better that they don't."

  "What if anyone finds out? What if someone traces back my ID, checks my status with CSA oper ..."

  "Can't." He smiled, lazy as a cat on a sunlit windowsill. "Emergency legislation, no one checks our operational files, not even the SIB. Full operational security, full non-disclosure. Why'd you think the SIBs are so pissed? You're a CSA agent because we say you are, and there's no evidence to contradict us."

  "Because you won't let them have it."

  "Exactly." And took another piece of fruit.

  "This is how things work in a civilian democratic system?"

  "Sandy ..." He leaned forward, with some deliberation, "the system isn't like the military. You take what it gives you, and what you can get away with when you need it. That's what Ibrahim's brought us the last six years he's been in charge-we're concerned with results, the SIBs are concerned with procedure. Now, like I said, I need you, and Ibrahim agrees, so .
.."

  "Ibrahim approved this?"

  "Sandy, nothing that happens to you within the CSA happens without Ibrahim's approval, trust me." She continued staring. Not knowing whether to be relieved or wary. It felt nice to have her badge back. What she was being asked to do in return ... that was another question. "You realise you haven't blinked in the last sixty seconds? Isn't that uncomfortable?"

  "It's a reflex I get when something requires my very full attention." Holding his gaze without a millimetre's deviation. "Or when I think someone's determined to get me into trouble."

  "Sandy, we're all in trouble. That's our job."

  "I'm noticing. So why do you need me?"

  At that moment lunch arrived, and they waited while a pair of plates were placed before them, with extra salad, bread and dip. Interesting Indian-Italian combination, she pondered, tandoori spices plus green salad, olive oils, bread ... The only thing missing was the wine, Ari had ordered fruit juice instead. A pity ... she liked wine, and, of course, it had absolutely no effect on her mental function at all.

  "I need you," said Ari when the waiter had left, cutting into his lasagna as a breeze gusted in from the river, cool in the bright sun, "because I think you might be useful finding the person I'm looking for." Took a rich, cheese-smothered mouthful.

  "Who?" Taking a mouthful of tandoori chicken. Delicious, as it always was.

  "Name's Sal Va. Vietnamese name, I don't know if he is or not. He's a big-time hacker, worked for a long time in illegal VR, arranged all kinds of data transfers and copies, tape-teach, memory enhancement, the whole underground range. The guy's a dataform wizard, he's got more translation codes accumulated than most law enforcement databases."