Steel Beneath the Skin

by Niall Teasdale

  Janna turned to Aneka, smiling brightly. Aneka could see where Ella had got her inability to hide her emotions from too; Janna’s emotions were written all over her face and posture. ‘So this is the famous Aneka Jansen. Pleased to meet you. I’d shake hands but I’m covered in sweat.’

  ‘Nice meeting you, Janna. I’ve heard a lot about you, and your dancing is amazing.’

  Janna’s back straightened a little at the compliment. ‘Thank you. I have to say, Ella, you’ve really fallen on your feet with this one. She’s absolutely gorgeous, and you can talk about ancient history with her. Did you wish really hard or something?’

  Ella giggled and blushed. ‘I said she was gorgeous when I first saw her, and she has given us huge amounts of valuable information about Old Earth, but mostly she’s just a really nice person.’

  ‘And I’m going to have a swollen head if this keeps up,’ Aneka told them.

  ‘Can’t have that,’ Janna said. ‘Your head is just perfect the way it is.’

  Aneka smiled and wondered whether she really was going to have to turn down an offer of sex from her girlfriend’s mother.

  ~~~

  Janna lived in an apartment block about ten minutes’ drive from the Black Lily. Normally she would have walked it, but since they had the car she got to ride. Aneka sat in the back to allow the two Narrows to sit beside each other. Besides, it kept Janna from watching her with hungry eyes.

  The woman’s street clothes were not that much different from her working ones. Ella obviously got her fashion sense from her mother too. Currently Janna was dressed in a red, fishnet teddy, a micro-skirt, and thigh boots with five-inch heels. She was actually managing to make Ella look conservative.

  ‘I’ve got stuff in for a meal,’ Janna was saying as the car pulled into the block’s garage, ‘so we can sit and chat, and you can tell me all about your adventures on… was it Alpha Mensae? Oh, pull into the spot there. I’ll clear it for visitor parking.’

  Ella took the wheel and directed the vehicle smoothly into the space Janna had indicated. ‘Alpha Mensae Four, yes. There’s some stuff we can’t talk about. You have been warned.’

  ‘Secrets… How exciting.’ She opened the door and climbed out.

  ‘Uh-huh, but these are real, “we can’t tell people,” secrets so it’s not as much fun.’

  ‘Oh,’ Janna replied, sounding a little deflated. ‘The news reports said you were a soldier on Old Earth, Aneka. You’d be used to secrets, I guess?’

  ‘Some,’ Aneka replied as she climbed out of the car. ‘I tended to avoid knowing them if I could possibly manage it. I’m having to keep more here than I did back there.’

  Janna led the way toward the residents’ lift as the car quietly reformed itself into a brick behind them. ‘That must be annoying. I hate having to keep secrets. I’m terrible at it… so I’ll just get this out in the open and we can get it over with. I don’t suppose you’d be interested in a quick fuck after dinner.’

  Aneka could tell Ella was mildly mortified, but far less so than she would have been if the position was reversed. However, the car journey had given Aneka the time to consider a response. ‘No, Janna. From what Ella told me we don’t really have the time to do your talents justice, so I’ll have to decline until we can do more than a quickie.’

  Janna nodded. ‘That’s fair.’

  Ella managed to position herself in the lift so that she could whisper in Aneka’s ear on the way up. ‘That was a damn clever answer.’

  ‘I had time to think about it,’ Aneka replied, ‘but you do realise she’s going to want to collect on that sometime.’

  Ella’s grimace said she did know, all too well.

  ~~~

  ‘I like your mother,’ Aneka said as the car whisked them back toward the airport, ‘even if she does have a little trouble taking “no” for an answer.’

  ‘Huh,’ Ella grunted. ‘I think she was hoping the alcohol might have weakened your resolve.’ She gave Aneka a slightly mischievous grin. ‘Android body wins again.’

  ‘You seem to be taking it rather well.’

  Ella shrugged. ‘I can’t really blame her. I know what she’s like and I love her anyway… and you really are absolutely gorgeous. I’m lucky I got you first because you could do better than me.’

  ‘Insecurity doesn’t look good on you, Ella.’

  ‘It’s true! I’m good looking, I admit, but you’re a work of art. Do you think people would be quite so enthusiastic about an ugly girl from the past?

  ‘Well I suppose, but…’

  ‘No buts. Insecurity doesn’t look good on someone who looks like you. Makes it sound like you’re fishing for compliments.’

  Aneka closed her mouth, and then tried a different tack. ‘But I don’t want to be famous.’

  Ella giggled. ‘Stunningly beautiful, unique, and modest. Sucks to be you, doesn’t it?’

  University of New Earth, 27.6.524 FSC.

  Aneka had covered political systems and the development of the British monarchy, and there had been no sign of her mysterious assailants. No watchers, no attackers, no snipers, no word. She was beginning to wonder whether they had given up, but she still carried her pistol with her and kept a watch on her surroundings.

  She could not watch everyone, however; she did not think she had to for one thing. When Ella went out to get coffee no one had batted an eyelid. Gillian was busy talking her way through the Tudors and Aneka was having to try really hard to remember school history lessons. Her main problem was that she kept confusing the facts with “Carry on Henry.” It was Al who prodded her after a while.

  ‘Ella has been gone for forty-five minutes, three point two seconds. That is twenty-five minutes longer than required to make the round trip.’ The comment came with a map, and calculations of average speed, time to buy the coffee, and distances involved.

  ‘Put a call through to her,’ Aneka replied. Aloud she said, ‘Ella’s been a while.’

  Gillian glanced at the clock display at one corner of her desk and frowned. ‘She has. She’s probably talking to someone, or…’

  ‘Ella’s phone is not responding,’ Al broke in in Aneka’s head. ‘I’ve hacked the university’s tracking net. Her identity chip is not responding from anywhere within the grounds.’

  ‘Al can’t find her anywhere in the university. Call security.’ Aneka got to her feet and started for the door. ‘And don’t leave this room.’

  ~~~

  ‘Campus security has called in the Peacekeepers,’ Gillian’s voice said in Aneka’s head. ‘They’re watching every way off the island.’

  ‘If someone took her,’ Aneka replied, ‘they had at least thirty minutes to get her out.’

  ‘You can’t find any trace of her?’

  ‘No, I…’ She stopped, frowning at a heat signature behind one of the planters.

  ‘Aneka?’

  ‘I found three coffee cups dropped in a corner. I don’t like the coincidence.’ Her eyes scanned around the area, but concrete and paving stones were tough to track on. ‘Al, give me the nearest exit points from here.’

  ‘You’re going after her?’ Gillian asked.

  A map of the university appeared in Aneka’s vision field. There were three nearby points of egress. She picked the one nearest to the monorail station and started toward it. ‘I expect I’ll get nowhere, but I’m going to see if I can find anything.’

  Passing through a tunnel from the inner buildings to the outer loop she spotted something scattered in the shadows. She dropped to one knee to examine part of it; a piece of casing, and close by was a fragment of circuit board. ‘I found some bits of a PDA. Not exactly provable, but I’m guessing this is Ella’s. It’s shattered.’

  ‘That explains her not taking calls, but what about her transponder?’ Gillian was starting to sound very worried now.

  ‘Short range jammer,’ Aneka suggested. ‘The power on those things is only good for a couple of metres at best. It wouldn’t take much to block
it off.’

  ‘True, but if they used the monorail the security systems would tag her as a fair-jumper.’

  ‘Hacking into the transport system computers would be possible,’ Al said, ‘but potentially hazardous.’

  ‘Do it.’ She started toward the station. Al seemed to take forever to respond, but in practice it was maybe a minute.

  ‘She boarded the train forty minutes ago and disembarked at the first stop on the mainland. I’m afraid they probably had ground transport waiting there.’

  ‘I would have. Send a message through to Winter with the information we have. I don’t think contacting the Peacekeepers directly would be a good idea.’

  ‘It might be hard to explain how you got the information.’ There was a slight pause and then he added. ‘I have an incoming video message. No identity markers on it. Untraceable, for me anyway.’

  ‘Play it.’ An image flicked on in-vision and Aneka’s brow furrowed.

  Ella’s right eye was blackened and there looked like there was blood on the corner of her mouth. ‘Aneka, they’ve got me. They s-say they’re Knights. They want to meet you. A-at the coordinates attached to this message in one hour. Don’t come…’ Her rushed sentence was cut off sharply as a stick of some kind appeared from off camera, jabbing into her ribs, and words became a shriek of pain. The video ended and Al put up a map of the city with a point marked at the far northern edge.

  ‘I assume we’re going?’ Al asked. ‘Should I pass this on to Winter?’

  ‘We’re going, via the apartment. I’m not turning up there in these stupid heels.’

  ‘And Winter?’

  ‘No. I’ll handle this.’

  ‘We’ll handle this,’ the AI said.

  Aneka smiled as she started up the steps to the station. ‘All right, we will.’

  Yorkbridge, Tanner Business District.

  The coordinates Aneka had been given were for a disused warehouse at the northern edge of what looked like a business park. Offices and warehouses, all of which looked like they had seen better days, were arranged within a grid of roads like Lego bricks had been dropped into place from orbit.

  There had been no further instructions about entering the building, but the coordinates actually marked the meeting site as inside it, on the middle of three floors, toward the rear. She went in through one of the doors on the ground floor, finding it unlocked which was both encouraging and worrying. She had no floor plan for the building, so the best she could do was dead reckoning, and she started off down the corridor inside, heading in the general direction of the meeting location. She found a circular, iron staircase leading up from the central point of the building and started upward.

  ‘This staircase looks new,’ she commented silently. ‘Someone’s actually discoloured the metal to look like fake rust.’

  ‘Implying that the derelict impression is a cover?’ Al responded.

  ‘Yes, but then there’s the question of what it’s covering.’ She was at the top of the stairs and there was still no sign of anyone, neither Ella nor her captors.

  ‘Ten metres due north and you’ll find out.’

  There was no way to go due north, unless she felt like smashing through a wall. Turning right she moved down a few metres and then could pass through the wall which appeared to divide the building. Her eyes narrowed; it was a very thick wall. She figured there was a metre or so of corridor from one side of the building to the other, and when she got out the other side she found herself in a narrower corridor with thickly plastered walls painted gleaming white. The contrast was a little jarring, but she ignored it and started back toward the coordinates.

  Sure enough, there was another whitewashed corridor branching off just south of the meeting point, but Aneka pretty much ignored the details as soon as she got to it. Sitting tied to a chair in the middle of a small, white room at the end of the corridor, bound, gagged, and naked, was Ella. Aneka’s pace grew purposeful as she started toward her, even though the little redhead was frantically shaking her head.

  ‘It’s a trap,’ Al commented.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘And you’re walking in anyway.’

  ‘I said I was used to waiting. Well I am, but the waiting’s over and I want to kick some butt. Besides, this is the only way we’ll find out what’s going on.’ Visibly at least she was unarmed and, provided they still did not know what she was, that gave her an edge.

  The room Ella was sat in the middle of had a different quality to the corridor leading to it. Still white, the walls had the smooth, plastic contours of a vessel rather than a building. The effect was further enhanced when a heavy door, like something on an airlock, slid down over the entrance as Aneka unbuckled the heavy, rubber, ball gag and pulled it out of Ella’s mouth.

  ‘You shouldn’t have come,’ Ella said, her voice week. ‘It’s a trap.’

  ‘I pretty much figured that.’ There were four small air vents near the ceiling and vapour began to emerge from them. Aneka heard the hiss from somewhere behind the walls, but she also heard something a little more worrying. Somewhere deeper into the structure an engine was starting up.

  ‘Gas,’ Ella said. ‘T-tranq… tranquil…’ She sagged forward in her bonds and Aneka checked her pulse; still strong.

  ‘Al,’ Aneka said silently, ‘see if you can hack their network. I’ll be faking unconsciousness.’ She fell sideways onto one hip, holding herself up on one arm for a second before closing her eyes and collapsing.

  ‘The airlock is shielded against EM,’ Al said. ‘I can’t reach their network. On the other hand, trying to break out is likely futile. Your blaster might have been able do it, but it would likely have kill Ella doing so. As it is…’

  ‘Then we wait for someone to come get us. Nothing else we can do.’

  There was a pause; she was right and there was nothing much to be done. ‘I can provide a virtual pack of cards if you wish.’

  Aneka had to try hard not to laugh.

  Odanari, 29.6.524 FSC.

  Ella’s eyes flickered open and, to her immense relief, the first thing she saw was Aneka lying on the bed beside her. She had no idea where she was, or how long she had been unconscious, or why Aneka was wearing a thin, white, cloth shift, but at least they were together. That had to be a good thing, right?

  ‘You’re awake,’ Aneka said, her voice soft. ‘I was starting to think they’d gassed you into a coma.’

  ‘Where are we?’

  ‘I’m not entirely sure, but I’ve been able to make a calculated guess. The local star is giving off light which suggests a forty-two hundred kelvin temperature. That’s around a K-six. The gravity is a little low, so is the atmospheric pressure. It’s warm, warmer than New Earth. We were travelling for about thirty hours. The best planet Al can find within that sort of range of New Earth, and with those characteristics, is Odanari.’

  Ella’s eyes widened. ‘Seriously? I never thought I’d see this place. It’s a rich persons’ playground. Miles of untouched jungle, huge expanses of open sea to cruise on, hundreds of isolated islands, and almost no rules.’

  Aneka nodded. ‘Al has the standard files on the place. Around a thousand residents and perhaps another thousand who come in and out. A couple of thousand staff running the resort for Edenville Corporation. A hedonistic paradise for the ultra-rich. Oddly, the brochure doesn’t mention the terrorist training camp.’ She raised her eyebrows and nodded over Ella’s shoulder, and the little redhead turned over to look.

  They were in what looked like a beach house made of smooth, dark wood. The entire side of the building was open to the air, though there were some curtains gathered up at the sides of the three support posts which looked like they could be drawn across the space. The sand beyond was white, muted a little by the slightly orange light. Beyond the sand was a calm, deep blue sea, lapping slowly back and forth. It was idyllic, beautiful, marred only by the twenty or so men doing martial arts drills. Ella could see two men, guards, walking along the edge of
the beach with stubby rifles in their arms. The guns had twin barrels, a larger one mounted beneath the smaller one; even she could recognise an under-barrel grenade launcher. These guys meant business.

  ‘Oh,’ Ella said. ‘This wasn’t on Lifestyles of the Hyper-rich either. What are we doing here?’

  ‘Really no idea. They carried us over here from a landing platform to the north-west. My clothes were taken, they treated your injuries, and they put us in these dresses and left us to wake up. Technically for you to wake up, but I was faking it.’ She shifted, sliding herself closer and putting her arm around Ella’s waist. ‘There are cameras in every room, three in here, and I’m sure they’ve got audio surveillance as well. They haven’t scanned me or anything so I don’t think they know I’m not human. I’d like to keep it that way as long as possible. It’s the only advantage we have.’

  ‘Why didn’t you do something before now?’

  ‘We were locked in an airlock until we arrived here, and then they were standing over us with gauss rifles. I could have taken them, probably, but I doubt I could have done it without you ending up dead.’

  ‘But now we’ve no weapons…’

  ‘I am a weapon. And I know the direction they took my stuff. I’ll see about getting it back when we know more about this island.’ Her head shifted slightly and she placed a finger over Ella’s lips. She could hear footfalls on wooden boards; someone was approaching. ‘Someone’s coming.’

  Four people appeared at the side of the building a couple of seconds later. Two were large men, heavy on the muscle, tall, attractive in a somewhat thuggish way, and carrying rifles. There was an older man dressed in a lab coat, bald with a long nose and very sharp, blue eyes. And there was Charles Hunter, smiling.

  ‘Ladies, welcome to Odanari. I did say you would come around to my way of thinking.’

  Aneka sat up, sliding to the bottom of the bed and slipping her legs over the edge. Both guards swung their rifles up immediately. Aneka looked between them and then at Hunter. She could say she had had no choice in the matter, but that kind of posturing was pointless. ‘Just what is your way of thinking, Hunter?’