Vertigo: Aurora Rising Book Two

by Jennsen, G. S.

  Fresh off winning the Miami District Attorney race, he was kicked back at his desk enjoying a Glenlivet 21.

  Greetings.

  Marcus jerked, startled, then checked his eVi for the source of the communication. There was no name or address attached to it. He hadn’t received nor accepted a livecomm request. Was he being hacked? He instructed his eVi to raise defensive barriers.

  Those are not necessary.

  He straightened up in the chair. Hearing voices in one’s head was no longer a marker of insanity; in modern communications people heard voices in their heads all the time. But this voice wasn’t attached to any person with an identity registered in the exanet infrastructure. He took a deep breath.

  “To whom am I speaking?”

  We can discuss the matter in a moment. Congratulations on your election victory. It is a notable achievement for one so young. Not your first, though.

  “If you’re trying to imply you somehow know a lot about me, you’re doing a poor job of it. A brief exanet query will reveal I’ve achieved much and am expected to achieve much more.”

  Yes. Does an exanet query reveal your success as leader of the Catumbi Turma in Rio de Janeiro, or your domination of the Zelones cartel there?

  He carefully stood, his voice dropping dangerously in tenor. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I grew up on the Louisiana gulf, where I lived until I went to university in Florida.”

  You did not.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  Marcus Aguirre is a manufactured identity provided to you by Olivia Montegreu in 2269. Your entire life history before the day you arrived at the University of Miami in 2271 is a lie.

  That bitch! Did she suppose his newfound if modest fame meant she could gain something by holding his past over him? He had thought it beneath her.

  Olivia Montegreu did not betray your secret.

  “Oh, you can see what I’m thinking as well?”

  No. It was merely a logical deduction.

  A chill radiated from the base of his neck as he began to realize whatever this conversation was, it was of tremendous significance. He belatedly activated a privacy shield in the office to ensure the remainder of the interaction remained confidential. “Very well. You owe me an answer—to whom am I speaking?”

  We are other than you.

  “Alien, you mean?” Aliens had not yet been encountered, which didn’t make it any less possible they existed. The other options were, what? Ghosts? Gods? Angels or demons? He believed in none of these things.

  It is a sufficient designation.

  Jesús Christo, this ‘alien’ was obtuse. “And how do you know these details about me?”

  We know many things.

  “That doesn’t answer my question.”

  Perhaps not. We are…observers of humanity.

  “I see. What is it you ‘observe’ about us?”

  Everything.

  He paused to consider the assertion. The being could be lying, or generalizing to exaggeration. If it were not, the implications were troublesome to say the least. Such a capability seemed incomprehensible, and for all intents and purposes godlike…then he recalled Sir Clarke’s Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Didn’t mean it was magic.

  “What do you want of me?”

  For now, nothing. You are a uniquely talented individual: highly intelligent compared to others of your species, manipulative, deceptive, charismatic, driven, ruthless but not sadistic. You have much potential.

  He had nothing to say to that, so he simply waited.

  Continue on your path. Focus your ambitions, and you will achieve greatness. If we can provide assistance at certain junctures, we will do so if a manner is available to us. We will call upon you from time to time, as our needs require.

  Now he understood. They had resources beyond him—of course they did—but limited ability to act themselves, for whatever reason. They needed someone in a position of power to do their bidding. If he refused them, they were capable of using their other resources to destroy everything he had painstakingly built—his career, his reputation, his growing wealth, his idyllic and only mostly for appearances marriage—and it would be a trivial matter for them to do so.

  Unless they weren’t so powerful as their arrogance insinuated…but that wasn’t a risk he dared take. Not yet.

  He realized he was thinking of his conversation partner in the plural, because it was how it referred to itself. “Do you have a name?”

  No.

  “Is there more than one of you? Are you a hive mind? A collective intelligence? You refer to yourself in the plural.”

  So I do. No. Consider me a…spokesperson.

  He supposed it was the most straightforward answer he would be able to wrangle. “And what should I call you, individually?”

  If you require an honorific, you may refer to me as Hyperion.

  The titan of Greek mythology…the alien didn’t lack for hubris. “Do you require anything of me?”

  We—I—merely wished to introduce myself. And, as was said, convey my congratulations.

  Then the voice was gone. It was many hours before he left the office that night, hours spent pondering this new complication in his already exceedingly complicated life.

  It was six years before he heard from the alien again. He had been embroiled in a tight race for Southeastern District Attorney against the son of the Alliance Commerce Minister and struggling to overcome his opponent’s superior name recognition and connections. Then the man had turned up dead, despite his spotless reputation found naked in a pleasure club booth. His brain had been fried by an overdose of a particularly potent neuro-chimeral.

  The next day Hyperion had contacted him to inform him they were pleased to have been able to clear an obstacle for him.

  He hadn’t asked for the help, hadn’t wanted it and believed he hadn’t needed it. The aliens, however, apparently hadn’t been inclined to take any chances that his upward trajectory might be slowed. Or perhaps it had been a not-so-subtle way to demonstrate the power they held, even from afar, lest he consider rejecting future overtures.

  If so, he had learned a slightly different lesson. He now knew something of what these aliens could do for him.

  6

  SENECA

  CAVARE

  * * *

  ISABELA MARANO TRAILED her mother through the house, surreptitiously straightening furniture and picking up forgotten dishes and trash. It wasn’t a pit as such, merely unkempt. Arguably messy.

  Her mother ambled into the kitchen, and her stealth cleaning became more problematic. She hurriedly dropped the dishes in the sink and the trash in the chute while her mother’s back was still turned.

  “Why do they keep talking about Caleb on the news, Bela? Is he in trouble?”

  “It’s a misunderstanding, Mom. It’ll get cleared up.” A ‘misunderstanding’ involving the death of thousands and the igniting of a powder keg strong enough to blow up the galaxy. She had rarely been so glad the woman was absentminded and only half in the present. If she managed a tiny bit more awareness she’d be hysterical over the world calling her son a mass murderer, likely to such a level as to be unmanageable.

  “That’s a relief…” she settled in a chair at the small kitchen table “…how’s Marlee? It’s been forever since I last saw her.”

  “You saw her a few weeks ago, remember?”

  “Did I? Oh…I suppose I did.” Her mother frowned at the table. “Why isn’t she here now?”

  “She’s sleeping over at her friend’s house tonight. I didn’t want to…I didn’t want to disrupt her schedule again so soon.” I didn’t want her to hear her uncle slandered on every news screen. I didn’t want to have to answer her innocent, endless, maddeningly perceptive questions. “I’ll be right back, okay?”

  Isabela departed the kitchen before receiving a response. She normally exhibited more patience when it came to her mother, normally felt comfor
table here in the house she had grown up in. She’d been twelve years old when her father left and held as many memories of the house without him as with him.

  But today her mind and attention were elsewhere. The war concerned her; Krysk wasn’t too far from the border region where most of the fighting was taking place. She hated to leave her professorship early, but she refused to risk her daughter’s safety.

  Mostly though, she worried about Caleb—what had happened to him, where he had gone, whether he would be cleared of involvement in the bombing or railroaded into prison. Or worse. God knew if there was anyone who could take care of himself just fine, it was him, but this represented a new level of trouble he found himself in.

  At least she assumed it represented a new level of trouble. When she’d told him she knew what he did for a living, she might have been overstating the case a tiny bit. She had believed he worked for the government in a secret and dangerous capacity.

  Now the entire galaxy knew him as a covert special ops agent for the Senecan Federation Division of Intelligence. With such a job maybe he had been in worse, if less public, trouble before.

  The thought chilled her. How many times had she almost lost him and never known?

  She ascended the stairs to her old room. She needed to retrieve Marlee’s coat and a pair of shoes left behind in the rush to her next adventure. Caleb said Marlee ‘had spunk’…more like she was hyperkinetic, a bundle of perpetually regenerating energy.

  She adored her daughter, truly. The little girl was the light of her life and the center of her world ever since Daniel died. But she had never known the meaning of ‘tired’ until Marlee learned to walk.

  The tiny coat was hanging half off the dresser, but the shoes were nowhere to be seen. She crouched down to search under the bed.

  Loud footsteps beneath the floor startled her, and her head jerked up to bang against the frame. She crawled backwards out from beneath the bed while rubbing the back of her head gingerly.

  “Bela! There are—” Overlapping voices muddled whatever her mother said. What the…?

  She rushed out of the bedroom but only made it to the second step before a man and woman in conservative black suits appeared at the base of the stairs. “Ms. Marano? Would you mind coming with us?”

  They weren’t regular police. There were no uniforms and no formal procedures being followed. She tried to look innocent, but unlike Caleb she had always been a terrible liar. “What is this regarding?”

  They continued up the stairs, calm resoluteness indicating they entertained no doubt she would in fact be coming with them. The man’s muscular frame filled out his suit, adding intimidation to his threatening countenance. His partner stood taller than him; auburn hair pulled back into a bun at the nape of her neck emphasized attractive features. The woman gave her a small, placid smile intended to convey reassurance.

  It didn’t work—her heart hammered at her sternum like it was planning to make a break for it—but it wasn’t as though she possessed a route of escape. And even if she did, she couldn’t abandon her mother to fend for herself. She did her best to keep her voice controlled and even. “Am I being arrested?”

  “We’d appreciate you answering a few questions.”

  “About my brother?”

  “It’s better if we discuss it at the office.”

  “The ‘office’? What is that? Where are you intending on taking us?”

  “Bela! What’s going on?” Her mother’s voice echoed from the hallway below, shaky and shrill, the way hers desperately wanted to be.

  “It’s going to be okay, Mom. I’ll be right down.”

  She backed into the banister, all too conscious of the four-meter drop behind her to the living room below. The agents—if they weren’t police they were government agents—did her the courtesy of stopping at the landing, though their deportment made it clear she would not be allowed past them. “I’ll come peacefully, if you promise you won’t harm my mother.”

  “We’re not intending on harming anyone, ma’am.” The woman was now firmly ensconced in the role of ‘good cop.’ The man’s left hand hovered over the stunner on his belt. “We simply need to speak with you. Both of you.”

  She closed her eyes and exhaled slowly, buying herself time to send a message to the couple taking care of Marlee to let them know she might be delayed. Then she nodded. “Very well.”

  INTELLIGENCE DIVISION HEADQUARTERS

  * * *

  Director of Intelligence Graham Delavasi turned away another office visitor seeking to ‘check in’ or ‘pick his brain’ but in any event steal his attention. In simpler times he enjoyed the occasional visit by military officers and government officials and subordinates and even friends. But the last week had eradicated any remaining traces of simplicity from his life.

  Special Ops Director Michael Volosk was dead. Murdered steps from Headquarters—the building he sat in now. The man’s throat had been sliced open and he had been left to bleed out in the goddamn parking lot.

  He dragged both hands down his face for the hundredth time in the last hour. Michael was an outstanding agent. One of the best. Though he may have sat behind a desk for the last few years, no one would accuse him of being a bureaucrat. What kind of assailant could have gotten the jump on him in such spectacular fashion?

  Agent Marano?

  His head began shaking of its own accord, as if to provide its own answer. He would stake a significant number of credits on Stefan Marano’s son being innocent.

  Marano. He’d not seen that name in a long time…nearly twenty years, in fact. He’d been aware when Samuel recruited the son into Division of course, but deliberately kept his distance in every way. Now though….

  He had spent days pouring through Michael Volosk’s recent reports and private notes. Michael had been a busy man, and not solely or even mostly because of the war. For one, he’d sent Marano on an official mission to Vancouver. A dubious, shot-in-the-dark, certifiably insane mission…which had almost worked.

  Michael’s notes stated Agent Marano had brought back the top secret Alliance autopsy file on Minister Santiagar, but no one could find any trace of the file’s existence. It hadn’t entered the Division file system, nor Michael’s personal files. It was not found on his body or residing in his internal data store.

  The most logical conclusion? The killer pilfered it. A scenario which made zero sense if Caleb Marano was the killer. Why give Michael the file only to kill him and steal it back mere hours later?

  Then there was the report from a deep cover watcher agent on Earth, delivering word people within EASC were expressing doubts about the events that had kicked off this war. The agent also conveyed that Marano had in fact done exactly what he’d been sent to Vancouver to do—attempt to convince EASC leadership to investigate those events. He had been arrested for the effort, then everything had gone to hell in a designer handbag.

  While the report cast clear doubt on Marano’s guilt with respect to the Vancouver bombing, in his mind the sum total of the information before him constituted enough to all but exonerate the man with respect to Michael's murder. Couple it with him sending an alert from halfway across the city minutes at most after Michael was slain, and the wafer-thin case against the agent crumbled. Unfortunately this led to more disturbing implications.

  Marano’s final communication before going off the grid indicated he and his notable companion had been attacked by multiple assailants at nearly the exact moment Volosk lay bleeding out meters from the side entry to Division. The bodies at the riverwalk certainly backed up the story. The events of that fateful night painted a clear and stark picture.

  Within the space of a single hour EASC Headquarters on Earth exploded, no less than four mercs ambushed Marano and Solovy and an assassin murdered Volosk and stole two specific files. It seemed the raw data set on the Metis Nebula delivered by Alexis Solovy to Michael that evening had, interestingly enough, also gone missing.

  It wasn’t as if he didn
’t believe there could be a conspiracy; he’d spent decades in the intelligence business after all. But if a conspiracy did exist—if both governments were duped into a renewed war—it meant a lot of people had died for no reason. It meant he faced a helluva battle ahead.

  Michael had bought into Marano’s theory the war was purposely instigated by…someone. Despite the investigation being officially closed, he’d continued to probe into the Atlantis assassination. The day before his death he paid a visit to Jaron Nythal, the Assistant Trade Director. Graham reviewed the notes from the meeting again.

  Mr. Nythal acted alternately evasive and confrontational. I am reinstating basic surveillance in the hope the pressure will force him into a mistake. I have sought approval for a persistent trace on his bank accounts as well.

  He had meant it when he told Michael he believed Nythal was squirrelly, and part of him was glad to see Michael had taken the advice to heart. Yet a nefarious voice in the back of his mind questioned if the advice might have led to the man’s death.

  He returned to the report from his deputy, Liz Oberti. Given the seriousness of the accusations, he had put her in charge of the Marano investigation. With his approval she was bringing the family in for questioning. They were unlikely to be involved in whatever was transpiring, but they might know where the agent had gone to ground.