The Ouroboros Wave

by Hayashi, Jyouji

  But not everyone on Earth was happy with what was about to happen. Within each power center were factions holding different visions of Earth’s future in a solar system that was changing before their eyes.

  There was no question that this situation had the potential to spawn murder.

  MIKAL SHOOK HIS HEAD. “If they were supposed to be decoys, then we’ve done nothing to stop Tetsu from being assassinated.”

  “We might have even helped Rahmya get the job done,” said Shiran.

  “When does he arrive on Deimos?”

  “If he’s on schedule, he’ll be here in forty-eight hours.”

  Minus 35 Hours 45 Minutes

  The leasing agency isn’t tough to find. The entrance is period; don’t know where they got those old fittings. Making a statement, I guess. Inside’s nothing special. Chairs, tables, one leasing agent.

  “My name is Kashiwazaki. I reserved a vehicle.”

  “Oh yes. Ryoko.”

  Here this bitch has just met me, and she calls me Ryoko. On Mars, a person’s name is just an ID tag.

  “You have a land cruiser for a week. Everything’s ready—water, food, oxygen, all the necessities.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Going into the outback? We don’t get much demand for our cruisers. Most visitors from Earth want one of our buggies. They’re lighter and more nimble.”

  “I’m going pretty far out. Why else would I need a land cruiser?”

  “Are you a photographer?”

  “Why do Martians ask so many questions?”

  “I was just wondering.”

  The transaction is half-automated, our webs processing most of the details. Once that’s out of the way she takes me through a tunnel to where they keep the vehicles. She’s acting kind of chilly all of a sudden, which suits me fine. The rear of the shop is down half a level, following the slope of the mountain. We go through a few basic air locks into a garage.

  “There’s your cruiser.”

  Mars is right outside, through two more air locks. The cruiser’s parked in front of them, ready to go, provisions loaded and my cargo—the entire shopping list sent ahead—in a big pile on the floor. The cruiser’s just a box really, light alloy and plastic, five meters long with four sets of tracked feet instead of wheels. Looks a little like a snow tractor back on Earth. The tracks spread the weight over the ground better than wheels, but they’re steerable, so you still get good turning radius. Typical Martian vehicle for anything other than light-duty work. If you run into something unexpected it has a winch and a basic crane. The cab is pressurized, with an air lock and a place to stow your suit. The drive units are self-contained in each of the feet, so there’s a lot of room inside. You could live in one of these things for weeks.

  “How’s this perform in the outback?”

  “She’s small, but you still have a lot of horsepower. The tracks are extra wide. It comes with advanced suspension.”

  “Sounds like just the ticket.” I start doing a careful walk-around. The bitch frowns.

  “I check the vehicles every day. It’s my job.”

  “I have to do this myself. Sorry, just one of those things.” I’m starting to like this agency. The cruiser’s been well maintained. Good thing, too, since my life will depend on it. “Looks like it’s in pretty good shape.”

  “Of course. That’s my job.”

  I open the hatch and start loading.

  “You’ve got a lot of cargo there.” She points at the pile. I notice she’s not helping me load up. I get all the stuff into the cruiser—finally—and jump into the driver’s seat. She forwards me the document with the warnings and disclaimers. Security requirements. I hate this part—you actually have to read the damn file or the vehicle won’t start. So for the next ten minutes I play along with their bullshit procedure.

  With that out of the way I power up the cruiser and start inching forward. The first air lock door opens, closes—and then the outer lock opens and the red slope of Mt. Rokko stretches ahead of me. The downslope is pretty gentle, doesn’t feel like much. At least I’ve got that ugly fucking tower behind me.

  I go a few klicks down the mountain and stop to check my “photo equipment.” Good girl, she got everything I need. It’ll assemble into something that shoots, so I guess I didn’t really lie.

  Phase Two: complete. Now for Phase Three.

  It’s too early to relax. I can’t underestimate the Guardians. I point the cruiser in a new direction and pull the ID chip out of my web. So long, Ryoko. You’re history.

  I’m Gong-ru Yang now.

  Minus 34 Hours 30 Minutes

  According to the hijackers, Rahmya was on the Martian surface. But could they be trusted? Was this another diversion? It seemed more likely that Rahmya was somewhere on one of Tsutenkaku’s stations.

  Shiran decided to bet on the elevator. Every passenger landing on Deimos and exiting at Kobe City had to pass a cranial scan when getting on and off the elevator. Infrared imaging revealed underlying bone structures, so simple disguises wouldn’t work. Rahmya topped the Guardians’ wanted list. If she was planning to disappear in Kobe City, she’d have to defeat two sets of scanners first.

  But several hours after the hijacking, there was still no alert from security—which would suggest she was still somewhere on the elevator. And yet, hours of searching turned up nothing in any of the stations along the way. Then Shiran’s imaging officer called her with some unsettling news.

  “Professor, she slipped past us after all. She’s on the surface.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “I’ll show you.” An augmented-reality display board appeared in the space above Shiran’s desk just as Mikal walked into the office. The right side of the board began to play scanner footage. Shiran recognized the elevator exit gate on the surface.

  “It’s her!” said Mikal.

  “No doubt about it, that’s Rahmya.” The scanner showed a young woman wearing an orange AADD crew jumpsuit passing through the gate. Her ID number, read automatically from her web, appeared at the top of the screen.

  “This number doesn’t match any of our personnel,” said the imaging officer. “We’re trying to trace it on Earth, but I doubt it’s genuine.”

  “So she made it to the surface after all. But the cameras got her. Why didn’t we notice? We all know this face.”

  “So we do, Professor, but we’re relying on the IR scanners to catch what the human eye might miss. We only check the visible wavelength footage when a scanner gives us a heads-up. Otherwise this is all automated. You’re aware of that?”

  “Of course,” Shiran snapped.

  “Well, this time it was the reverse. We went back and reviewed the visible-wavelength footage just in case. That led us to the scanner images. Now look at this.”

  The same footage began to play on the left side of the board, this time from the infrared cranial scanners. The feed was enhanced to make it easier to see the structure of the face under makeup or a disguise.

  “What the hell?” gasped Shiran. Rahmya’s image under infrared bore no resemblance at all to her actual appearance.

  “She must be using some kind of IR reflector—and she knew how to apply it to make herself look like a different person.”

  “This must go further than we thought,” said Shiran. “If Rahmya has what it takes to defeat our scanners, she must have funding. She wouldn’t be able to develop a countermeasure like that on her own.”

  “Our intelligence subteam thinks her client may be one of the Terran mining and metal refining conglomerates. If so, she’d have practically unlimited support.”

  “And the client keeps their hands clean. But there are at least two things wrong with this picture. One, Rahmya doesn’t have a weapon. We recovered everything from the hijackers. Why didn’t one of her coconspirators just slip her a weapon?”

  “Under interrogation the suspects admitted that she orchestrated the hijacking, but that’s all,” said Mikal. �
�Maybe they’re telling the truth.”

  “So everything they brought in was for the hijacking. The bigger question is, why head for the surface? Tetsu is staying on Deimos this trip, he’s not going down to Kobe. His itinerary is public information. If Rahmya’s planning to kill him, why is she moving in the opposite direction?”

  “Maybe she’s planning to come back,” said Mikal.

  “Maybe. Or maybe she’s planning another diversion.”

  Minus 29 Hours 20 Minutes

  The land cruiser is pressurized. All I can hear, moving along, is a faint hum from the oxygen/methane engine. Otherwise, silence.

  The cruiser has laser radar that feeds data to the active suspension system. The terrain here is littered with huge reddish boulders, maybe from floods eons ago. Active suspension is a must for high-speed driving. The radar sees the terrain coming up and talks to the actuators in the suspension system, tells them how to respond in advance. Makes for a smooth ride, for sure. Good thing, because I want to use as little energy as possible. I never work when I’m tired.

  My vehicle knows where and how to go, all the coordinates are loaded. The terrain here isn’t that rough, so it’s reasonably safe to hand off to the autopilot. The guidance database knows the rough spots. If the cruiser needs to detour, it can navigate without my help. My route’s been carefully planned. The skies are full of satellites of all sizes, keeping an eye on the mining complexes. Staying out of sight is my major challenge right now. I’m avoiding terrain where the cruiser’s likely to leave imageable traces on the ground. I double back on evasive headings to confuse the satellites. The cruiser is covered with camo net to break up its outline against the surface.

  There’s no guarantee I won’t be detected. The technology hasn’t been invented that can defeat every form of surveillance. And relying on just one form of stealth is for pikers. A professional would never make that mistake. You want to put together a suite of concealment strategies to blanket your opponent’s surveillance spectrum. This can be challenging, but if you want real stealth it’s the only way to go.

  The trip profile was a bitch to input, but it gives me time for more important things, such as assembling the components I brought along into something useful—a weapon.

  The rifle I’m holding doesn’t compare with even a basic sniper rig, but it’s more than good enough for this mission. If someone shoots you, you don’t care what kind of gun they used. Dead is dead. All the parts were made in little workshops on Mars to my specs, ordered and paid for by Gong-ru Yang. If you want to get hold of a weapon here, you can’t be in a hurry and you have to be inventive.

  I look the assembled weapon over carefully. The main component, the barrel, is unrifled. Rifling a barrel is something you don’t ask a workshop to do. No matter what kind of line you feed them, you’ll blow your cover in two seconds. Anyway I can get along without it. Bullets don’t generate much drag in this thin of an atmosphere. With the right-shaped projectile and tight tolerances close-range accuracy is no problem.

  The cruiser stops on schedule at my chosen location for some sighting-in. I suit up and carry the bullets and the rifle out onto the surface. I need to test the rifle first, make sure it performs as designed. The cruiser has brought me to an ancient streambed several hundred yards across. Its walls are about three vertical meters.

  I stick a big blob of silicon on the rock wall, smear it out until it’s apple-sized. That’s the target. I walk about a hundred meters away, affix my crude weapon to a tripod. Hit a switch and I’ve got a heads-up display on my visor, an aiming system complete with crosshairs. Check the safety and fit the magazine.

  The gun fires bullets using an internal reservoir of liquid propellant, a supervolatile hydrocarbon cocktail. Making a gun is simple. It’s the cartridges—case, primer, and powder—that are tough. You can’t fool people into making them for you. You don’t even want to try. You have to go to specialists usually, ammo manufacturers. That’s where your cover’s going to crap out on you.

  But there’s a workaround. If you have a good gas seal between bullet and barrel, you can use liquid propellant and dispense with cartridges altogether. Just feed bullets straight into the barrel and send them on their way with a puff of burning propellant.

  With the gun set to go, I walk back to the target. I stand to one side, release the safety remotely, put the crosshairs in my heads-up display on the target, and thumb the firing switch.

  The first round grazes the edge of the target. I adjust the sighting parameters and fire again. Other side this time. Split the difference. Fire again. The silicon splatters across the rock.

  Sighting-in complete.

  Now I’m officially armed. I load the rifle into the land cruiser and enter fresh coordinates into the guidance system. Destination: Phase Three.

  Minus 26 Hours 30 Minutes

  “Did she actually identify herself as Ryoko Kashiwazaki?”

  A video link to the leasing agent was projected on the floating display. The agent responded dutifully, “Yes, her web confirmed it.”

  “And she rented a land cruiser for a week?” In one corner of the screen data for the vehicle scrolled past on its way to everyone in the team. “Did you notice anything unusual about her?” Shiran posed the question casually, but it was crucial. Given that most of the transaction was automated, there might not have been much reason to remember the small details of a particular customer.

  “Well, it’s just that she was very particular about the condition of the vehicle, even though I told her I’d checked it twice personally. She didn’t seem to trust me at all.”

  This was unusual. On Mars and throughout AADD, work was the fulfillment of personal potential, a critical prerequisite for acceptance in the collective. People earned respect from their peers through attention to detail and professionalism, regardless of the work they did.

  Terrans didn’t quite seem to understand this. Ryoko Kashiwazaki’s demeanor alone was enough to mark her as an outsider. For her to openly doubt the agent’s competence was tantamount to a deliberate insult. The agent had not responded in kind only because her customer was from Earth.

  “I can’t say I noticed anything else unusual—except she had a very large photo gear case with her.” The agent described the case and held up her hands to indicate its size. Several possible matches appeared on the white board.

  “Did it look like one of these?”

  “Yes, that one on the left.”

  “Well, thank you. You’ve been very helpful,” said Shiran. “Please let us know if you remember anything else.”

  “I will. Helping is a citizen’s duty.” The agent disappeared, replaced by an analysis of the footage from the leasing agency’s security camera.

  “Professor,” said the imaging officer, “the IR scanners show her using a different spoofing pattern from the one she used on the elevator. The visible-wavelength footage, however, confirms that Ryoko Kashiwazaki is Rahmya. Still, it’s going to be hard to trace her.”

  “Hard but not impossible, right?”

  “Well… yes, of course. We’ll do our best.”

  “I’m relying on you. Use your discretion and I’ll back you up.”

  “Okay, Professor. We’re on it.” The board went blank.

  “I still don’t like this.”

  “Why not?” said Mikal.

  “Why did she leave Kobe? She went to a lot of work to slip past us so she could assassinate Tetsu. Why does she keep moving away from the target? What about the surveillance satellites?”

  “Surveillance is ongoing. But it isn’t foolproof—there has to be something for them to see when they pass overhead.”

  “Still, it should restrict her movements quite a bit. There are a lot of satellites up there.”

  “Do you think she might be planning to sabotage one of the mines?” Mikal sent a map of known mineral deposits from his web to the floating rectangle.

  “Sabotaging a mine is too big a job for one person. What do yo
u think was in the case?”

  “Something light, small enough to be carried on a shoulder sling. She didn’t have it when she got off the elevator—which means she bought it somewhere. I’ll run a check of the retail outlets. But, Professor, let’s say the case contained a weapon she obtained from somewhere. That means she has to get within range of Tetsu. In other words, she has to return to the elevator at some point.”

  “And try to reach Deimos.”

  “That’s the most reasonable assumption—she’ll try to return to Deimos to execute her plan.”

  “But how’s she going to do that? She can’t get there without using the elevator, and she must know she can’t keep pulling the same trick to get past the scanners.”

  They began to review the evidence yet again. An hour later the imaging officer suddenly reappeared in Shiran’s retinal feed. “What, did you find her already?” asked Shiran.

  “Not yet, unfortunately. It’s about the contents of the case. We found something interesting.”

  The display board reappeared showing footage of Rahmya at the leasing agency, the case slung from her shoulder. She put it on the floor, walked slowly around the vehicle, then hoisted the case to her shoulder again.

  “What’s new about this?” said Shiran.

  “Based on her movements we can estimate the weight of the case. It’s not light, that’s for sure. What’s interesting is, the center of gravity is unstable.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “First of all, whatever’s inside, it’s not anchored. Her movements and center of balance tell us that the case contains something long and metallic. Also, we took the audio and asked another team to see if they could profile it.”

  “Auntie’s group?”

  “That’s right. How did you know?”