Killswitch: A Cassandra Kresnov Novel (v1.1)

by Joel Shepherd

  As she resettled two new cards into her hand, and Anita unloaded two of her own, Anita met Sandy's gaze with a brief, intrigued smile. Far less concerned with politics, Sandy knew, than fascinated with Rhian's increasing self-confidence in her own powers of analysis where civilians were concerned. Her development, Sandy had to admit, had been remarkable. From a total novice in all civilian matters, in the space of two years Rhian had progressed to the point where local events no longer disturbed or puzzled her with the same regularity as before. Anita now teased Sandy, from time to time, that Rhian had now overtaken her ex-captain in some civilian matters-such as fashion sense. Looking at her friend's stylish black outfit, Sandy could only agree. But then, in some regards, that was Rhian-utterly meticulous and precise with the small details, yet often missing the broader picture.

  "It's more my house than anyone else's anyway," Vanessa interjected, arriving back at her chair beside Sandy's with a drink in each hand. Sandy took hers, and Vanessa took her seat. "Me being the only one of us who's financially solvent and of reliable good character and long-term residence ..."

  "Oh, go on!" Anita protested good humouredly.

  "It's true!" Vanessa curled into her chair, no difficult feat for her small frame, in tracksuit and socks following her shower. The skin beneath her eyes bore the faintest shade of dark, but otherwise there was only the cotton wool to show for the recently broken nose. It kept her breathing through her mouth, and allowed the injected microbials to do their work unhindered. "It's unheard of for anyone with less than five years' residence on Callay to qualify for a house in Canas. I'm here 'cause they wouldn't have let Sandy have it otherwise."

  "And for the joyful pleasure of my company," Sandy remarked.

  "Of course, baby." Vanessa extended a sock-clad foot, and gave Sandy's shoulder a reprimanding push. "And you," she continued, turning her lively gaze upon Rhian, "are here so we can keep an eye on you. Under the auspices of our new liaison relationship with the League Embassy, of course. But the main reason no one's leaked that information to Neiland's opponents is because the only thing those same opponents are more scared of than Sandy being best buddies with her old League mates, is the League's Embassy GIs running around without supervision."

  "You keep me on a very short leash," Rhian said with a nod. "I'll remember to say that if someone asks." And raised Anita's five prayertokens by another five.

  Sandy finished the last mouthful of her meal, and gave Vanessa an eyebrow-raised glance. Vanessa's return glance was highly amused. For the last two years, there had been an ongoing debate between them whether Rhian was an unintentional wit who said amusing things without meaning to, or was one of the best deadpan comics they'd ever seen. Not that she was ever genuinely hysterical. Just amusing. As always, with her old buddy Chu, everything was understated. But understated people everywhere, Sandy reckoned, were full of surprises.

  Sandy sipped Vanessa's drink. It tasted of at least five local fruits, and several liqueurs ... Vanessa had been introduced to the world of mixed beverages by one of Anita's friends a few months back, and now delighted in creating new concoctions. Rhian placed her hand of cards upon the table. Anita gave a "ha!" of delight, and laid down her own. Rhian raised both eyebrows.

  "GIs aren't invulnerable after all," Vanessa remarked as Anita raked in the prayer tokens. Her pile was considerably larger than Rhian's.

  "In a game of random chance," Rhian said mildly, "anyone can lose."

  "Oh, it's not just random chance!" Anita scolded her. "You do a thing with your face every time you get a good or a bad hand."

  "I'm a GI," said Rhian. "I don't do anything with my face."

  "Yes, you do!" Anita sang playfully, handing the deck to Rhian for shuffling. Rhian gave Sandy a quizzical look, taking the cards to hand. They blurred between fingers with inhuman speed, as Vanessa and Anita watched in fascination. Sandy smiled.

  "She's trying to get into your head, Rhi," she said. "She's psyching you out."

  "How should I respond?" asked Rhian, in all honesty.

  Sandy gave an exasperated shrug. "I don't know! Figure it out."

  "You could stop doing that thing with your face, for one thing," Vanessa said mischievously.

  "Don't listen to them," said Sandy. "Come on, Rhian, concentrate. We can't let any uppity organic humans start thinking they can actually beat us at anything. I mean, where would it end?"

  "I don't mind getting beaten at things that don't matter," Rhian replied mildly, dealing the cards with a series of rapid wrist-flicks. Anita's cards skidded in perfect unison across the shiny coffee table, directly into her waiting hands.

  "Have you spoken to Captain Reichardt yet?" Anita asked, fanning the cards in her hand.

  "Might have," said Sandy, taking another sip of her drink. Anita removed a card and took another. Raised her bet.

  "I'm glad he seems like such a reasonable guy," Anita continued. "I mean it can't be easy, can it? Standing up to your own people. Standing up to Earth, even?"

  "He's American," said Vanessa. "That's different. Americans live on another planet entirely."

  The USA's continued refusal to consider itself a part of any greater, global political entity known as Earth was the source of many old jokes. On Earth itself, such political isolationism was the subject of much ridicule. But for the many Federation worlds now opposed to the monolithic, conservative, xenophobic bloc that Earth was threatening to become, it provided a large opportunity. After all, the population of the USA had been one of the only significant voting blocs on Earth to actually vote in favour of the relocation. In the eyes of many Americans, the Grand Council had done enormous damage in centralising huge chunks of the planetary political system during the war, creating a morass of petty bureaucracy and unrepresentative officialdom. And US President Alvarez, alone of senior Earth leaders, had spoken out in favour of Callay's new role as the centre of the Federation. Although everyone knew the Americans could never miss a chance to get right up the collective noses of the Chinese and Indians, and no one on Callay was fool enough to assume American support went any further than that.

  "You guys are doing the security for Secretary General Benale, right?" Anita had much practice trying to weed out as much information as possible from her less-than-informative friends. "How suspicious do you think it is that the sabotage happens just after he arrives on Callay? I mean, he's the closest thing Earth has to a global leader, even if the Americans don't recognise EarthGov. He's an old-Earth nationalist if ever there was one, he promises to come out here to try and calm things down, but no sooner does he arrive than someone sabotages the Mekong?"

  "That's a conspiracy theory," said Vanessa. "Sandy doesn't like conspiracy theories."

  "Ari calls them conspiracy facts," Rhian countered.

  "Ari would," Sandy said shortly.

  "You're not still mad at Ari?" Anita said in half-teasing disbelief.

  Vanessa frowned, looking from Anita to Sandy. "Mad at him for what?"

  Sandy sighed. "Oh, he's been babbling on about that damn tour Cognizant Systems is doing through the medical lobbies ..."

  "It's not just Cognizant Systems!" Anita retorted indignantly. "It's Renaldo Takawashi, Sandy. The man's a genius that comes along maybe once in ten generations ..."

  "Yeah, yeah, yeah," Sandy muttered, "I read the press release."

  "Takawashi?" Vanessa made a face. "I read an Intel report on that ... isn't he responsible for GI intelligence?"

  "He's never been anything other than an independent researcher," Anita insisted, "but with the war on, the League government roped him into much of the foundational development for advanced synthetic neurology."

  "Poor little man," said Sandy sarcastically, "he's been used and manipulated all along, never had anything to do with the League war machine really ..."

  "Sandy!" Anita looked genuinely indignant. "His work with neural regeneration using synthetic integration with organic tissue is just ... it's amazing. For the first time we m
ight be able to regrow destroyed brain tissue, cure what was previously irreparable structural damage, cure V-hooked burnouts, maybe even reverse criminal insanity! Imagine if they could reform murderers or rapists by rerouting the defective circuitry and then regrowing it."

  "Wonderful, maybe they could cure subversive ideologies too," Sandy retorted. "League supporters, far right weirdos? You'd run out of friends real fast, 'Nita."

  Anita was one of Ari's old friends-as underground as they came, and proud of it. It was hardly the most suitable company for two of Callay's seniormost civil servants ... but then, Sandy's own knowledge of security and monitoring systems ensured that her various political masters had very little idea of who she entertained at home, something for which she was very grateful. She did not always get along with Ari's friends, with their progressive, League-sympathetic ideologies, and their love of all things hi-tech and subversive. Anita was different in that she was a business woman, despite appearances, and was at least relatively pragmatic in her approach to real world issues. She was also fun company, and was pleased to be Sandy's friend because she liked Sandy, not because Sandy was "that awesome, android superbabe" or whatever stupid crap the wide-eyed techno underground liked to say about her these days. She got nearly as sick of the worshipful adulation from that crowd as she did of the hate mail. More so, sometimes. At least the hate mailers didn't want anything from her (except perhaps death), and would never be disappointed that she'd failed to live up to their expectations.

  "You're overreacting again," Anita scolded, "there's no reason to believe that ..."

  "Hang on," Vanessa interrupted. And turned a concerned frown on Sandy. "If this ... Takawashi ... is responsible for most of the League's advances in synthetic neurology ..."

  "He's not," said Sandy. "He was the head of a damn big team. It's a reputation mostly limited to the underground on Callay." With a dark look at Anita. "Who, for some reason, seem to have developed a fascination with such things."

  Anita rolled her eyes. "It's still true, and you know it."

  "But he's still technically responsible for ..." and Vanessa paused, knowing from experience the value of being a little wary, bringing up such matters around Sandy, ". . . well, for you. And Rhi. Right?"

  Sandy shrugged. "Sure. Technically."

  "And that's where Ari is now, meeting Takawashi?" Vanessa, on emotional issues, had somewhere along the line acquired the disconcerting ability to read her like a book.

  Sandy sighed. "He got an invite. He always gets an invite."

  "And how is it," Vanessa wanted to know, "that I'm not hearing about the head of the League's advanced GI neurology research being in Callay all over the news networks?"

  "Because the League generally says that everyone was involved in synthetic biology development. It's their way of challenging Federation ideology-if you want access to League technology and trade, you've gotta do business with people connected to GI development."

  "Major Ramoja told me that the Callayan media have been saturated with those stories," Rhian added. "You know-League trade delegations arriving that include scientists or industrialists who were involved with the League war machine. There were a lot of protests at first, but now people are getting tired of it, and the media don't bother reporting it. He said."

  "Damn," said Vanessa, looking thoughtful. Sipped on her drink, eyes momentarily distant. "I bet the Fleet noticed. Admiral Duong in particular."

  "No question," said Sandy. "And I bet Cognizant Systems have some pretty senior arms to twist if they could get approval from the government right now, with everything else that's going on."

  CHAPTER

  andy awoke in her bed to find the house security network telling her that Ari was entering the side door. She uplinked to a camera, and a clear visual image of the lower corridor appeared upon her internal vision. It was definitely Ari, long black coat and all. Three in the morning-usual operating hours for Ari. She extended the uplinks further as she lay comfortably beneath the covers, and let the broad expanse of the Canas-network rush in upon her sleepy consciousness. Impenetrable multilayer barriers, constant monitoring ... everything looked secure. In the Presidential hacienda not too far from here, President Neiland would be sleeping ... or working late, or meeting with various other Federation world leaders. Asking for support. Begging for it.

  Ari's footsteps ascended the stairs outside her door, then the door opened. Sandy bothered to open her eyes for the first time, and found his dark figure moving across the dimly lit room. Streetlight created a small patch upon the smooth floorboards. Brick walls and wooden bookshelves showed dimly in normal-vision. Pictures on shelves and the desk. Pictures of herself and Vanessa. Of Rhian, swimming with two of Vanessa's nephews. Of herself and Ari, at the surprise party his underground friends had thrown downstairs, many laughing faces. And one Rhian had found in a search through a League database, of Mahud, in uniform, looking cool and handsome. Her gaze lingered upon that frame for a moment, vision zooming and brightening to make the features come clear.

  "Parliament went well?" Ari asked her as he took off his clothes. Not bothering to ask if she was awake.

  "Like you didn't already know," she replied, in a sleepy murmur.

  "Well, you're only number three on the news bulletins," said Ari. "You didn't cause another scandal and you saved that damn-fool President from getting herself blown up, so I'd say you had a pretty good day."

  "I'll be the judge of that," Sandy said with a faint smile. "And what do you mean another scandal?"

  Ari shrugged. "Habitual phrasing. I apologise."

  "My very existence is one big scandal."

  "Stop feeling sorry for yourself," said Ari, removing the last of his clothes and sliding under the covers. He moved immediately on top of her, a warm, welcome presence of bare skin and body weight.

  "I'm not feeling sorry for myself, I'm just ..." Ari silenced her with a kiss on the lips. Sandy returned it, passionately. And smiled at him as he pulled back enough to look her in the eyes, the tip of his nose barely brushing hers. His intelligent dark eyes were fixed upon her. His jaw, she noticed, was dark with stubble. She brushed at it with one hand, and found it unusually scratchy. So he'd been busy then. The Ari she knew was normally far more attentive to matters of personal grooming. "What did I do to deserve this treat?" she asked him.

  "Being gorgeous, as usual. That's all." He kissed her again. They made love, lingeringly. Perhaps even more lingeringly than usual, Sandy managed to reckon, in the spare, fleeting moment of sanity that was all she could usually muster at such moments. There was an earnestness about Ari tonight that she found wonderful, and she was determined to enjoy it. She contented herself with letting him take charge for as long as possible, before finally the strain and tension became too much, and she had to lock her hands hard to the mattress, and brace her legs apart for fear of doing him damage. She alerted him, and he paused to let her roll over. They finished with him on her back, which was much safer, her face pressed gasping to the mattress as she unlocked her clenched fists one at a time, and hoped she hadn't torn the sheets again. Ari nuzzled at her ear, affectionately.

  "The back of your head is really a ... a lovely view," he offered in a low voice, with typical off-handed humour, "but your eyes are really much nicer ..."

  "We'll buy a mirror," Sandy offered, half-muffled against the mattress.

  "Kinky, but inconvenient."

  "Forget it, Ari," she told him, "I'm not going to risk it. This is the one moment I really do lose control. It's dangerous, do you understand me?"

  "I trust you." He brushed hair away from her cheek, and kissed her there.

  "Then you're a fool. I don't trust me, not then. You're just a thrillseeker."

  "I'm not a thrill-seeker, I'd just appreciate the pleasure of once being able to look my lover in the eyes when she comes."

  "It could be the last thing you'll ever see."

  "Sure, but how romantic is that?"

  He ran a han
d along her shoulder, feeling the receding tension in the muscle, a gathering, tingling softness. It genuinely didn't seem to bother him. Sleeping with a GI, one of her CDF comrades had less than charitably observed, was like sleeping with a hydraulic alloy press. A malfunctioning one, with a hair-trigger.

  She rolled over, easing him off to one side. Ari surprised her by climbing straight back on, kissing her gently. But she was pleased, and more so when he entered her once more.

  "Ari," she managed to gasp in his ear, "what's the matter?"

  "What do you mean? You think because I happen to feel like making love to you that something's the matter?"

  "You normally fall asleep or go straight out again," she replied, trying to think rationally. Something in her brain chemistry made that difficult, at such moments-although Vanessa professed that she was hardly a sim-tech scientist herself during sex. Ari's body moved wonderfully against her, and she gasped, wrapping her legs reflexively about him.

  "Not tonight," he murmured, running a hand through her hair, then kissing down her neck. She tried to breathe evenly, thinking that it was probably nothing more than he was feeling horny ... which suited her fine because so was she. But it had been so hectic lately, especially for someone in Ari's line of work.

  "Ari." She took his head in both hands-gently, but in a way that gave him little choice but to pause, and look her in the eyes. She made her gaze as firm as possible. "You found something, didn't you? Something concerning me?"

  Ari sighed. Cocked his head on one side to gaze at her, with reluctant admiration for her deduction. "I didn't want to tell you straight up," he conceded.

  "You wanted to soften me up first?" With affectionate humour. "Well, it worked."