Killswitch: A Cassandra Kresnov Novel (v1.1)

by Joel Shepherd

  "The other thing is that you're now in charge of the CDF on the ground."

  "I know." There was, for the first time, a brief pause. "So what are you going to do?"

  "I've got some leads. Or I'm in the process of getting some, rather. Some things here don't make sense, and I think that if I can find out why, it'll tell me what the hell's going on."

  "Sandy?" Another pause, waiting for a reply.

  "Yes?"

  A longer pause. Then ". . . Never mind. Take care of yourself. I've got some calls to make, all the senior officers need to be rebriefed."

  "Okay. Love you."

  Again the pause. "Yeah, me too." Then a click as the line went dead. Sandy frowned. Two years she'd been acclimatising to civilian surroundings and civilian thinking, but still she often had that feeling she'd missed something. Something another natural-born civilian wouldn't have missed. Tojo had finished rinsing her hair into the bowl on the desk-edge behind her head, and now produced a hair drier.

  "And how's the lovely Vanessa doing?" Tojo asked over the whistle of the drier, teasing out her wet hair with a brush.

  "She's a lot like me-the more dangerous it gets, the calmer she becomes. She's fine with the bullets flying around, but if she burns her toast or stains a good blouse, it's best to just leave the vicinity for a while."

  "You're too hard on her," Tojo retorted, in his characteristic deep singsong. That, plus his taste for personal decoration, had raised the hopes of many a single gay man before ... but Tojo, to the great disappointment of many, was married (to a woman) with two children. Still, he was Anita's obvious first choice for Sandy's makeover-Tojo was a fashion designer with his own small, exclusive label. There were hundreds of such in Tanusha, Sandy had gathered. They had their own wild, underground scene, private fashion shows for the knowledgeable "in-crowd," decadent parties and plenty of designer VR or chemical stimulant. The dull, predictable, market-driven "mainstream" were definitely not invited. Although, of course, where the "underground" left off, and the "mainstream" began, was a matter for constant and acrimonious debate.

  "She's my best friend, I'm allowed to be hard on her."

  "No, you're not." Tojo gave her a gentle, backhanded whack on the shoulder. "You mean so much to her, Sandy, sometimes I just don't think you realise how much. I mean, just because she's so confident and gregarious in most things, it doesn't mean she's like that with everything. Underneath, she's really very soft and fragile."

  Sandy tipped her head back to look up at him. "So am I."

  Tojo rolled his eyes with a smile, and gave a shake of his head. The penthouse light caught the gleaming gold of an earring, brilliant against his black skin. There were likewise gleaming studs through lips and nose, and faint traces of lavender eyeshadow that shone with holographic depth, a curious effect against the reflective curve of his shaved scalp.

  "That's a new earring," Sandy remarked. "That's a Catholic cross, right?"

  "I don't suppose there are many other kinds," Tojo retorted.

  "But you're not a Catholic."

  "Nor even a Christian, I'm afraid."

  "It doesn't bother you to be appropriating a symbol of deep spiritual meaning for billions throughout the Federation?"

  "The most meaningful symbols are always the best to appropriate, that's how artistic statements are made."

  "So you've taken the symbol of humankind's salvation at the hands of the Christian Messiah," Sandy continued implacably, "and turned it into a fashion statement."

  "Of course." Tojo shrugged. "The spirit of artistic challenge to the powers of the day should know no fear, Cassandra, and no boundaries."

  "And the fact that there's hardly any Catholics in Tanusha to get pissed at you is just coincidence, huh? When's one of your artistic buddies going to do a sculpture of some Hindu deity screwing a goat? In the true spirit of artistic subversiveness? I bet he'd make a pretty cool sculpture himself, hanging from a tree by his heels with his head shoved up his arse."

  "You," Tojo said cheerfully, "are such a cynic."

  "No, I just vote differently to you."

  "An anti-League, cultural-conservative android," Tojo sighed. "You know, I think you're just trying to be complicated in order to impress me."

  "Uh-uh, I've decided I find the term `android' demeaning and insulting. I'm an artificial person, if you please, or a GI."

  "You're a wonderful pain in the arse," Tojo retorted, teasing out her last wet piece of fringe.

  "That sounds kinky," said Sandy.

  "It is if you do it right." Tojo turned off the drier. "Come on, up." Sandy moved from her seat, following Tojo to a floor-to-ceiling mirror upon the penthouse wall near the entrance, where guests could check their appearance before heading out the door, Sandy guessed. "Well," said Tojo, with theatrical pleasure. "What do you think?"

  Sandy looked herself over in the mirror. The first, pleasing thing to notice was that she hardly recognised herself. Her hair, for one thing, was now jet black. The obligatory dark coat came down to her knees-Tojo had suggested the longer, leather one was more stylish, but Sandy had insisted on the one that wouldn't entangle her legs, and had plenty of strategically located pockets. Beneath that, a thick, dark shirt tucked into comfortably soft, black, hard-wearing pants, made of some denimlike material she couldn't identify. And light ankle-boots of flexible fit ... they were new, Tojo had warned her, and would chafe a new occupant. But Sandy had assured him it wasn't likely to be a problem for her.

  "Hmm," was Sandy's only immediate comment.

  She strolled closer to the mirror, pushing at her hair-she kept it midlength these days, which for her meant just above the collar at the back, but full enough to have body. The black fringe brushed above pale blue eyes that had never known another fringe but blonde ... and Tojo, thorough professional that he was, had even done the eyebrows.

  "I mean it's hardly glamorous," Tojo remarked, regretfully. "I wish you'd let me dress you up properly one of these days, Sandy. You're such a pretty girl, it's a shame to let it all go to waste in drab black and jungle green uniforms."

  "I'm too broad," Sandy replied. "You're looking for a drag queen, all limbs and no hips. Boys make better drag queens than girls; that's what happens when you let homosexual men define feminine sexuality."

  "Oh go on, you'd look wonderful in a side-cut hip skirt and a short top."

  "Talk to Rhian, she's got the time and the inclination."

  "Now, how on earth does that happen?" Tojo wondered, hands on hips, the fall of his sparkling satin-red shirt suggesting an all-toomasculine bulge of muscle within. "Two combat GIs from the League come to Tanusha, and it's the supposedly more advanced, adventurous, lateral-minded one who doesn't know a blouse from a T-shirt, while the supposedly less advanced, single-minded one becomes this wonderful, glamorous Chinese princess!"

  "Easy," said Sandy. "Fashion is for narrow-minded people who think appearance is important."

  "You'd have to be narrow-minded to think it wasn't! What do you think evolution's all about, sweetie, all those pretty birds flashing their mating feathers? Survival of the species, Sandy, we're designed for it!"

  "You're designed for it. I was designed with other things in mind." She wrapped the coat about herself, and turned a calculating gaze on her tall, elegant friend. "Wars tend to change your perspective, Tojo. You see things that make you wonder what really matters."

  "Rhian was a soldier too," Tojo objected.

  "Sure. She was a damn good one too, but she never stopped to contemplate what it was all about. She never saw the big picture. She just did it and moved on."

  "Well, I don't think of you as a soldier anyway, Sandy," said Tojo, placing a hand on each of her shoulders. "You're just a passionate, spirited, darling girl, and to me, that's all you'll ever be."

  Sandy hugged him. It was, she reflected with her face against his chest, the nicest thing anyone had said to her for at least a month. Tojo hugged her back, then released her to hold her shoulders once
more.

  "So," he pressed, "what about the outfit? Do I pass the cloak and dagger subterfuge test?"

  "With flying colours," Sandy told him with a smile. "I'll take it."

  CHAPTER

  ri sidestepped his way briskly through the crowd on _Rue Bercy, headed from the metro station toward number 1489, which his observation of street numbers above building doorways told him should be several blocks up ahead. The crowds grew even thicker, a sea of humanity across a four-lane road that would normally be filled with evening traffic. The Rue Bercy cafe and restaurant staff manned the front of their premises, customary tables and chairs cleared well back from the moving throng lest they be overturned or swept away.

  It was not a uniform protest by any means, Ari observed as he strode, hands thrust deeply into the pockets of his long coat. There was no single chant, no collective purpose nor apparent organisation, just a varied diffusion of different people in different kinds of clothes, some carrying placards, some shouting in accompaniment to a nearby audiophone, some singing, and some merely marching, simply to be there, and to take part. Rue Bercy was one of Tanusha's more popular nightlife streets, particularly here where it ran through the downtown mid-high-rise of Quezon district in northwestern Tanusha. The road ran long and mostly straight for several kilometres. As far as Ari could see, the entire length was now filled with a slow-moving river of people.

  Ahead, a major intersection bore an enormous, ten-by-ten metre holographic display screen that appeared to project its brilliant image in three dimensions a full two metres out from the building wall. There was no sound, but the prominently displayed name of the electronics company beneath the screen also advised of quality uplink sound as well ... Ari allowed his own uplink to browse the local advertising frequencies, and the screen freq was most obvious among them.

  "... and you can see when we zoom in here," a newsperson was saying, that this small dot coming down the side of the tower is actually a person." Ari frowned up at the enormous screen. As he reached a better viewing angle on the screen, the image began to make sense. A soaring, megarise tower in late evening, airtraffic passing in random flares of light, and a circular portion of the screen image graphically enlarged to track the progress of a small, fast-moving dot that hurtled down the tower's side. A dot with limbs. Limbs that were not flailing in frantic panic, as might be expected from someone falling off a tower. A large section of the crowd on the street were pausing to watch, blocking the path of those behind-luckily there were other screens, large and small, at various points ahead and behind, to prevent a major pileup.

  "Now whoever this person is," the newsperson continued, "he or she seems to have had some skydiving experience before ... see the way they're leaning to control the direction of descent? And now here ... here comes the fun part. See this express elevator?"

  They'd been running this image for the last four hours, along with unconfirmed reports of Commander Kresnov's disappearance, but even so, Ari could feel the surrounding crowd take in a collective breath. The screen image looked like it might be some kind of security or air traffic monitor, accidentally catching sight of something it wasn't designed for. The hurtling freefaller closed on the side of the tower, almost hitting it, then smacked onto the top of the racing elevator. Exclamations rose from the street, both alarmed and excited. A group of young people started chanting "Kresnov! Kresnov!" over and over, as if she were a star of the latest Bushido championships. Some others booed them.

  "Pity she didn't kill herself!" someone shouted loudly, and was in turn greeted by a chorus of protests and cheers. Ari was marginally surprised that the protests were louder.

  Animated debate erupted across sections of the crowd, then others marching from behind started to push through, breaking up the congestion and starting the procession flowing again.

  "If it hadn't been for Kresnov," someone yelled a parting blow, "Earth would have torn us to pieces by now!" And that got more cheers than boos.

  Such was the debate among the public, Ari reflected as he resumed walking. Earth versus Callay. Earth versus the Federation. And no wonder all the old anti-League people were increasingly worried that all the anti-homeworld feeling might translate into an increasingly proLeague sentiment ... particularly when much of the anti-homeworld movement rallied so strongly around Callay's most promiment defender against the predations of the powerful, arrogant homeworld-Cassandra Kresnov, an ex-League GI. Earth was not yet a bogeyman to rival the scale of the League. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend?" Ari wondered. No. Not yet. But maybe soon, if things continued this way.

  Number 1489 Rue Bercy was a midsized office tower. Ari walked along the broad, paved pathway between gardens, uplinks scanning the surrounding network. On a whim, he tried a broadscan, the kind of wide-ranging interface that Sandy performed so reflexively in this environment ... the sheer scale was overwhelming, a profusion of fixed and mobile links, data-nodes and multidirectional traffic. On a purely visual level, it was a whole universe of gleaming, pulsing light. On a data-specific schematic, the sheer volume of information came crashing in like a wave, and even his automated processing software protested at the required parameters. He shook his head in disbelief, cancelling that scan and reverting to his more familiar, site-specific searches before he lost balance and started staggering. How Sandy did it, he had no idea. What must it look like to her? Psychologically, she was as human as anyone. How was that possible, given the mental complexity required to process such enormous data-flows? Surely there must be some overlap between the conscious self and the subconscious processes? And he recalled, momentarily, those times on peaceful evenings, when he could come home to find her reading in her comfortable chair with some music on the audio, and that distant look in her eyes, as if she were in some far removed mental dimension that he could never reach nor comprehend ...

  And then she would look up at him, with those calm blue eyes, and smile. There was something in that smile that still took his breath away and baffled his better judgement.

  At the revolving door to 1489's foyer, where no one should be at this hour, stood a man in a suit, watching him. Ari kept walking, betraying no surprise, mentally rehearsing the tape-taught impulse to rip the pistol from its holster within his jacket and pull the trigger. From the man's posture, it took little guesswork to figure he was doing the same. But Ari had faith in his own tape-teach. He got his neural tech from a place most suit-wearing heavies in Tanusha couldn't access. Then the man seemed to recognise him.

  "Ruben?" Ari's uplink registered an incoming ID signature, tentatively offered. He accessed ... and damn it all, it was CSA Intel. It was the first time in nearly twelve months that Intel had beaten him to a site. Egotist that he was, Ari didn't like it. He offered his own ID back, pausing at a safe distance. And watched the Intel man's eyes widen at the signature.

  "Curious coincidence to find Intel here," Ari remarked. "What's the occasion?"

  The man shrugged. "No occasion. Did Ibrahim send you?"

  Ari smiled, strolling closer. Regular CSA always asked that question. "No, no, I just have his authority. He's too busy, he doesn't direct me around." In other words, he could do what he liked, on his own initiative, with Ibrahim's personal blessing. Go places. Bend rules. The suit's eyes widened a little further.

  "Why are you here?"

  "You first."

  An unconvincing shrug. "No reason. Just making sure the damn protesters don't leave the road."

  Ari cocked his head on one side, and made a face. "Why don't you contact whoever your boss is, up on the seventeenth floor there, and ask if he'd be so kind as to let me in. Callsign Googly. I'm sure he'll make an exception."

  The seventeenth floor was dark but for the blaze of night light through the broad windows overlooking the office space of desks, terminals and partitions. Ari strolled along an aisle between desks, moving aside for Intel personnel with projection cameras and spectrum analysers. There were at least twenty Intel present, he counted, sweeping
exposed surfaces with pulsing blue light, treading carefully on the single lines of red tape along the aisles, denoting a "safe" surface, free from clues to be spoiled. Much of the activity was centred near the broad windows, where four scanner wands composed the corners of a rectangular space, four metres by two. A spectrum shift into ultraviolet showed the faintly pulsing, rotating waves of laser-light, scanning methodically over the intervening space. The result, in short order, would be a three-dimensional, multispectrum graphical picture. Hopefully it would reveal clues. To one side of the scanning rectangle, Ari recognised the chief investigator, in dark blue suit and tie, flanked by several others as he gazed upon the scene within the scanner parameters.

  Ari walked over, and finally saw what lay within-two bodies, bloody and broken. Only then did he realise that the pale tinge to many surrounding faces was not just the absence of immediate light. He paused, forcing himself to peer more closely at the human carnage that lay between windows and desks. The pool of blood appeared a surreal, luminescent blue. Entrails ... well, they all tended to look the same, in any light. And he was annoyed when he felt his own stomach begin to twist and complain. The chief investigator looked over at him.

  "Mr. Ruben," said Anil Chandaram. "What brings you here?"