Killswitch: A Cassandra Kresnov Novel (v1.1)

by Joel Shepherd

  Vanessa returned it. "You know," she said against Sandy's shoulder, "I could get used to you as a brunette. In fact, I've been kinda wondering if I should go blonde myself. . ."

  "No, no, no," Sandy said adamantly. "It's not you."

  "Says your personal committee of one."

  "So I'm getting conservative in my old age. Come, sit." She took Vanessa's arm, and guided her gently to the nearest booth, pointing to Lieutenant Sharma to take charge of any future VIP tantrums. Sharma nodded an acknowledgement with a smile, and Vanessa took a seat gratefully, Sandy sliding in beside her with most of the room's eyes fixed firmly upon the backs of their heads.

  "How's the head?" Sandy murmured, leaning close so that the many pairs of enhanced eardrums behind them would be most unlikely to hear.

  "S'fine," Vanessa murmured back. "This latest generation of neuropeps are just wonderful ... you know, they respond to enhanced brainwave activity? The more you think, the better you feel. It's actually good to be active, 'cause I don't feel so bad, now."

  She sounded, Sandy reckoned, slightly dreamy. Which struck her as funny, somehow, and she resisted the temptation to hug her again. It was just so nice to see her and to have her to talk to once more.

  Vanessa frowned slightly, gazing at her from barely a hand's breadth away. "What about you? That damn GI could have had you, from what I heard."

  "Worse-Sudasarno and an elevator full of civilians." She sighed, and hung her head. Vanessa's frown grew deeper.

  "Bothered you, did she?" she asked. Vanessa's ability to read her emotions always amazed her. It was a totally different relationship from hers with Ari. Ari always seemed surprised and amazed at her thoughts, an amazement tinged with fascination. Vanessa was rarely amazed. She empathised.

  "I don't know," Sandy murmured. And shook her head, faintly. "I'd always thought complexity led to intelligence. I mean, that's why humans are humans and bunbuns are bunbuns."

  "You leave Jean-Pierre alone."

  Sandy smiled. "But logically-our brains are more complex, thus we have morality, right? I mean, morality is a higher intellectual function, surely-that's why the old fear of a humanity overrun and enslaved by machine intelligence hasn't happened, right? Humans have created machines significantly smarter than themselves ..."

  "If you do say so yourself," Vanessa interjected.

  "... but humans haven't been enslaved," Sandy continued, "because the intellect required to do the enslaving also entails a sufficiently advanced consciousness to be subject to moral doubts and questions. And enslaving humans is unconscionable."

  Vanessa made a face. "Sandy ... I've been a corporate number cruncher, and I've been a head-kicking grunt. Neither profession is exactly philosophical, my tiny little mind is way beneath this at the moment ...

  "I'm saying that I'd always thought GIs were capable of more," Sandy explained, her gaze earnest. Vanessa looked tired. But she tried, if just to please her. "I'd always insisted that even the lower-des GIs could be so much more than just soldiers if they tried. If they were given the opportunity, and a reason to care. I mean, look at Rhian—just two years here and suddenly she's become all chic and sophisticated. Just the other day she was telling me she wanted to adopt a child someday ..."

  "Really?" Vanessa perked up immediately. And smiled, picturing that. "Wow. That's fantastic, what did you tell her?"

  "Vanessa, please, I need you to listen to this. I want to know if I'm nuts or what." Vanessa sighed, and raised a conciliatory hand. "So more complexity means more morality, right? And, I mean, the thing that makes me really different from Rhian is the brain structure, on a neurological level ... I don't understand most of it, I'm not a technician. There're people who speculate that the technology is so fucking advanced it probably isn't even hurrah ..."

  "Talee?" Vanessa questioned. The Talee were a question that always got Vanessa's attention. And a lot of other people.

  "Sure," said Sandy. It was common enough speculation that the Talee had provided League scientists with the first synthetic neurology tech. Yet another reason for Federation citizens to be terrified of the possible directions the League might take the human species inwithout the majority, Federation consent. "But mine's different even from Rhian's. More advanced ... I don't know how, it just is. More complicated pathways, able to process more information simultaneously without going crazy like Ari says would happen to any straight who tried to download uplinks at my speeds. Segmented consciousness. Rhian sees everything simultaneously. I compartmentalise."

  "It's a wonder you're not schizophrenic," Vanessa remarked, with more concern than fascination.

  "And now this GI. Jane."

  "She calls herself Jane?"

  "Maybe the FIA gave her the name ..." Sandy shrugged, ". . . I don't know. But she's smart. To have done what she's done so far ... real fucking smart. And I met her, Ricey. I spoke with her, face to face. I looked her in the eyes, and I saw just ... nothing."

  Now Vanessa was really paying attention. Sandy thought she looked a little spooked. "Nothing at all?" she said.

  "She reacts," Sandy explained. "She smiles a little, now and then. And I think I made her a little angry, telling her she didn't know shit."

  "Well, there, surely that's something?"

  Sandy shook her head. "It was almost like a mechanical response. Or not mechanical, as such, just ..." and she took a deep breath, trying to find the words. "Facial expressions are like symptoms, right? Symptoms of an underlying cause."

  "Emotions."

  "Well yeah ... but emotions are structured within a broader psychology." She shook her head. "Damn, I never had much use for psychs, but I could use one now."

  "They exist within a context," Vanessa ventured calmly. "The context of that person's personality."

  "Yes. Exactly. This Jane ... the emotions might be there, and the facial muscles might move, but the context ... the broader personality ... I don't know." She searched Vanessa's face for understanding. "I didn't feel anything. Does that make sense?"

  "Sure. One morning two years ago, I rolled over in bed and looked at Sav. Same feeling."

  "No way. Sav was a confident, exuberant, funny guy who also happened to be an egocentric arsehole. Hell, he had enough going for him to make you want to marry him ..."

  "Yeah," Vanessa muttered, "big fucking recommendation."

  "But you felt something, for good or bad."

  Vanessa put her right elbow up on the seat back, and leaned her head against that hand for support. Fixed Sandy with a slightly glazed look, head tilted, one quizzical eyebrow raised in question. A waiter deposited drinks at a nearby table booth with a clink of glasses. Vanessa waited until he had passed out of earshot before resuming in a low voice, weary yet focused.

  "Sandy, I used to be a suit myself, for one brief, bleak, lonely period in my life. I know a bit about the interstellar corporate bigwig circuit. I checked up on Takawashi, lying in my hospital bed in my awful polka dot pyjamas. These functions he's attending every second night just amazing. Every big name from the top end of town is there ... of course, in Tanusha, it takes a few weeks to fit them all in, but still. Even some Progress Party reps."

  "Federation biotech hasn't seen anything like what his technology can do," Sandy replied cautiously. "If there were some relaxation in trade, in a few areas, the money to be made here is enormous."

  "In this political climate? The last thing Neiland needs is more speculation that she's dragging the Federation toward League progressivism." Sandy nodded, biting her lip. That bit didn't make sense. "Mostly the media's been too busy with explosions and gunfire to notice much, but there were a few stories. The Administration immediately released a statement saying that Takawashi was on Callay on a `personal visit,' and had not been invited. And the Neiland Administration continued to oppose any and all attempts to relax controls on all advanced biotech ... blah, blah, blah.

  "But I checked further, and here's the thing. He was invited. The State Department has an in
vitation on record." Sandy frowned at her. "That's how he got the diplomatic visa. But no one I talked to seemed to know who exactly made the invitation. Or they wouldn't tell me. This is a very wealthy, very powerful man, Sandy. He doesn't take a month out of his busy schedule for no good reason. And he just happens to be here at the same time as our friend Jane runs amok ... with help from the State Department."

  "Damn," Sandy murmured. "You think Takawashi has some kind of personal interest in Jane?"

  "And in you. He's responsible for much of what you are, right? So he's also responsible for much of what Jane is. Only he says this theft took place several years ago, very conveniently about the same time the FIA grabbed you here, and about the same time as the old League administration was getting real nervous that they were losing the war, and what would happen when people found out how far beyond the legal limits they'd gone in creating advanced GIs, and taking steps to get rid of the evidence."

  Sandy blinked at her, as that possibility unfolded with a rush. "Oh, shit."

  Vanessa nodded, with that same weary purpose. "I bet you Jane wasn't stolen. I bet she was offloaded to the highest bidder. Or maybe even for free. I mean, Takawashi loves his GIs far more than he loves the League, right? Especially the military."

  "He'd do it just to spite them," Sandy muttered. "And he'd tell them the evidence is destroyed. And Jane gets sent to the FIA. Who operate in such a total information blackout that they can do all kinds of illegal stuff with her that they can make her into whatever they want."

  "So the question is," Vanessa continued, "why the big deal about Jane? Takawashi's a neurol ... a neurologist." Managing to bite out the word through uncooperative lips. "I mean, what makes her special? She's gotta be different from you, or he'd have just dumped her. Maybe he'd been working on something special with her, something he didn't want to see destroyed."

  Sandy gave no response. Vanessa waited for a moment. Then lifted the supporting hand from her face, and poked Sandy in the arm. Sandy's distant gaze shifted onto her friend.

  "I was a failure," she murmured. "I was a great success while I lasted, but a long-term failure. Loyalty was a part of the test parameter. I failed."

  "And a wonderful, glorious failure it was too."

  "Jane won't fail. She might die, but she won't fail. She won't defect. That's why she's so smart at such an early age. That's what Takawashi was working on."

  "What was?" said Vanessa, struggling for focus.

  "A loyal GI. One whose personality could be predetermined. One who wouldn't slowly evolve over seventeen years. Who wouldn't change her mind. All the combat effectiveness of a Cassandra Kresnov, without the downside risk." She stared away at a far wall, beyond the booths and patrons' heads. "I didn't want to believe that was possible."

  "It might not be," Vanessa replied. "Jane's still young."

  "If I get my way, she's not going to get much older."

  Vanessa half shrugged. "Them's the breaks, I guess."

  Within the office behind the glass opposite their booth, Sandy saw that Neiland was staring at the pair of them, darkly. There was an indication to an aide, then, and the aide opened the door. Pointed two fingers at Sandy and Vanessa, then pointed "inside." Sandy sighed.

  "Now the fun starts," she murmured, sliding out of the booth seat, and waiting to give Vanessa a hand in case her head started spinning again. "Where's Ari?" she thought to ask as Vanessa carefully stood up.

  "I sent him away," Vanessa said drily. "Before he started a fight he wasn't going to win." With Neiland, Vanessa meant. The President, and Commander-in-Chief of CDF and CSA. Ari's ultimate boss. Not that that would stop Ari, once paranoid certainty had set in.

  "Good move," Sandy murmured, and they walked together to the door.

  The President sat on the far side of the room's table, gazing at the inbuilt display screen and chewing at the inside of her lip. To one side sat Agent Chandaram, to the other, All Sudasarno. The aide who'd opened the door, Sandy didn't recognise. Sandy and Vanessa took old fashioned, leather seats with their backs to the glass ... Sudasarno pressed a button on his table console, and the glass polarised to deep black. Neiland gazed at them both, and then at Sandy in particular, with hard green eyes. She wore her red hair loose today, in counterpoint to a pink blouse beneath the dark, formal suit. Somehow, it didn't soften her expression much at all.

  "Your timing stinks," she said flatly, looking straight at Sandy. "I need the State Department, Commander. I need credibility. I need Callay to look like a world that can handle the task of hosting the Grand Council in a year's time. Right now, we're a laughing stock. If all our newfound allies among friendly Federation worlds pack up and go home, and strike their own separate deals with Earth and the Fleet, no one will be less surprised than I."

  "It's not us, Ms. President," said Sandy. "We've been interfered with again-as long as Earth remains the central power in the Federation, they'll retain the means to infiltrate our security and organisations, and screw us any time they like. If anything, it strengthens your arguments, and it gives Federation worlds even more reason to be scared of Earth-centralised power and the Fleet."

  "Commander." Neiland leaned forward, elbows on the table. Her green eyes flashed. "Perhaps you didn't notice, but we're under blockade. When news reaches Earth of the reasons why, they'll think it's justified. Their admiral was assassinated, on an official visit, with us providing the security-apparently by a pro-Callayan extremist group. You tell me a rogue GI did it, but there's no proof ... except for Major Rice's combat records from the scene, which provide far too much sensitive material about CDF operations to unfriendly interests than we can afford, and that are so complicated no major news organisation would understand it even if we did release it.

  "And now you're trying to find proof, and you've shut down the State Department to do it ... damn it, Cassandra, what kind of victory will it be for Callayan competence if our own State Department turns out to be the source of our problems? I mean, this ..." and she waved a hand at the display screen, ". . . all this stuff Agent Chandaram's been showing me, all these infiltration codes and suspicious mail transfers, this isn't evidence! This is a pile of naughts and zeros! Earth factions believe Callay is spiralling into out-of-control sedition and rebellion, and are determined to retain control over the Fleet to protect themselves from the chaotic horror that the Federation will surely become with us at the centre of it, and this bunch of technical rubbish is your only answer? I need clear, unassailable evidence! Nothing else is going to get it done!"

  The President, Sandy noted, was fairly angry. About as angry, in fact, as she'd ever seen her. Sandy took a deep breath.

  "Have you been talking with Captain Reichardt?" she asked. Neiland stared at her, incredulously.

  "That's your answer? I'm talking about losing the one thing we've been fighting for these last years-losing the new Grand Council's sovereign and total control of the Fleet-and you want to start a fucking war?! "

  "Ma'am," said Sandy, with great deliberation, "I can get you those stations back." Neiland's green eyes locked with her own, pale blue ones. For a moment, no one in the room appeared to breathe. "But I'll need Reichardt. It can't be done without him."

  Neiland broke eye contact first, looking aside at the flat, smooth wood of the table. Closed her eyes, briefly, and massaged her head with one hand. "So you get the stations," she said. "What then? What's to stop Captain Rusdihardjo from backing off and blasting the whole facility?"

  "War crimes," Sandy said simply. "It didn't even happen in the war, much. Combatants are supposed to take and hold civilian stations, not destroy them. To do it in peacetime, against an ally, would destroy their credibility."

  "That's a hell of a gamble," Neiland said sombrely. "You say it didn't happen much ... I recall that about half of the war's casualties were civilians living or working on orbital or deep space facilities. So it happened a lot, didn't it?"

  "Depends how you measure it," Sandy said calmly. "Lots of d
esperate situations in the war."

  "Damn it, Cassandra, you think this isn't desperate?"

  Sandy waited until she was sure the President was calm enough to offer her full attention. Then, "It's your choice, Ms. President. I can get you the stations. If it happens with Reichardt's help, it can't be called sedition, and they can't just blame it all on us. Then it's up to them how hard they want to push back. Either way, we've only acted in selfdefence. And we'll look strong in doing so. Strength with which to reassure our nervous friends."

  Neiland stared at her for a moment longer. Then the stare flicked to Vanessa. "You've seen Cassandra's plans, Major?"

  "Yes, ma'am," said Vanessa.

  "What do you think?"

  "It'll work," said Vanessa.

  The President scowled. "You've never done off-world ops before."

  "Then why ask me?" Vanessa replied with a smile. Another world leader, full of power and not knowing Vanessa, might have exploded at the scandalous informality. Neiland only looked exasperated.

  "You're no help," she said.

  "Thank you, ma'am."

  They'd barely stepped outside the office when Sandy and Vanessa were confronted by a young man in an awkwardly ill-fitting suit. He seemed barely able to contain his excitement.

  "Sandy, I've found ... oh, I mean Commander Kresnov, I've ... I've found it! I've found the parallel subsystem matrix that ... that ..."

  "Agent Yoong," Sandy said patiently, "why don't you take a deep breath, and come with me out into the hall."

  Yoong looked a little flustered. "Yes, ma'am ... I mean, Commander." Sandy put an unhurried hand on his back, guiding him toward the doors and away from curious eyes. And studiously ignored Vanessa's silent mirth as they went. Vanessa found the breathless young men of Intel just hysterical where Sandy was concerned, and teased her about it often.

  "Now," said Sandy as they reached a relatively deserted stretch of hallway, "what have you found?"