I shook my head. Central’s law enforcement procedures for as long as anybody can remember have always put an officer’s safety above all else. After a lifetime under such procedures most people don’t even think twice about them. “Our job is to protect life and property. The reason people pay us is because they want to transfer the risk of harm from themselves to us. When we take their money, we are agreeing to put ourselves in harm’s way so they don’t have to. Our safety is a secondary consideration. Their safety is the primary consideration.”
He bowed, but I could tell he wasn’t satisfied with my answer so I elaborated. “Somebody once told me, ‘All of us were fucked over by life and then fucked over again by Central. The only way we have any chance of making a life for ourselves is to work together.’ Most of the perpetrators you’ll confront aren’t bad people. They’re desperate just as many of you were desperate when you joined Æsir. Establishing stability in the Refuge will require all of us cyborgs to work together. If Æsir develops a reputation for brutality, then people will work against us. They will boycott our customers to punish us. Then our customers will have to drop us and take on the risk of harm again. That will require them to put their time and resources into protecting their lives and property instead of serving their customers. Then we’ll be right back to square one.” All of the students nodded in agreement.
I looked at the clock. Class was already running fifteen minutes over schedule. “Let’s call it a day.” The students stood and lined up. My senior student yelled, “Rei!” All of the students stood at attention, then bowed and said, “Domo arigato gozaimashita.” I returned their bows and responded, “Do itashimashite.” As the students made their way to the changing rooms, I looked around my new dojo remembering the day Odin visited me in that dark, cold warehouse. I still don’t care about the improved lighting, but having heat is nice.
SPECIAL DELIVERY
BY
NIKLAS LUDWIG
-- Friday 1930hours--
“So do we have a deal then?”
She dove into the small grove of apple trees that lined Shyganaq Street, and separated it from the right embankment of the Ishim River, rolled until she was protected behind one of the largest trees and dropped to prone position facing the pedestrian bridge that crossed the river into Astana Park. Desperately trying to control her breathing, she thought, “Fuck no we do not have a deal! We never did have a deal, did we, you piece of shit? I should have known better than to arrange delivery into one of the only cities still under the control of those bandits of the Republic!”
She heard the low frequency thrum of rapidly beating wings, and sighed in relief. “Alma, you found me!” The narrow, roughly twenty centimeter long flat black drone with two sets of transparent wings landed on her upper back and attached itself to her long dark hair. It folded its wings and began transmitting recorded video directly to her biosynthetic corneal implants.
“Good work! They'll wake up with a headache, but serves them right! Well it looks like we evaded those stupid porkuloi,” she said, “but we need to get some transportation and get out of this city before we are spotted again. The park should be mostly deserted, and we can loop back around and pick up a taksï on the other side. Alma, scout ahead and tell me if the bridge is clear.” The drone immediately launched itself into the air and flew straight up, disappearing into the dark night.
In less than a minute the drone reported no infrared signatures on the bridge. The bridge was well lighted on both embankments and in the center of the river – nothing to do about that, but she still adjusted her body camouflage to reflect the least amount of light as possible, and sprinted to the bridge entrance.
As she ran she looked up and saw Alma hovering just within the cone of light in the middle of the span. About two hundred meters to the trees on the other side of the river. The drone suddenly spun to the left and dropped below the walkway, and her implants flashed red tracking both the projectiles that missed the drone by several centimeters and the shooter firing from the embankment she had just left moments before.
Let the drone handle it, she thought, and besides, if I'm unlucky enough to take a hit, it will need to get through a few thousand layers of graphene before it can hurt me. Just a few more seconds to the trees...
Two men in dark blue camouflage stepped out of the park onto the left embankment and raised their weapons. What felt like a sledgehammer hit her twice in the chest. She spun around off balance, and then felt a hot flame burning the side of her face. She stumbled into the railing, was hit twice again by the sledgehammer, this time into her back and shoulder, and she fell over into the river.
“Oh crap”, she thought, “now I'm going to get wet besides – and I hate swimming in this armor!”
###
-- Friday 1600hours--
“But Lya, you don't need to do this! We can hire out the delivery as usual, and the customer can just wait 24 hours, like everyone else does!”
Lyazzat Narimanov gingerly held the tiny black capsule in her hand, and grinned. “You know as well as I, Arman, that there is no service that can insure this much cargo in one shipment. If we had time, we could split the cargo into ten packages and deliver over the next week, but the deal is same day, and we are getting our premium for special delivery, so there it is.”
“I don't like this large of a purchase, and I really don't like Astana!”
“Neither do I but business is business, and this is very good business.”
The Kazakh people had been thrice blessed in the last century. First, unlike many of the former socialist republics, they survived the fall of the Soviet Union with very little bloodshed and a relatively short economic recession. Second, what government they tolerated was corrupt as usual, but at least it didn't pretend to believe in democracy, or really any religion for that matter, although it made sure that magnificent mosques and perhaps a bit less magnificent Orthodox churches were built on all the important squares of the major cities. Third, the seemingly endless steppes, taiga, mountains and deserts contained a seemingly endless supply of both petroleum and uranium, which the Kazakh people sold to the less fortunate peoples of Europe and Asia, making them one of the richest nations on earth.
But all things change, and while a shepherd will burn wood or even dried horse dung to avoid freezing to death, she will choose a more energy dense alternative if available. Once the engineering problems of acquisition, storage, and safe use of antimatter had been solved, even nuclear fusion was relegated to the status of a secondary energy source.
As a result, Kazakhstan lost its natural resource advantage, and with it the government lost its rich income stream. In a land the size of Europe with less than thirty million people and a tradition going back thousands of years to the small autonomous bands of the earliest Indo-Europeans, it is not surprising that centralized government gave way to individual entrepreneurs, some of whom had their own, not nearly so ancient, traditions and who were uniquely positioned to take advantage of the next industrial revolution, fueled by the near-perfect efficiency of matter-energy conversion. The space miners who staked claims on nearby asteroids, the dark deserted maria of Terra’s satellite, and in the extremely dangerous but highly profitable charged particle flow in the Belts, were even less interested in governments income streams. But, they were very interested in their own.
Unfortunately, there were still some remnants of states, mostly in capital cities or around old military bases, that continued to demand their piece of an increasingly diminishing bit of action. The spacers saw no need however to voluntarily donate to the old bandit gangs, and their customers on Terra, for the most part, were happy to trade for superior goods at prices unencumbered by artificial and unnecessary expense.
###
-- Friday 1030hours--
“It is larger than usual, but yes we can handle this transaction,” she said, “One gram of Van Allen Pure, but if you want same day delivery, it will cost you – as I am sure you are aware, we must
take precautions when transporting the equivalent of a nuclear fission bomb – and we will of course need to employ an escrow service to ensure the contract is fulfilled to our mutual satisfaction.”
“I totally agree, and I am more than happy to meet your reasonable costs and expenses.”
“When and where would you like the package delivered?”
“The Radisson Astana, Room 8523, 1900 hours this evening.”
Lya sighed. Astana. Figures. “Fine, but I must add a location charge as well.”
“Agreed.”
“OK. The price, all inclusive, is 20,000 XAU or equivalent. Keys exchanged and escrow will confirm the contract is signed as usual.
“Also agreed.”
Lya hesitated. “It is not absolutely necessary and a bit old fashioned I know, but I prefer to deal with my customers by name. I am called Alma.”
“And I am Tulki - so do we have a deal then?”
“Yes – see you tonight, Tulki.”
###
-- Friday 1830hours--
She took the flyer in as close as she dared to the outskirts of Astana, and parked it at one of the many kebab shops lining Qabanbay Batyr. She found the tube station and bought a ticket to Khan Shatyr. In the flyer she had transformed her camo suit into the stylish dress of a young well-off Kazakh woman going shopping in the big city – the red and gold silk was a bit ostentatious, but she was heading into the financial district – better to be dressed up too much rather than not enough. Her suit and implants had also swapped finger and retinal prints – she was now Alina Borisov, who worked for a travel agency in Karagandy. Alma had also changed, and was in the shape of a gold and silver hat with a dark braid extending down to her shoulder.
She got off the tube at Khan Shatyr. In the decades following its construction, it had been renovated and expanded several times, and now was a transparent tent the size of a small city. She pulled up the Khan Shatyr complex overlay into her implant and within a few moments reserved a taksï. In about a minute the car pulled up and the door opened. She got in and said, “Destination – Radisson Astana.” The taksï repeated the destination, stated the fare, and announced the time of arrival.
In Central Asia, land is more than abundant and cheap to acquire, even in a city center. No need to compete with Southeast Asia, the Persian Gulf, or New York for the tallest buildings in the world, even if you have essentially unlimited resources and the backing of a oil rich dictator. Thus the riverfront was lined with the less sky-scraping, yet more mind-bending, results of the creative madness of Sir Norman Foster and his architectural minions. Helical towers twisted asymmetrically to one side, and connected by curved, covered passageways to a squat, teapot shaped structure, which in turn was linked to one of the many pyramids - more than Egypt ever built it was said - that contained offices, shops, clubs, schools, apartments and hotels, including the Radisson Astana.
She was scanned before she stepped through the lobby doors. The doorman smiled and greeted her. “Sälem, Ms. Borisov.” She smiled, nodded and headed toward the entrance to Club Cocoa, which occupied most of the lower level of the hotel. Once she was out of sight of the lobby she headed for the nearest restroom. Once inside she quickly made sure she was the only occupant. “Time for another persona,” she subvocalized, and quickly her suit changed into a reasonable facsimile of a hotel housekeeper. This will be trickier she knew, as she did not have any employee identity to use, nor would she risk it here. She knew she would need to stay away from employee-only areas and avoid other hotel workers. She instructed Alma to change also, and the drone became flat black and crawled down behind her collar.
She quickly exited the restroom and entered the first guest elevator, and punched the 85th floor. She then contacted her escrow service and queried her account. The escrow service had not received the XAU yet. “Well ok,” she thought. “I haven't delivered the goods yet either. Alma, go to full caution now.”
In her implant, she saw that Alma acknowledged the command and she could feel the drone vibrating along her neck and back.
The elevator doors opened and she stepped out. She turned right and walked down the hallway to 8523. She knocked on the door and said, “Housekeeping, may I come in?”
The door opened. Oh my – the man was at least 200cm tall, and had to weigh 130 kilos. She smiled and said sweetly, “May I speak with Mister Tulki please?”
Alma shot into the air and her implants flashed red. Out of the corner of her eye several blue camouflaged Polïcïyanı burst out of the adjoining suite. Andre, or whatever his name was, grabbed for her, but Alma had already flown behind him and lightly poked him behind his ear. His eyes rolled up into his sockets and he started to fall.
“Sleep well, gentle giant,” she said and shouted to Alma, “Alma, Vualu!” Then she turned and ran for her life.
###
V - Friday 1935hours
Lya let herself sink to the riverbed, which was less than six or seven meters. She had a terrible headache, and her armored suit was heavily damaged, but she needed to put as much distance as possible between herself and the riflemen. She knew that Alma would eventually disable them all or even kill them if necessary, but it might take several minutes before it would be safe to surface. But, she already was light-headed and her lungs were on fire. She decided she needed to chance it, and slowly swam up to the surface. She poked her head above the water and found herself already fifty meters or more downstream from the bridge. Almost immediately her implant flashed red and she hurriedly took a deep breath and dove for the bottom. She sensed a projectile splash a couple centimeters to her left, turned towards the middle of the river, and swam as hard as she could downstream. After a minute she turned left and headed for the shore. She barely avoided hitting her head on a dock piling, and she surfaced below what seemed to be a small marina.
After a few minutes to restore her breathing to something like normal, she tried to contact Alma. No response, and no messages. Could be it was still engaging the shooters, or it could have been damaged. In any case Lya knew she was in big trouble. Her head still hurt like hell, and her suit was pretty much useless. She tried to link to a nearby network and pull up an overlay, but either she was out of range or her internal radio was damaged, as she was unable to connect to any public network. Maybe she just needed to get closer to a network node, so she dragged herself out of the river, stumbled into the treeline, and began working her way West towards the Turan bridge.
Within sight of the bridge she got a signal and was able to pull up a map and overlay of her location. South of the marina and east of Turan. “Still nothing from Alma,” Lya said. “Well, she will find me if she can. In the meantime, I need medical assistance, and no way can I show up at Astana Hospital, not if I want to stay alive.” She switched off the city services overlay, and loaded from memory that she had downloaded just prior to her flight. “Let's hope the Doctor is in,” she said wryly.
Doctor Zhang had sent his car – she must have fallen unconscious on the way to his clinic. She awoke to him peering down at her, his surgical mask covering everything but what looked to be a pair of microscopes strapped in front of his eyes.
“You have severe burns and lacerations along the right occipital lobe, as well as fragments of the explosive shell embedded in your cranium. Well, they were, until I removed them just now.”
“Thank you,” mumbled Lya.
“You are welcome,” Zhang said. “But there is more. Bruising to the sternum and surrounding tissue, particularly nasty bruises to both lats, and a slightly torn right trapezius. Oh yes, you have a nasty concussion, which is why you no doubt have a splitting headache, which I have dulled as much as I can without interfering with your mental function and possibly harming you further.”
“What about my...?”
“Your implants are fine, and yes, I could not help noticing the remarkable device attached to your brain stem. I of course have no idea what it is, and therefore confined my examination to determine wh
ether it seemed to be damaged, or more importantly from my point of view, whether it was causing any damage. From what I can see, it is undamaged and does not appear to be interfering with your healing at this time.”
Lya tried to smile. “You never know, it might even help.”
Doctor Zhang smiled briefly. “I suspected something along that line, but you should know that this technology is still very new and in my limited experience, it does not always work as intended, in particular when there has been severe brain trauma. The ability to restore neural pathways from a backup is in my opinion still in the category of experimental science at best – I personally think it is more like alchemy, or astrology, and I say this as a descendant of one of the most famous astrologers in the Middle Kingdom.”
“Doctor, I, well, I lost my drone,” Lya said. “Did you happen to locate it?”
“I'm sorry, no, and for obvious reasons my clinic is shielded from all EM radiation as well as any optical transmissions, so it will not be able to reach you here. I'm sorry, but I'm trying to keep you alive, you know.”
“And I appreciate it very much. So what now?”
“I have contacted your partner, Arman, but I have cautioned him to stay away from Astana until you have had more time to heal, and then we will arrange for transport. Oh and by the way, during my examination I did find the other device you had discreetly hidden in your body. This one I did not remove nor even look at closely, as I have no desire to depart this life at this time, and even more did not want to be the cause of the annihilation of several city blocks.”
Lya looked him straight in the eye. “I assure you, Doctor, it is impenetrable to everything but a direct hit by a large artillery shell, and it contains several redundant safeties.”
Anarchy Rising: The Clarion Call, Vol 1 (Volume 1) Page 8
