Cassandra Kresnov 04: 23 Years on Fire

by Joel Shepherd

  Ari unloaded his clip into the walker’s hip, then ran out of ammo and reloaded, retreating between the legs of other, idle walkers as Ayako propagated a tacnet on their common frequency. He barely ducked in time as a worker swung something big and metal at him from the side, lost his pistol as he spun from the second swing, then sidestepped through the third to take the man’s arm and rip it back over his head whilst taking his knee out. A second came at him with a big wrench before he could finish the move, Ari stepped inside the swing, caught an arm, broke the grip, kicked to the groin, then drove the head down onto his raised knee. The first man was getting up, Ari spun kicked him flying into a walker’s leg.

  Before he could reclaim his pistol, the police walker, now with Ayako somehow perched atop its shoulders and pulling exposed hydraulics with her bare hands, came rushing head first into the parked walkers where Ari covered. Ari ran like hell as tonnes of metal crashed and walkers fell in a tangle, and Ayako came diving and rolling clear across the floor.

  Then the first walker was rushing him, fast, and he leaped straight at it instead of sideways. He grabbed the driver’s cage, grabbing the man’s arm and pulling hard. The machine’s arm flailed in unison, as the driver flailed with his other arm, trying to fight Ari off, only making the machine flail instead. Ari punched the man in the head for good measure, and the machine toppled backward, Ari riding it down.

  Tacnet propagated fully, and Ayako’s registered targets were suddenly visible to him as well. The police walker was extricating itself from the tangle of fallen walkers, and a glance across to find Pino showed him getting into yet another walker, and at least two more activating about the walls.

  “Well, great!” Ayako said cheerfully. “You know how to drive one of these things?” She ran and leaped with ridiculous agility onto the back of the rising police walker, to resume pulling out cables—it was only police, not military, and hardly invulnerable.

  Ari was already in the workshop’s network, accessing fast by reflex. There were override codes for places like this, ways to get into the emergency remote control systems, mandatory in Tanusha to stop people doing dumb things in walkers . . . but here the construct was all modified, without the proper access points. No matter, he hit it with a few basic attacks, caused one barrier collapse, forced it to reassert system dominance to several backups, which in turn opened a new vulnerability which he hit, causing a full-on subsystem meltdown.

  And then he was in, full override control, and one of his multitudes of stored programs fit neatly into the void and ran. Control panels emerged and he shut all the walkers down, full immobility. Ayako’s ride collapsed beneath her, and she jumped off, a little puzzled.

  “Is that you?” she asked, as the other walkers powering up, now began powering down.

  “Damn right, it’s me,” said Ari, walking to Pino’s walker. Fully immobilised, he was now trapped in the driver’s cage as it stood against the wall. He struggled against the straps and the locked cage, helplessly. “You know,” said Ari, “you’re an idiot.” Pino stopped struggling, and fumed. “Net monkeys always win. You don’t play with technology around me. I own you.”

  Already there were police cruisers landing on the roof, summonsed automatically by the emergency tacnet propagation. Ari finally answered the urgent query blinking on his inner vision. “Seems to be the group that attacked Yvette White, maybe others,” he told incoming law enforcement. “Lock down the whole complex, don’t let anyone leave.”

  “I thought you said there’d only be one guy here,” Ayako accused him, coming over. A few shop workers were running out the exits, but two CSA Agents couldn’t chase everyone. Law enforcement were locked in now and the runners wouldn’t get far.

  Ari shrugged. “Well, you find one guy, you find many guys.”

  “Sloppy.”

  Ari considered her. “That’s a hell of a leap you’ve acquired. ALKs?”

  Ayako nodded smugly. She’d always loved her toys, especially the augments. “Wonderful things. I can jump six meters vertical now. Before, I struggled to do four.”

  “Sprint?”

  “A hundred meters in seven point two.”

  Ari whistled. “Gotta love that new gen biotech.”

  “Not so bad, yourself.”

  Ari smiled. He’d kind of forgotten how good she looked, with her Japanese eyes and kick-ass smile. Now he remembered. “Well, you know how I like to keep on top of the latest tech. You still top of your class at the agency?”

  “Not quite,” she admitted. “Commander Rice soaks up the tech like no one else. We all joke she must have borrowed some good genes from Commander Kresnov.”

  Ari’s little gang of anti-GI nasties revealed little in interrogation, but plenty more unwittingly. There were comnet functions and databases, old history trails through private VR forums that led to other people, and yet more contacts. Within hours there were new police and CSA raids across Tanusha, and a few on orbiting stations as well. Many of those would end up being released—they hadn’t done anything they could be prosecuted for, just fraternised with assholes. But it revealed more contacts, and led to some ghosts, the kinds of people even Ari struggled to find, the kind who couldn’t be sorted from the networked millions because they weren’t registered on any network, or not by anything real.

  There were, of course, hundreds of thousands of those, most of them underground, some because they were genuinely involved in illegal stuff, but most because they simply didn’t like being registered on any network. Many in the underground provided the service to others, promised to clean up their constructs, limit how traceable they were, encode all their random traffic, enough to send any investigator or advertising AI running in twenty false directions at once. That was mostly legal, with limitations. The generation of completely false IDs, however, was not, and was also rampant in Tanusha. But with so many former-League operatives now living locally, the CSA had become quite adept in knowing what to look for, with them in particular.

  Two they found by early evening. Genuine ghosts, faceless men with no believable IDs at all. Both were taken alive, and everyone knew they would reveal precisely nothing. The CSA didn’t torture, and besides, everyone knew the Federation had its own operatives out in League space, and didn’t want the favor returned to them. These would be held for a while, then swapped when the League caught a few Feddie spies. It happened all the time with no publicity at all.

  But two more were untouchable. One worked for a big joint science program, funded by League and Federation alike, the kind of thing that was supposed to signal a thawing of relations and a common purpose in all this new technology flooding the Federation from the League since the war ended. Politically it would be incredibly awkward if this very high profile humanitarian program, featuring some very good visiting League scientists, were discovered to have been infiltrated by nefarious League agents who fed money and weapons to local extremist groups and encouraged them to murder Callayan nationals that the League would prefer dead. But neither could the present League government be allowed to think this kind of thing would just be overlooked.

  The visiting scientist in question (more of a bureaucrat, in truth) was instead viciously attacked in the hallway of his apartment building, his wallet and personals taken, then his apartment ransacked. Many valuables were stolen, and some potentially useful security clearances. It had all the hallmarks of an underground gang hit—they did it sometimes to wealthy or well connected individuals with links to biotech, if there was something to gain. Possibly the cops would even catch who did it, and those people would certainly turn out to be gangsters, just doing an anonymous call-in job for very good money. Who the real client was, no one would ever know.

  The scientist/bureaucrat had about fifteen broken bones and severe internal injuries. He’d take three months to heal in hospital at least, followed by a long trip home to the League. It wasn’t payback, it was just security. Anything less would simply encourage more attacks. That fact had been demon
strated over and over on Callay, and most Callayans were sick of it. And putting these kinds of operatives in what were fundamentally humanitarian programs, and then daring the CSA to disrupt that humanitarian goodness with a public arrest, was really beyond the pale. This was the CSA’s protest against foul play, and a warning that there were other ways to deal with such operatives besides a public arrest.

  The second untouchable worked in the League embassy. Vanessa was not happy about that. Mustafa insisted he had not known. No one believed him.

  “You want me to do it?” Sandy asked her friend as they sat in their cruiser atop a rooftop pad, twenty stories up in Ranarid District with a good view of a bend in the river.

  “No,” said Vanessa. “You’ve done this enough. It’s my turn.”

  They waited for the woman to emerge upon the roof of her apartment building across the river, windows wound down, the sounds of city traffic wafting up on a cool night breeze.

  “Phillippe complained about me coming out tonight,” Vanessa volunteered. Sandy glanced at her. “That’s the first time that’s happened.”

  “It was bound to sometime,” Sandy supposed. “He’s been very tolerant really. Especially for a guy with no background in security.”

  “Yeah, but that’s the point. That’s why he likes it, it’s exciting to him because it’s unfamiliar. It’s one of the things I love about him, he’s interested in so many things beyond his own little world.”

  “It’s what you’ve got in common,” said Sandy. “You’re the most unlikely SWAT grunt, you weren’t even much of a tomboy growing up, then you got into business, so you’ve had a foot in several worlds. And Phillippe’s a musician but he’s also a big philanthropist, an amateur botanist, amateur marine biologist . . .”

  “Amateur everything,” Vanessa said with a smile. “Yeah. He’s got my enthusiasm for stuff, any stuff. Tonight he just wanted to sit around and read and talk with me. He’s reading a history of Carthage, you know Carthage?”

  “Sure, North Africa, wiped out by the Romans.”

  “And he likes my military insights. That’s what we do to relax, we sit around and discuss the annihilation of ancient civilisations.” Her smile faded. “He was kind of pissed. Me being in SWAT is cool, but this middle of the night stuff I can’t even talk about. He doesn’t get to enjoy my profession, he just gets to sit alone and wonder where I am. Said it doesn’t have to be me all the time.”

  Sandy shrugged. “Well, it kind of doesn’t.”

  “Crap. On the big stuff, I’m in charge of SWAT, it does have to be me.”

  Sandy sighed. “Yeah. I guess.” Cicadas chirped in a flower box beside the rooftop landing pad. “Call him.”

  “Against regs.”

  “I know. Call him. Or text. And tell him I say hi.”

  Vanessa smiled and did that. Sandy was fond of saying that a dumb regulation wasn’t a regulation at all, just a temporary obstacle. Vanessa thought out a sentence, translated to text, and sent. Phillippe, sitting at home, would receive an uplink call, open it and find the message across his inner vision: Hey babe, I’m with Sandy talking about you. Sandy says hi. Love you heaps. Don’t wait up.

  The last bit didn’t feel right, but she had to say it or he would.

  “You know,” she added, “I used to always think I’d end up marrying someone from SWAT. Or from the CSA at least. Same line of work, similar background, you know?” Sandy nodded. “But these days, I’m so damn glad he doesn’t do what we do. So glad I can’t begin to tell you.”

  “Yeah,” said Sandy, somberly watching the apartment rooftop across the river bend. “I know what you mean.”

  The woman appeared. “Here she is,” said Vanessa, and pulled her glasses down over her eyes. That filtered the natural light, and her inner-vision showed up more starkly against the contrast. She had multiple visual feeds on tacnet, showing the rooftop from several angles. Net monitors showed her all traffic. The woman was hooked into Tanushan traffic net, and making last minute adjustments to her outbound flight from Gordon Spaceport. She hauled several suitcases with her, and a large shoulder bag. A man was walking out behind her, with more bags.

  “Yeah, that’s definitely Lu,” said Sandy. Lu Dongfu was an embassy worker on the trade desk. No one had suspected him of anything. They’d watched him arrive twenty minutes ago at this safe house, and known immediately who he must be coming to see. “Guilty by implication. The only people helping her at this point are those involved, given the League will deny everything. Still want to do it?”

  “I’ll do it,” said Vanessa. “It’s my job.”

  The two figures loaded suitcases into a cruiser. The woman was Paola Ortiz. She’d been at the League’s Tanusha embassy for nearly a year, worked in communications, and hadn’t been any more suspicious than any other League embassy employee. The general rule was that one in five of them were ISO, everyone knew it, but the ISO were as much a help of late as they were a problem. Ortiz was evidently something else, connected directly to League government but bypassing the ISO. Or so Mustafa insisted. But that didn’t mean he hadn’t known. Mustafa knew everything that went on in the embassy, whether he admitted it or not.

  Suitcases loaded, Lu was about to join Ortiz getting into the cruiser when a call came through.

  “External contact,” Sandy affirmed. “Coming from somewhere in . . . hang on a second . . . Mananakorn District. No . . . wait, that was a trick, it’s heavily encrypted.” Vanessa didn’t even bother trying to access the analytical functions Sandy was racing through right now, Sandy processed software constructs so fast it made a normal person’s brain feel like it was about to explode. “Well, this smells like Mustafa to me. Similar encryption, similar tricks.”

  “Who’s getting it?” someone asked from outside. It sounded like Chandrasekar.

  “Lu,” Sandy said immediately. “I’m not sure if Ortiz has access.”

  On the rooftop, Lu changed his mind about getting in the cruiser. There followed a fast discussion between him and Ortiz, then the gull doors closed. Lu stood back as the cruiser lifted, running lights flashing.

  “Got it?” Sandy asked Vanessa.

  “Got it.” Vanessa was looking at a simple interruption sequence, chopping into the main datastream of Tanushan traffic control. Traffic control was inviolable. The CSA weren’t allowed to play with it under nearly any circumstance, and certainly not for this one. They weren’t even supposed to have the codes. There weren’t supposed to be any codes for this sort of thing.

  The cruiser’s flightpath off the apartment rooftop took it out over the river, slowly building up speed as it climbed in an arc.

  “Now,” said Sandy.

  The interruption sequence ran, and quite smoothly and without any alarm, traffic control implemented a temporary override of the cruiser’s navcomp. Without even a wobble or a protest, the cruiser nosed down and dove directly into the river, disappearing with a huge splash.

  “Well I never,” Sandy murmured. “Diplomatic immunity and all.”

  “Guess traffic control has a few bugs,” Vanessa suggested, firing up the cruiser’s engines as the windows wound automatically up to a seal. On the far apartment rooftop, a small figure stood and stared at the frothing river where he’d very nearly died, and no doubt pondered that he owed Mustafa Ramoja his life. But Mustafa had saved only one.

  Curious, thought Vanessa, powering the cruiser up into the air.

  “Hell of a way to unwind from a war crimes hearing,” Sandy remarked. Vanessa didn’t find that particularly funny.

  FSA Headquarters were a touch more stylish than CSA HQ. Things were whiter and glassier, with more natural light. Sandy wasn’t sure she liked it—the security was serious stuff, it demanded a stronger architectural touch. Or maybe the League had bred some aesthetic bias into her after all.

  Ibrahim was in a meeting, but she wandered in and watched as several of the FSA’s seniors sat and talked with him about organisation and personnel. Ibrahim had an open o
ffice policy where possible, and if it wasn’t classified, anyone who felt they needed to know could wander in to meetings. Most people were so busy they’d only do it sparingly, but security organisations, Ibrahim insisted, were no place for specialists who knew only their own job and no one else’s.

  Finally they left, a few with friendly greetings to Sandy, a few more guarded. “Seems to be going well?” Sandy observed, taking a seat. The seats were more comfortable here, too—deep, modern leather. From the windows was a great view across FSA grounds to the Grand Council Building.

  “There’s a lot to do,” Ibrahim replied, rubbing at one pronounced cheekbone. He didn’t seem too tired, though. Sandy knew he loved this stuff. Radha Ibrahim had told her once that her husband would love his job until it killed him. To Sandy, he’d never looked more alive. “It’s actually part of what I wanted to talk to you about. I’d like a report from you on parallel integration.”

  It was what he wanted to do between the CSA and the FSA. It was controversial, of course. “How long?”

  Ibrahim smiled, shaking his head. “Just start writing and stop when you’re finished. Two pages or two hundred, I want your thoughts. You have unique insight.”

  It touched her. “Sure. Though it seems to me the main problem is political, and I can’t help that.”

  The FSA, obviously, was physically located on Callay. That meant the Callayan Security Agency’s jurisdiction overlapped with its own. Ibrahim’s idea was to integrate the two agencies, keeping command structures separate yet sharing jurisdictions—the CSA’s role would expand out beyond purely Callayan issues, and the FSA’s would also expand . . . or perhaps the better word was contract . . . to include local Callayan matters. But as the lawyers and politicians kept reminding everyone, Federal and local planetary jurisdictions were clearly separated by law, and combining them could be unconstitutional. President Singh, for one, was kicking up a stink.