Hopefully those two would encounter each other and realize they were working on the same side. Tash might not like each knowing the other’s identity, but they were both in perilous positions, and it would be better if they knew who they could turn to in a time of need. The idea certainly made Roshike feel better.
He made it up through the air ducts in no time and was soon popping up onto the roof and into the crisp night air. And there, beside the hole he’d just climbed out of was a large swath of black cloth that had to be what Seiko had said she’d left for him.
Picking it up, he saw that the length of dark material was attached to light, carbon-composite rods made to fit together into a frame, and it took him a second to recognize what he held in his hands. She had made a more sophisticated version of the gliders the Kyoushi sometimes used to travel across ravines and crevasses in the mountains. Roshike first turned the spines to extend the cloth into one long, taut stretch of material, like a giant wing. Then he locked the frame in place and shook his head.
Seiko should definitely have been the engineer, not him—the lady had a lot of talent and could do a lot better than whatever she did in administration. Then he remembered that she’d purposefully infiltrated Batsu headquarters because Tash had wanted her here. Exactly what for, Roshike didn’t know, but she’d been in a perfect position to help him out of a tough spot, after already providing him with the blueprints to this building and the protocol codes to access the Gaku-net. And somehow she’d not only made the grappling hook and spiked gloves for him, but also this beautiful gift. But when had she put it here? It hadn’t been there when he’d arrived on the roof and searched for this grate earlier, and that had been only a short time ago.
He held the glider up and tested the direction of the wind. In the right circumstances, this could enable him to travel a great distance swiftly. From the top of this five-story building and with only a moderate breeze blowing, it wouldn’t be that effective—it should, however, be sufficient to take him over the cordon of enforcers that would be closing in below. And the matte dark gray of the glider should make him virtually invisible to them. As long as he didn’t fly between an observer and the moon.
Thankfully it was only a quarter moon and still low in the sky to the west, so a good running launch off the east edge of the roof should see him sail softly and silently over their heads. Of course, if he attracted their attention, they would be armed and he would make an easy target. But it was the best option he had. The only thing it wouldn’t accomplish was to take the heat off Seiko. For that, the enforcers needed to know he’d escaped.
Roshike set the glider down carefully, then ran low across the roof to where he’d left the grappling hook and threw the mass of nylon cord over and let it drop to the ground. The enforcers would find that soon enough and hopefully conclude their intruder had not only come this way but left by it too, somehow eluding them. It was the best he could do.
He ran back to the glider and glanced around as he picked it up. Finding a clear path across the roof to the eastern edge, Roshike wasted no more time. He grabbed the straps Seiko had tied to the rods to use as handholds and ran silently at full speed until he hit the edge and jumped with all the momentum he’d gathered, flattening his body against the air as he dove into the night sky. And soared.
Feeling freer than he had in a long time, he saw some tiny figures below him, sweeping their beams of light across the grass as they advanced on the administration building. Enforcers, and he imagined he could see guns in their hands. Gliding over their heads, he was only a whisper of wind they didn’t notice. But he couldn’t maintain such height for long. He was losing altitude rapidly, but it had been sufficient to take him to the other side of the trap.
He hit the ground running, and as he slowed he disconnected the rods and began folding the glider into something he could carry with him. He heard a shout behind him and knew the chase was on. He could disappear into the night now though. And he would take the time to make sure he’d lost any hint of pursuit before heading to his next destination.
Chapter 16
A Difficult Decision
Later that night
ROSHIKE CAREFULLY APPROACHED the back entrance to the classroom building he’d come to know so well recently. Though he was confident he’d eluded the enforcers, and he trusted Professor Tadashi now, caution was certainly called for under the circumstances. Roshike had run due east after escaping the enforcers hunting him, blazing an obvious trail toward the outer wall. Then he’d turned to head north for the main gate, leaving a more subtle path for his pursuers to follow. If they found it. Finally he’d circled around to the west and found a good place to hide and rest a while before he moved south. And ended up here.
There wasn’t the slightest hint of anybody anywhere around, and he found the back door slightly ajar, carefully set only partway into the jamb, so it looked as if someone had tried to close the door but not quite succeeded. Leaving the lock just short of being able to engage.
If, as Mark had said, this wasn’t unusual—that he often failed to lock the door properly—it seemed the Gaku-net didn’t consider it something warranting investigation or censure. Under normal circumstances. But with an intruder on the loose, Roshike expected the enforcers would show increased interest in every anomaly. Clearly they hadn’t come here yet, since the door remained ajar. That meant they could swing by to check on the situation at any time though. But they weren’t here now.
So Roshike opened the door just enough to create a gap he could slip through, then closed it firmly behind him from the inside. Hopefully the Gaku-net would now register the problem as resolved, but if someone did come by to check, there were plenty of hiding places in this building for Roshike to wait while they satisfied themselves he wasn’t here. But until then, he had work to do.
Drifting down the short corridor to the conference room Mark had shown him a few days ago, Roshike discovered that door ajar too and light spilling out from inside. He’d half-expected that.
He pushed the door open to reveal Mark there, sitting in a chair on the other side of the small conference table, and of course that wasn’t a surprise—the sight that startled Roshike was the two women seated at either end. Seiko on his right wearing her gray administrator uniform and looking relieved to see him, and Shin on his left, looking inscrutable as always. A bit of curiosity mingled with satisfaction in Mark’s expression.
Keeping his voice low, Roshike spoke directly to the professor. “I expected I might find you here, but I’m surprised by the company you’re keeping. And while any enforcers who come around checking will also expect to see you, all the rest of us would have to hide.” He turned to Seiko. “I know you wouldn’t have your registered screen on you to be tracked to this location, but how did you get here so fast, or at all? Aside from the administration building having been on lockdown, weren’t you working?” Then before she could answer, he shifted his attention over to Shin. “Please say you don’t have your screen on you. And I’d like to know how you found out about this place.”
Narrowing her eyes at him, Shin deigned to answer. “I don’t even have a screen, registered or otherwise. And I got here by following you.”
Roshike found himself gaping. He couldn’t imagine how she could manage without a screen, and he felt confident no one had followed him here however stealthily. Then his mind caught up with what she’d said and realized it was sheer nonsense—she had clearly already been here with the others when he’d arrived. Well, if Shin didn’t want to reveal her methods, he wasn’t going to press her. At least, not right now.
Instead, he asked the other question he had for her. “What about Bob? You’ve already taken care of him?” Not that he wanted to know how exactly, but whatever she’d done, it seemed she’d moved rather quickly. “And why are you here?”
She squinted at him. “He’s disappeared, yes. I told you that you wouldn’t have to worry about him any more. As for why I’m here, I thought I’d made that
clear. To help.”
What was clear to Roshike was that Shin didn’t like answering questions. Well, he knew he’d worry about Bob whatever she said, and wonder what she had done, too. But he was ready to stop asking her questions.
Satisfied for the moment they weren’t in immediate peril, he took the seat across from Mark with a sigh and brought out his shadow screen. “Everything worked smoothly with the adapter and being able to download the files from the database.” Just to be safe, Roshike had taken the time while he had been resting and hiding from the enforcers to take a look at those files and make sure something had in fact been copied from the servers and then translated onto his shadow screen.
He’d also taken the precaution of copying those files onto a few of the high-capacity blank buttons, the ones Mark had given him. And while doing that he’d glanced through some of the information. Centuries of history that had been lost—rather, dangerous history that had been kept hidden by the Batsu. What he’d already discovered had intrigued and appalled him. And he’d only scratched the surface.
That set of copies was in a safe place now, but it was vital to make more right away. He took a handful of the blank buttons from one of the pouches on his belt and set them on the table, then inserted one into his shadow screen and started duplicating the files he’d downloaded.
Once that was underway, he looked up at Mark. “I hope you don’t mind my doing this while we talk—we don’t have a lot of time, but you’ve got to have copies of this information. To get to Tash if I’m not able to make it out.” This knowledge had to be disseminated as widely as possible. Everyone needed to know the truth.
The professor nodded. “That’s why I’m here—I thought I could help copy files to make the process go faster. I brought a shadow screen, and I can use that to duplicate the data safely.”
Seiko interrupted. “And I can help too. I didn’t just come to pick up the copies you said you’d leave for me. And of course I brought my shadow screen too, and left the registered screen in my quarters so the Gaku-net would think that’s where I am.”
Roshike turned to her with a smile. She’d used the same sort of trick with the screen as he. “I take it you’re not worried someone might stop by to ask you questions about what happened tonight. Don’t get me wrong—I’m happy you got away, but I’d like to know how. You didn’t answer when I asked.”
“Because you never gave me the chance.” Seiko frowned at him. “And you’re the one who took forever to get here. I was really starting to get worried. We all were.” Then she showed some real concern. “And what’s all this talk about maybe not making it out of here? What are you planning to do?”
“I had to take the time to lay false trails for the enforcers to follow. And make absolutely sure that no one tailed me here.” He shot Shin a questioning glance, but she didn’t react in the slightest. So Roshike turned his attention back to Seiko. “My work isn’t done until I get this information to Tash. So I plan to scale the wall. None of the buildings are tall enough for me to fly over—” She would understand that as a reference to the glider she’d built for him, but he wondered what the others would make of the comment. “And the security at the gates is too tight to try getting through there, so I don’t have a lot of options.”
She gave him a hard look in return. “You’re going to risk your neck like that when Professor Tadashi or I can get a few buttons out to Tash?”
Roshike wanted to grin but kept a straight face. “It shouldn’t be a big problem—I’ve gotten plenty of practice climbing walls lately.” Not with guards taking pot shots at him with their rifles, true, and he’d left behind the grappling hook too, during his earlier adventure. “And while you or Mark may be able to get copies of these files out to Tash, eventually, I don’t know if I’d consider that completing my job.” And he really wanted to get out of this place as soon as possible. Even if it meant risking his neck. “I still haven’t heard you say how you ended up here waiting for me.”
“Not for you, for those files.” She sighed. “The guards did lock down the building, but I was back at my desk before they came through to search us and ask questions. By the time they’d finished that, the ‘intruder’ had already escaped the building and the perimeter, and they knew it. They sent everyone in admin home. That’s where I went, and that’s where I ‘am’ now.”
He allowed himself to grin. “Well, I hope these files will be worth all the trouble I’ve put you to.” He glanced quickly to Mark and back. “At least something good has come out of it. You two can start to work together now, can’t you?”
Seiko sniffed. “Now that we both know who the other is, there’s nothing to be done about it. Once I see what information you got—whether there’s anything useful in those files—then I’ll know whether it was worth everything. Even so.”
“All you could ask for and more. I think I downloaded the entire Batsu database.” He saw the first button had filled up with files and took that out and handed it over to her, along with a small pile of the blank buttons Mark had given him. “Make a copy of these for yourself, then give that to Professor Tadashi to make another.” He looked across the table at Mark. “And you can give one set to Shin. Hopefully at least one of us will be able to get a copy of this information to Tash.”
The professor nodded and brought out a small box full of more of the high-capacity buttons and a shadow screen in preparation. Seiko took the buttons from Roshike and pressed them into the slots on her screen and started to copy files, scanning the contents as she went. Roshike turned to Shin.
She shrugged. “I told you I don’t have a screen, much less one of these shadow things, so I can’t do any copying. But I’ll find another way to help you.”
Well, she’d proven she could be helpful in unexpected ways, as with Bob. Popping a second blank button into his screen to copy some more files, Roshike briefly wondered what, if anything, Bob’s disappearance would mean for Teresa. Probably nothing at all. Not that he was likely to stay in the Gaku long enough to find out. And if he did, he probably wouldn’t be in any position to help her.
Seeing Mark on the other side of the table twiddling his thumbs while he waited for Seiko to finish copying the first button full of files, Roshike decided that rather than sit and speculate, he’d be better off asking the man about some of the things he had learned from skimming the information he’d taken. “A lot of the older files I found are labeled video. It seems to be sound synchronized to moving images from the descriptions, but I can’t access the files to be sure what they are.”
The professor nodded. “Yes, the Gaku-net and screens should be able to record and transmit video files. But back when the system was being built—it must’ve been then—someone hard-coded a few limitations into the network, and nobody has been able to use the screens that way. But I don’t know why anyone would’ve put such a prohibition in place to begin with.”
Roshike shook his head. “Well, it’s a shame we can’t use those files then.” Aside from the staggering amount of memory they took up, he imagined a more visceral reaction if people could see and hear the discussions of those early Batsu elites. “I read a few transcripts, though, of some sort of committee meetings, and it’s powerful stuff. Dangerous to the Batsu, I mean.”
His screen indicating the second button as full, he popped it out and set it over by Seiko and inserted a third into his screen to continue copying. “It’s one thing to know the Batsu kept themselves holed up in here, living in luxury for centuries, while people were suffering and dying outside these walls—” Although many didn’t even know that much. “It’s a completely different thing to read minutes of meetings where their leaders discuss the decision to refrain from helping, weighing the benefits of ‘letting famine and disease decrease the excess population’ and wanting to preserve their own abundance of resources.”
Seiko was gritting her teeth as she listened. “If people could see and hear them talking so callously, they’d be more than mad enough to
revolt. At least on the outside. People probably feel too secure and complacent in here to join a revolution.” Finishing with the files from the first button, she popped that out and handed it to Mark before starting in on the second. “But we don’t want to start a war—way too many have died already.”
Mark waited until his shadow screen had started duplicating the files from the first button before adding his own comment. “Then maybe it’s for the best that we can’t show people those videos. Everyone deserves to know the truth, but it won’t help to inflame people’s passions too much. It might lead to violent confrontations, creating even more problems. Not what we want.”
Roshike looked the professor in the eye at that. He’d never asked Teresa or Tash about their actual goals. “What do you want? Aside from getting the truth out to everyone.”
Seiko and Mark shared a look, and she was the one to finally speak. “Rather than try to take down the Batsu, Tash’s idea is to take them over. Use all their organization and resources to help people, to do the good they refuse to do.”
Thinking about all the families out on the fringes who scraped by, the children who turned to stealing to survive—like the little urchin who had tried to pick Roshike’s pocket, or Roshike himself as a boy—the idea certainly had its appeal. “One of the other questions I’d had was why the Batsu have moved so slowly with the reconstruction, when it was clear they had the resources to rebuild much faster. And I already found the answer in those files. This committee thought they’d created the ideal community, with the Gaku-net running everything—”
Mark interrupted with a snort. “Sure, but who tells the Gaku-net how to run everything? The very same committee. Of course they think it’s ideal—it keeps them in power.”
Whispers of the Dead (Miraibanashi, #1) Page 18
